I have wanted to build a backup server for some time, but never thought it was useful to have a backup server on the same shelf sitting next to the primary server. Right now I have some USB drives in rotation on sneakernet off site, but it's not the best solution by itself. I'll keep using the offsite drives, but go to rotating them once a month. It dawned on me that I might be able to do a semi-off-site backup server in my garage. I live in an apartment on the third floor, and my garage is in the building next door. While it's not exactly off site, it's in a separate building. I think my most likely threat is fire or theft, and putting a backup system there does a pretty good job of mitigating it. The buildings are modern with sprinkler systems, and fire response is pretty quick so I think the odds of both buildings being damaged that much is minimal. The garage is not marked in a way that you can tell who it belongs to, and not everyone has a garage. Earthquake is the next most likely, but so far here there hasn't been any big enough to destroy things. If we have a flood that takes out my third floor apartment we're in biblical end-of-times so not super high on my list of concerns.
I have 3 USB externals right now, two 8TB and one 12TB (EasyStores). The 8TB are getting pretty full, so the idea is to shuck both of them and replace them with 12TB drives to continue full backups. As the 8TB isn't enough, I'd either just need to run a JBOD or use a mirror and only backup my most valuable data (currently around 2.5TB).
I've traded a few emails with Mikrotik and believe I have a solution for a wireless link for the system in the garage. It won't be GigE speed, but it should be sufficient (and I'd seed the box on the local wired network).
The primary server is a Supermicro with ECC running ZFS on FreeBSD. I have plenty of hardware laying around to make a server-class backup system, but small and low power are also desirable so I've been looking at a few options and not sure what I should choose:
Not running a full server I'd lose ECC and probably ZFS, but I only have one power outlet in the garage. As it's an apartment I can't do the fun garage stuff I'm accustomed to, but I do still work in it from time to time so I have some LED lighting and such that I run in there occasionally. Having a compact, low-power solution is pretty desirable. I don't need any extra features other than a NFS target or SSH, so a lot of the features of the Synology won't be used (hence the lower models). I even have a small UPS that just got orphaned that would probably run the Synology or Odroid long enough for any of the outages we have around here.
What are your thoughts on the best way to go? Do I really need redundancy in this situation? For true off site I've been thinking of adding static annual backups, is that severe overkill with the rotated backups?
I have 3 USB externals right now, two 8TB and one 12TB (EasyStores). The 8TB are getting pretty full, so the idea is to shuck both of them and replace them with 12TB drives to continue full backups. As the 8TB isn't enough, I'd either just need to run a JBOD or use a mirror and only backup my most valuable data (currently around 2.5TB).
I've traded a few emails with Mikrotik and believe I have a solution for a wireless link for the system in the garage. It won't be GigE speed, but it should be sufficient (and I'd seed the box on the local wired network).
The primary server is a Supermicro with ECC running ZFS on FreeBSD. I have plenty of hardware laying around to make a server-class backup system, but small and low power are also desirable so I've been looking at a few options and not sure what I should choose:
- Server system with ECC, probably a G-series Intel but have plenty of Xeons laying around, would run FreeBSD/ZFS and just use NFS or rsync or snapshots over SSH. Practically free hardware-wise.
- A small ARM system, rPi with USB external drives, Odroid HC2 or H2 (H2 is x86)
- Synology NAS, probably a DS220j
Not running a full server I'd lose ECC and probably ZFS, but I only have one power outlet in the garage. As it's an apartment I can't do the fun garage stuff I'm accustomed to, but I do still work in it from time to time so I have some LED lighting and such that I run in there occasionally. Having a compact, low-power solution is pretty desirable. I don't need any extra features other than a NFS target or SSH, so a lot of the features of the Synology won't be used (hence the lower models). I even have a small UPS that just got orphaned that would probably run the Synology or Odroid long enough for any of the outages we have around here.
What are your thoughts on the best way to go? Do I really need redundancy in this situation? For true off site I've been thinking of adding static annual backups, is that severe overkill with the rotated backups?