Storage Think your safe because you have RAID?

It's worth a shot, especially in case of a Reaper invasion...

 

Ok.. not total loss, but films, music, photographs, RAW files, graphics projects, documents etc are all on the server only as to keep them on the main machine as well is using too much space.. and that space needed is increasing rapidly. I'm already looking to upgrade the servers to 3TB drives to increase capacity to 6TB . I'd have lost all the important data, and also the stuff of no commercial value, but of sentimental value. I'd have saved games, and my steam folder left.. but that's pretty much it.

That's what the server is for though: File storage and retrieval for all the remote desktop machines in the house. However, if I kept them on the main desktop machine as well, I'd probably still have a two tiered back up system. It just makes sense.

Plus.. back up is not just about data corruption. There are more ways to lose data. Accidental deletion springs to mind (we've all done it.. 'fess up guys). When Earth syncs to Moon, it doesn't automatically propagate deletions. It holds deletions back and creates a log file, and I have to manually approve those deletions before they are propagated to Moon. Sure... I could have the same system in place working from desktop to server, but as this is an automated and scheduled service, I'd have to leave my desktop on overnight, every night, and doing that with an overclocked 3960X with dual GTX580s in it, is a gross overuse of power... and expense of course. Having a ultra low power server doing this overnight to an even lower power NAS just makes sense.

 

Pookey, your setup has long had me looking longingly with jealous eyes but this thread and a recent event transporting my PC with my 1TB hard drive containing all of my critical non-backed up data might have finally sold me on setting up a decent backup system.

Looking at the costs at least having a basic setup is hard not to justify. A NAS using existing lower power parts and a 3TB hard drive to consolidate my storage then something like a Synology DS212J with another 3TB drive to backup the NAS to. No RAID but that's 3TB of backed up data at a cost of only $540 plus tax and shipping, plus there's room for a second drive in the Synology and scratch built NAS should RAID 1 be appealling in the future, or additional space be needed. It'd be possible to just use a single NAS and backup from my PC and other devices but just as with your case that requires leaving on any devices with scheduled backups which is a hassle.

 

Ah, that makes sense. I don't have quite the output you have, so I'm able to keep all my data locally as well as on my NAS. I do have an external USB drive as well to provide peace of mind for my photos, videos, and design projects, but everything else just gets the one backup.

I guess the other thing working against me is the fact that I do everything manually. I've been casually looking for decent backup solutions, but haven't given it a very thorough look. One of these days...

On another note, what are people here using for a NAS? Currently I'm using a mini-ITX based setup with FreeNAS 7, but I'm not entirely sold on its performance. My core problem is that some larger files (e.g. Blu-ray backups) copied over to the NAS just fine, but when I try to copy them back over to my local drive the NAS re-boots during the transfer. It may end up being a lack of RAM that's causing the problem, so if there is an alternative solution that works just as well, I'm up for giving it a try.

(Sorry for the thread hijack)

 

Sounds like a good plan. Just two simple NAS devices. You back up your desktop to one, and then NAS 1 mirrors to NAS 2 overnight. Most NAS devices have an automated sync system of some kind. As you're not using RAID speed shouldn't be an issue. Backing up directly to my NAS would be quite slow, as RAID5 in my Thecus 3200 isn't that fast. I think it managed around 20MB/sec write in RAID5. JBOD or single disk would be much faster.

 

Performance was the issue with NAS only solutions for me. I originally had 2 NAS devices like Sloth is considering, but as they were also in RAID5 writing to them was quite slow. Backing up from the desktop to the NAS took a long time. The sync from one NAS to the other wasn't an issue as it was done overnight, but that first back up wasn't really very fast at all.

However.. in JOB or RAID1 or single disk most NAS devices should be pretty snappy.

I've been pleased with my Thecus N3200 Pro. Never let me down. Good interface, well built.


[Arrrrrghh! Double post.. sorry.]

 

Sometimes, when the data wants to go, it will...

I lost 2 years of photography and some classified secret files after:
1) WD Raptor 74GB housing main copy had it's firmware somehow die on me.
2) Seagate Cheetah 18XL housing online backup copy died on the same day.
3) Quantum Atlas V housing offline backup failed functioning when plugged back to retrieve the data.
4) Back-up archive DVDs stored in dry cabinet were unreadable.

So there you go, 3 enterprise drives decided to kick the bucket and even the archive copies on dvds stored in a controlled environment wouldn't work.

 

I just go ssd system, hdd apps and data mirrored, daily incremental backup to dat (6, 1 for each day, re-used each week) , weekly full backup for 3 weeks (re-used each month), 1 monthly that i leave at my mum's (i rotate these as well so i always have 5 monthly's at my mums). Safe system unless london gets nuked. And costs the price of one dat per month untill they wear out, which takes a long time. Of course i have hardly no data so i can fit it all on 1 dat tape so works out cheap for me

 

My data security setup is:
=> Local PC drives with all critical data, plus about 80% of all of my other data
=> All data backed up to Synology NAS with 2x3TB drives in RAID1
=> Most data also backed up to the 'cloud' in near real time using Carbonite

Sheesh, that really sucks.

 

Anything incorporating seagate will die or develop sector errors within a few years. There are a few exceptional cases but generally seagate is a brand you can trust to fail.

 

I've never had a Seagate drive fail on me, but every one I've had, and I've had loads, ALWAYS develop reallocated sectors more than ANY other drive I've used. I've even had two of them with reallocated sectors from new.

I don't trust them.

I've also had 2 failures with WD EARS Green drives... so I've gone off them now as well.

In fact, the ONLY drives I've had zero issues with are Samsung.

 

To be fair, I've worked in the capacity of a contract manufacturer for Seagate before.
Based on my experience within their production and CSO wings, I can safely say that I will never buy a Seagate non-SCSI drive.
I'm just thankful I bailed out before the Cuda 7k2.11 crap hit the fan. Stupid, stupid combination of events from firmware to QC stages piled up to lead to such a disaster that could have been avoided if they reduced the amount of bureaucracy within the company as a whole.
I couldn't believe that internal wings have to file Purchase orders, Delivery Orders and bill each other for items?

They have different teams handling the SCSI and non-SCSI lines. Both of them are in different leagues of professionalism as far as I am concerned.

Oh and their SATA enterprise line is not under the SCSI/ SAS teams. It's still considered under the consumer line-up so I won't touch the Cuda ES drives either.