Thanks anyone for their expert input and suggestions. I’m a nooooob at networking and I bet there is some expertise here.
In short, I’m wanting to set up an external hard drive for backing up information locally and remotely. Network Access Storage.
Basically I want to build my own “cloud†where I can “back up†data, not only from my home computers, but also remotely from smart phones, and work computers.
I have 3 computers at my home all connected through a wireless network. I just bought a 1 TB External Hard Drive.
I do not want to subscribe to an online cloud service. I want to store all data locally and be able to retrieve it anywhere remotely.
I’m sure this has been done.
Any friendly online communities that you would recommend?
Any “how to†websites?
Anyone want to come over and help me set this up?
Thanks
Get a Synology NAS. Get the dual bay so you can run it in Raid 1. They work great plus have loads of other features built in.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822108095&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-NA-_-NA (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822108095&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-_-pla-_-NA-_-NA)
Quote from: mookieo2 on November 25, 2012, 06:51:01 AM
Get a Synology NAS. Get the dual bay so you can run it in Raid 1. [/url]
or, more accurately, don't buy a single bay. i have an 8-bay loaded w/ 3tb drives.
with a little out of the box configuration, you can access all your files and media remotely across the internet.
there are also a few options for doing backups*.
their cloudstation feature should give you most of what you're looking for:
http://www.synology.com/dsm/home_file_sharing_cloud_station.php (http://www.synology.com/dsm/home_file_sharing_cloud_station.php)
* i cannot stress this enough, do NOT rely on disk-based backups or redundant disk arrays (RAID) to protect your data. have at least one off-site backup solution in place for all your (important) data. i backup all my data to crashplan+ in addition to any redundant copies i keep onsite.
I'm literally going to have to google everything you just said.
I'll check out the links.
thanks for this info guys.
Seagate has the GoFlex external hard-drives with Ethernet connectivity (and thus internet accessibility) right out of the box.
Quote from: jaxduc on November 25, 2012, 09:18:07 AM
I'm literally going to have to google everything you just said.
I'll check out the links.
thanks for this info guys.
Here's a link to basic explanation of RAID: http://www.fatmin.com/2010/04/raid-levels-explained-and-simplified.html (http://www.fatmin.com/2010/04/raid-levels-explained-and-simplified.html)
A two-bay device is recommended so you can run two drives in RAID1 config, meaning your content is mirrored on both drives. In the event one drive fails, you will still have all your data. Just remember: there are two kinds of drives; those that have failed and those that will fail.
Regular backups (on or off-site) can protect you from accidental deletions, etc. And to clarify Derby's point, backing up your data to an offsite location protects you in the event of fire, flood, theft, etc.
There are a ton of options out there. PC Mag recently had a decent write-up: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2385939,00.asp (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2385939,00.asp)
This is the "new hot option" for all hard drive and modem/router manufactures. Holiday shopping at Best Buy recently I saw a whole isle of new, "easy to install" home network devices. you should have no problem finding a setup that works for you, I use an Apple time capsule and usb attatched 8TB, raid 5, hard drive enclosure.
What others have began to write about is that r.a.i.d back up drive is the most important part. everything comes later because when you loose your irreplaceable backed up, documents, pics, and video to a faulty single, hard drive, you'll wish you'd spent the money first on a quality raid set up, that self rebuilds itself.
I buy a lot of hardware from these guys, quality stuff. I use this storage device.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MEQX2T8.0S/ (http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/MEQX2T8.0S/)
check out their web site, lots of info, this is from their web site on r.a.i.d, I use a MAC but this info is good for any pc.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/sata/RAID_Guide/RAID_Concepts (http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/hard-drives/sata/RAID_Guide/RAID_Concepts)
Quote from: danaid on November 25, 2012, 12:53:57 PM
What others have began to write about is that r.a.i.d back up drive is the most important part. everything comes later because when you loose your irreplaceable backed up, documents, pics, and video to a faulty single, hard drive, you'll wish you'd spent the money first on a quality raid set up, that self rebuilds itself.
please don't call raid a backup. putting aside the performance increases you
can get from
some striped raid configurations, raid simply allows you to keep working if you have a single/double/etc (depending on configuration) drive failure.
it does nothing for if you if you actually have an
array failure.
also consider that your data can be "unprotected" while the array is rebuilding. if you experience a 2nd or 3rd drive failure (again, depending on configuration) while the array is rebuilding, your data is likely to require a professional (at great expense) to recover (and recovery may not even be possible).
as somebody who has (professionally) dealt with both drive and array failures, trust me when i say you'll be very, very happy you have off-site backups if you ever need 'em.
Uhh...yes a raid array is a back up solution and yes professionals who require backing up very important data, photographers, videographers, musicians and others who rely on safe keeping of data use one of the various raid arrays. Redundancy on multiple drives is the safest method of storage next to a library of physical copies of data.
Multiple drive failures at once on a single server, in a commercial setting, does happen, but is the responsibility of the IT personal looking after it, and when said drive failed, it is replaced and the array rebuilds it self, to protect the data from being lost!
I have personally decided to stop collecting physical photographs, music, and video collection present and future, digitizing our collections and mostly already ridding ourselves physical copies, my wife is now a part time photographer, a leap of faith in relying on a single drive for back up was not a viable option for us.
In the home network setting, a minimum of mirror redundancy should not be overlooked if the data is important to you, regardless of cost.
Oh..oh...sorry for the off subject rant.
My 02
[popcorn]
Quote from: danaid on November 25, 2012, 05:18:23 PM
Uhh...yes a raid array is a back up solution...
you're wrong.
you can backup to a raid array, but raid itself is not a backup solution... ever.
here's some reading for you:
https://www.google.com/search?q=raid+is+not+a+backup+solution (https://www.google.com/search?q=raid+is+not+a+backup+solution)
Quote from: danaid on November 25, 2012, 05:18:23 PM
...and yes professionals who require backing up very important data, photographers, videographers, musicians and others who rely on safe keeping of data use one of the various raid arrays.
i don't doubt that they do. hopefully they also have an actual backup solution in place, preferably with at least one copy offsite.
cloud backups like crashplan+ are good for home users.
Quote from: danaid on November 25, 2012, 05:18:23 PM
Redundancy on multiple drives is the safest method of storage next to a library of physical copies of data.
again, you're wrong.
Quote from: danaid on November 25, 2012, 05:18:23 PM
Multiple drive failures at once on a single server, in a commercial setting, does happen, but is the responsibility of the IT personal looking after it, and when said drive failed, it is replaced and the array rebuilds it self, to protect the data from being lost!
note: i'm that guy.
you acknowledge that simultaneous failures of multiple drives can occur in an a "commercial" setting, using server grade drives with a significantly higher MTBF than consumer drives, yet trust your data to disk-only "backups" (presumably using consumer-grade drives)?
Quote from: danaid on November 25, 2012, 05:18:23 PM
I have personally decided to stop collecting physical photographs, music, and video collection present and future, digitizing our collections and mostly already ridding ourselves physical copies, my wife is now a part time photographer, a leap of faith in relying on a single drive for back up was not a viable option for us.
all that work to rid yourself of physical media and you're going to trust all that data to nothing more than a couple consumer-grade drives? ok. [roll]
Quote from: danaid on November 25, 2012, 05:18:23 PM
In the home network setting, a minimum of mirror redundancy should not be overlooked if the data is important to you, regardless of cost.
"if the data is important to you" you should also have at least one offsite backup... at a minimum... regardless of cost.
Quote from: jaxduc on November 25, 2012, 05:28:32 PM
[popcorn]
Hehe
Quote from: derby on November 25, 2012, 06:35:05 PM
you're wrong.
you can backup to a raid array, but raid itself is not a backup solution... ever.
here's some reading for you:
https://www.google.com/search?q=raid+is+not+a+backup+solution (https://www.google.com/search?q=raid+is+not+a+backup+solution)
I don't think so, sorry, not accepting any homework assignment from you.
[roll] [roll] [roll] [roll] [roll] [roll] [roll] [roll] [roll] [roll] [roll] [roll] [roll] [roll] [roll] [roll] [roll]
Hehe, I did not want to stray into a commercial grade vs. enterprise grade server for
home use argument with you. Nor did I want to list my hard drive model #'s for you, yes I know of and understand the value of enterprise grade hard drives. Not everyone is comfortable sending their
personal data offsite, especially when there is commercial and enterprise grade home network equipment available for the
home user.
Quote from: danaid on November 25, 2012, 09:05:44 PM
Not everyone is comfortable sending their personal data offsite...
what happens if your house burns down, or your house gets burglarized?
i know of a grammy nominated musician that lost all his data (including his entire fourth album that was in progress) when his house was broken into while he was out of the country. not only did they steal all his gear and computers, they stole his backups (that were also in his home studio).
years of work, gone. unrecoverable. he does offsite backups now.
Quote from: danaid on November 25, 2012, 09:05:44 PM
...especially when there is commercial and enterprise grade home network equipment available for the home user.
but you've already acknowledged that server-grade equipment can fail... furthermore, enterprises do offsite backups for a reason.
look, i'm not saying you have to offsite your "personal" data to a cloud provider, it's just easier (and more reliable) to do so.
another option would be to keep another "backup" in a safety deposit box. of course, the data in the box could be days/weeks/months behind what's at home, depending on how often you update that backup.
you could also replicate your important data elsewhere. the crashplan app allows you to backup to another computer (for free), even across the internet.
here's my current setup at home:
synology w/ 24TB of disk (backs up to crashplan+)
imac (over-network time machine backups to an additional 3TB usb drive hanging off the synology)
macbook (over-network time machine backups to an additional 1TB usb drive hanging off the synology)
iphone (backs up to icloud)
ipad (backs up to icloud)
at a minimum, all my important documents, music, photographs, and videos exist on a device + time machine backup + crashplan and/or the synology + crashplan.
my music also exists in icloud as a last resort.
if my house burns down or is burglarized (or if suffer a simultaneous multi-disk failure, or my array hardware dies, or ______), i can recover my data. can you?
my mind has been changed in light of the recent discussion regarding online backup.
I'm not backing up ultra sensitive data anyway. mainly pictures, music, website layouts. stuff that is oooober sensitive to me but not valuable to anyone else. thats right I just said oober
I now see that redundancy is necessary.
Derby, thanks a million for your expertise.
Danaid, thanks for your input. (that wasn't supposed to be a burn, really)
What online Tech communities (forums) do you guys hang out in?
Just to clarify the terminology/semantics for a non-techie....
I'm understanding that a RAID is normally used as the 'primary' drive, IE it's constantly being used to store and retrieve data, like I do on my laptop with it's internal drive?
If I copy all the data (or mirror?) from my lappy to a seperate drive, is that not a backup?
Quote from: Speeddog on November 26, 2012, 08:50:50 AM
Just to clarify the terminology/semantics for a non-techie....
I'm understanding that a RAID is normally used as the 'primary' drive, IE it's constantly being used to store and retrieve data, like I do on my laptop with it's internal drive?
(oversimplified) raid is just a bunch of disks "working together". as far as your computer is concerned, it's just another drive. "under the hood," depending on the configuration, it
can have some additional redundancy to protect against a single drive (raid1/raid5) or dual drive (raid6) failure. raid0, on the other hand, has none of these protections.
Quote from: Speeddog on November 26, 2012, 08:50:50 AM
If I copy all the data (or mirror?) from my lappy to a seperate drive, is that not a backup?
this is a good article about backups.
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TheComputerBackupRuleOfThree.aspx (http://www.hanselman.com/blog/TheComputerBackupRuleOfThree.aspx)
to answer your question, it depends. ;D
it can be
a backup, but would not be adequate for me to say my personal, important, irreplaceable data is "backed up".
i'd highly recommend an additional, not-in-the-same-building-as-my-other-computer/storage device backup.
Quote from: Speeddog on November 26, 2012, 08:50:50 AM
Just to clarify the terminology/semantics for a non-techie....
I'm understanding that a RAID is normally used as the 'primary' drive, IE it's constantly being used to store and retrieve data, like I do on my laptop with it's internal drive?
If I copy all the data (or mirror?) from my lappy to a seperate drive, is that not a backup?
A raid array lets you delete or overwrite your important files faster than you could if they were on a single disk. If you're happy for your "backup solution" to not include protecting you from (some of) the stupid stuff it's possible to do, then maybe you'll consider raid "good enough" for your backups.
Ask yourself how you'd recover from accidentally deleting, say, your accounts software data file. What if it took you a few days or weeks to realise youy'd deleted an important file? If you're relying on raid alone, those answers are probably scaring you. Same with some methods of the "copy data to a separate drive" technique - how do you restore a file you deleted last month? For me, a backup solution needs to keep old versions of files and definitely not delete yesterday's version just because I deleted the file today.
(Mac users have no excuse not to be running Time Machine to solve all their backup problems. For Windows users, I hear something called Shadow Copy is a good start, with the proviso that it stores your versioned backup on the same disk as the original data, so you need something extra to protect against disk/controller failure (all of my "windows machines" these days are VMs backed up via the host OS). If you're on Linux, you are probably rolling your eyes 'cause you rolled your own rsync/cron/shellscript version of this years ago...)
I am in 100% agreement with Derby here. Except on the PC side of things. I too am "that guy" in a Windows world and when I get into a client environment and find out that they are "backing up" to an on-site array and have no off-site redundancy, it is quite literally the first thing I will push for.
Pretty much every mission critical enterprise on the planet will back up locally(on-site not locally as in on the machine) and then have off-site redundancy. Hell, even the beer distributor I worked for shuffled 7 days worth of tapes off-site to a safe deposit box once a week.
Anyone have some feedback on this.
http://www.drobo.com/products/professionals/drobo/index.php (http://www.drobo.com/products/professionals/drobo/index.php)
Just got a Seagate GoFlex Home 2TB unit.
Doing the first backup now.
It's averaging ~15 Gb per hour over the last 2 hours, connected *directly* to my lappy via ethernet cable.
Running it through the router was painfully slow.
Seagate cyborg that I talked to on the phone said the regular backups via router or WiFi would be quite fast as it only has to deal with the files that have been modified.
We'll see about that. [roll]
Nothing speed-related has been impressive so far...
Question remains.... What if I inadvertently delete something important?
Does it leave it be on the backup, or blast it 'cause I deleted off my machine?
Quote from: Speeddog on December 03, 2012, 06:22:21 PM
Question remains.... What if I inadvertently delete something important?
Does it leave it be on the backup, or blast it 'cause I deleted off my machine?
if the software you're using is smart, it'll keep iterative versions of the files until you run out of space.
if it's not, it'll just blow it away.
i have zero experience w/ whatever software comes w/ the seagates.
So that's a definite maybe. [laugh]
Seriously, thanks for the feedback. [beer]
I'll likely annoy the support borgs at Seagate about it.
+1M for offsite backups. Using crashplan is super easy. Just buy another external drive and find a someone 'who you trust' and plug it in on their computer. then just backup to that drive at their house, thus giving you offsite storage without the monthly fee.
even if you think your data is of no use to anybody else, just imagine what it would be like to either recreate it, or tell you wife you lost the only pix of the baby... :)
you can get 2TB drives for about $100 which for most people will be way more space than needed for a long time.
I crashplan my Macbook Air, Win7 server and another XP machine to a computer across town. sure it took a while to get the backup done initially but after that it updates and stays up to date with no effort and will email you if something goes wrong.
If you want to make your own cloud service like dropbox/box.net/google drive, etc. try www.owncloud.com (//http://) it's open-source and works well but its under heavy development right now. I'm using it and about ready to pull all my data from dropbox to help minimize my exposure.
Quote from: Speeddog on December 03, 2012, 06:22:21 PM
Doing the first backup now.
It's averaging ~15 Gb per hour over the last 2 hours, connected *directly* to my lappy via ethernet cable.
Running it through the router was painfully slow.
You probably have a router with a built-in 10/100 Mb/sec switch. You could get a cheap gigabit switch (Netgear GS605, for example) and connect your laptop, the NAS and the router to the switch. This way, all traffic between the laptop and the NAS will be through the switch. Any internet traffic will go through the switch to the router.
Quote from: Speeddog on December 03, 2012, 06:22:21 PM
Question remains.... What if I inadvertently delete something important?
Does it leave it be on the backup, or blast it 'cause I deleted off my machine?
Depends on how you're backing up. Most purpose-made backup programs will copy all the data on the first run, and on subsequent runs only transfer the differences. Each run maintains a copy of those differences. This means that accidental deletions can be recovered up to the point where a backup was made.
In my previous job, I did technical support for a company whose name begins with "I" and ends in "omega" for NAS units that typically had RAID arrays. On multiple occasions we would see multiple drive failures for what were supposedly enterprise devices, and saw more than a few occasions where the replacement drives took over a month to ship out. I made one customer cry when I gave her (an independent CPA) the company line on backups ("One NAS is an archive, two is a backup; you should have bought a second unit.") when she lost multiple drives in a RAID 5 array because we took too long to ship a replacement. She lost 3 years of client data, and then I got to tell her that for $50k we'd recover the data that our ineptitude caused her to lose.
I agree and endorse every statement in this thread that says that RAID is not a backup. RAID provides a level of extra security, but if you lose the array your data is still gone. If you can't manage a network-based offsite backup solution, try an old-school twist on that: take a pair of drives, keep one at your house for local backups and keep one at a buddy's house. Perform your backups weekly or monthly (it's personal data, so you shouldn't need much more frequent than that) and swap the drives. A little pricier, and you don't have to worry about racking up someone else's electric bill.
Backed up my desktop too.
Issues so far:
Backup files are named only with date and time.
All well and good, other than I have to drill down in the content to figure out which computer it is.
It did not backup the other partitions of my desktop drive.
That's an annoyance I'll have to work out with Seagate, unless someone here knows how to do it.
I can copy each partition into a folder, but that doesn't seem to be the best plan.
Quote from: Speeddog on December 04, 2012, 10:20:42 AM
Backed up my desktop too.
Issues so far:
Backup files are named only with date and time.
All well and good, other than I have to drill down in the content to figure out which computer it is.
It did not backup the other partitions of my desktop drive.
That's an annoyance I'll have to work out with Seagate, unless someone here knows how to do it.
I can copy each partition into a folder, but that doesn't seem to be the best plan.
sounds like it's a relatively "oldschool" backup app, just doing regular backup "bundles" to disk vs tape.
you should be able to edit the backup job to add the partitions/drives that are currently not included.
to answer your earlier question, if each of those backup files is a complete backup session,
and it's not overwriting the "sessions" each time, you should also have versions vs a file being deleted from backup when you delete it from disk.
additionally, ntbackup.exe (included with windows xp) or sdclt.exe ("backup and restore," included with windows 7) may offer you more flexiblity than the seagate app (again, which i have zero experience with).
Spent some more time on the horn to Seagate.
If I keep this up, I'll probably get the "Oh, it's *you* again." [laugh]
The tech confirmed that I can add the other partitions, just need to click on the 'Advanced Options' and drag'n'drop.
A peculiarity of the software (Vimeo) is that if you've got two computers with the same Login name, both backup folders get put in the same folder.
Since the backup folders are named with the date and time, it's something that could be dealt with.
But I'm not comfortable at all with that.
I'll be renaming my desktop, and re-doing the backup with all the partitions included.
That'll get it it's own folder and get a *complete* backup all in one batch.
After a bit of Q&A with the tech....
After the 'full' initial backup, any files modified and saved on the computer get overwritten in the backup.
So the good thing is, it's continuously updating the backup.
The bad thing is, it's continuously updating the backup. :P
If I save a corrupted file, then it's diligently included in the backup.
The tech confirmed that an ordinary portable HD would be an excellent addition to the backup plan.
Drag'n'drop copies of the backup files into it, then store it offsite.
Assuming regular copying of the backup files sequentially into folders, such that I have (weekly?) versions stored offsite, I have a ~reasonable level of protection against hardware failure, file corruption, and natural/unnatural disaster.
The only exposure I see right now is that I have to have both HD's physically in one spot to update the offsite files.
So it's not foolproof, just fool-resistant.
I prodded the tech for a personal recommendation for a more sophisticated backup software option.
He said Acronis True Image was his preference.
Quote from: Speeddog on December 04, 2012, 02:04:45 PM
The tech confirmed that an ordinary portable HD would be an excellent addition to the backup plan.
Drag'n'drop copies of the backup files into it, then store it offsite.
Assuming regular copying of the backup files sequentially into folders, such that I have (weekly?) versions stored offsite, I have a ~reasonable level of protection against hardware failure, file corruption, and natural/unnatural disaster.
The only exposure I see right now is that I have to have both HD's physically in one spot to update the offsite files.
So it's not foolproof, just fool-resistant.
for the cost of one physical harddrive, you can have four years of encrypted, unlimited-storage crashplan+ backups (that you
don't have to think about).
https://www.crashplan.com/consumer/store.vtl (https://www.crashplan.com/consumer/store.vtl) (crashplan+ unlimited, for a single machine)
by default, that'll back you up to off-site every 15 minutes, maintain versions, protect against overwritten/corrupt files, etc.