networking advice. Building my owm "Cloud"

[jaxduc]

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

[mookieo2]

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

[derby]

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

* 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.

[jaxduc]

I'm literally going to have to google everything you just said.
I'll check out the links.
thanks for this info guys.

[Speeddog]

Seagate has the GoFlex external hard-drives with Ethernet connectivity (and thus internet accessibility) right out of the box.

[d3vi@nt]

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

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

[danaid]

  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/

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

[derby]

  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.

[danaid]

  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

 

[jaxduc]

 

[derby]

  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

...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.

Redundancy on multiple drives is the safest method of storage next to a library of physical copies of data.

again, you're wrong.

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)?

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. 

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.

[danaid]

Hehe

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

I don't think so, sorry, not accepting any homework assignment from you.




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.

[derby]

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.

...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?

[jaxduc]

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?

[Speeddog]

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?