Need Help Choosing DAS Backup Solution

[midiman]

Hi, I would like to buy something to help back up my PC to.

I am currently backing up my PC to a local drive, but it doesn't have much space.

I have thought about a couple of options, but I can't decide what to do.

1. Purchase a 16TB Disk, install that and backup my entire PC to it. (Problem not expandable)
2. Purchase an External USB Drive and back up my entire PC to it. (Problem No RAID and Single Point Of Failure)
3. Purchase an External USB Diskless Enclosure, populate it with some disks, and back up my entire PC to it. (Problem added costs of the disks and they all need to be of same type for RAID)

All I am doing is using Veeam to backup my PC, and I just want somewhere to send the backups to, so that I can get to them in any emergency.

Please can you help.

Thanks

 

[Snapshot]

Best solution really is a NAS but if you want to keep it to locally connected drives then consider two or three USB HDDs and use them in rotation.
To properly back-up your data will cost money. You have to decide just how much your data is worth.

 

[midiman]

Best solution really is a NAS but if you want to keep it to locally connected drives then consider two or three USB HDDs and use them in rotation.
To properly back-up your data will cost money. You have to decide just how much your data is worth.

Why is a NAS a best solution? I just want to backup the PC and I am interested in sharing the content over a network.
Would two or three USB external drives be cheaper and better than an enclosure with a bunch of disks? I thought the JBODs could be used in a raid array.
Thanks

 

[Snapshot]

Why is a NAS a best solution? I just want to backup the PC and I am interested in sharing the content over a network.
Would two or three USB external drives be cheaper and better than an enclosure with a bunch of disks? I thought the JBODs could be used in a raid array.
Thanks

If that's the case then a NAS is definitely the best solution or did you omit the 'not'? A basic 2-bay NAS gives you RAID1 so you're protected against a single drive failure. A NAS can be configured to power on at a set time then powered off later so it saves power by only being on when needed.

Oddly, yes, external USB drives are often cheaper than equivalent bare drives. Of course we don't know exactly what the white label HDDs inside the case are based on but those in the WD Elements range seem to be good quality. And you've saved the cost of the enclosure. With multiple external drives you have the option to keep one of the drives on another site as extra security against a disaster at your home.

If the drives are configured as JBOD then converting them to RAID will lose any data on them.

 

[midiman]

If that's the case then a NAS is definitely the best solution or did you omit the 'not'? A basic 2-bay NAS gives you RAID1 so you're protected against a single drive failure. A NAS can be configured to power on at a set time then powered off later so it saves power by only being on when needed.

Oddly, yes, external USB drives are often cheaper than equivalent bare drives. Of course we don't know exactly what the white label HDDs inside the case are based on but those in the WD Elements range seem to be good quality. And you've saved the cost of the enclosure. With multiple external drives you have the option to keep one of the drives on another site as extra security against a disaster at your home.

If the drives are configured as JBOD then converting them to RAID will lose any data on them.

Hi Snapshot,

The idea of not having the device on all the time sounds good and I like the idea.
But couldn't I do that with the USB Enclosure, too? I could turn it on and off when needed.

I am not too bothered about off-site backups, and something local will do. It doesn't have to have a raid, either. Any would do (USB Enclosure, NAS, Internal HDD)

I just want a decent amount of storage to hold a full backup and extra files.

I was even thinking of buying a 16TB Sata Disk and putting it in my PC.

1. 16TB SATA Disk is around £180
2. 16TB USB enclosure maybe £260
3. 16TB NAS and disks probably £400+??

If my main drive went, At least I would have a full backup on the 16TB disk.

The NAS option sounds great but it would be costly.

What do you think?

Thanks

 

[adrichardson81]

I'd start by figuring out what you need to back up, and how large that would be.

For instance, I'm a hobbyist photographer, so my photos are my top priority. They're on a dedicated internal drive with my docs and music. My 2nd highest priority is the OS partition, so that's backed up too. Games can be downloaded again if I like it se the drive, so I don't bother backing them up.

If I use Macrium Reflect, I can comfortably fit 2 images of of the os partition and the photo drive on a 2tb drive. I'm a bit paranoid, so I have a 2nd drive that I keep at work too .

I also have Backblaze set up for the documents drive.

It's not foolproof, but it was less hassle than setting up a NAS.

 

[CaNsA]

Grab a used N54L from the bay.
Populate it with drives as you see fit.

These things just keep chugging along.

 

[wonko]

I'd start by figuring out what you need to back up, and how large that would be.

This is where I'd start, and also think about how critical the data is, how much it changes, and what type of backup is sufficient to reduce the risk of losing stuff to the point where you wouldn't kick yourself if the worst happens.

In my example, data falls into 3 main categories:
1. many TB of media which doesn't change that much, and wouldn't be a complete disaster if lost
2. lots of family photos, these don't change that much but are irreplaceable
3. personal and work documents, these can change frequently and are irreplaceable

1, 2 & 3 get manually backed up to on-site / normally powered-off DAS and an old/slow backup PC (so 2 copies)
2 also occasionally gets backed up to external USB drive
3 also gets backed up to cloud storage as they change (which also allows sharing across devices)

One cause of data loss that makes me nervous is undetected file corruption or deletion (e.g. human error, OS/app or disk error) which is faithfully copied onto backup after backup, and if you're just doing simple disk images then eventually all your backup images have lost/corrupted files. Because of this, I use Syncback and review the changes before files are copied to the backup - this has picked up a few surprises where I had mistakenly deleted or moved files. The other thing is the idea of the restore failing when you really need it, so I find it good to have your backups visible on an NTFS drive.

Anyway, ramble over but it might give some thoughts of what to consider before picking the hardware.

 

[midiman]

I'd start by figuring out what you need to back up, and how large that would be.

For instance, I'm a hobbyist photographer, so my photos are my top priority. They're on a dedicated internal drive with my docs and music. My 2nd highest priority is the OS partition, so that's backed up too. Games can be downloaded again if I like it se the drive, so I don't bother backing them up.

If I use Macrium Reflect, I can comfortably fit 2 images of of the os partition and the photo drive on a 2tb drive. I'm a bit paranoid, so I have a 2nd drive that I keep at work too .

I also have Backblaze set up for the documents drive.

It's not foolproof, but it was less hassle than setting up a NAS.

Hi, I am the same.
I do photo and video work and I want to protect my media.
I back up the O/S Using Veeam and that works well. But the Full Image is about 1TB.
I probably have about 3TB in total to backup.
Therefore I would assume 8TB of backup storage is enough.

Either using another Single Internal Hard Disk, or an External Drive.

 

[Semple]

I am not too bothered about off-site backups, and something local will do. It doesn't have to have a raid, either. Any would do (USB Enclosure, NAS, Internal HDD)

This severely weakens your backup strategy. What do you do in the event of fire, flood, gas explosion, or even someone breaking in and nicking the drives?

It does come back to how much do you value your data. If it's irreplaceable, or will cost you financially from the loss then you must consider an off-site solution - whether that's physical or cloud.

 

[Snapshot]

Hi, I am the same.
I do photo and video work and I want to protect my media.
I back up the O/S Using Veeam and that works well. But the Full Image is about 1TB.
I probably have about 3TB in total to backup.
Therefore I would assume 8TB of backup storage is enough.

Either using another Single Internal Hard Disk, or an External Drive.

No, a single drive is not the answer, especially if it's internal to the PC. Think about what happens if the PSU puts a spike on various voltages.
You need multiple drives used in rotation. I have four external drives that can each hold three images of my PC. So, imaging once a month, I have a year's worth of backups interleaved across the drives. This is in addition to what my NASs get every night/week. I admit this is probably OTT but I used to set up backup strategies for major companies when I was working in the City and some habits are hard to break.

 

[adrichardson81]

Hi Snapshot,

The idea of not having the device on all the time sounds good and I like the idea.
But couldn't I do that with the USB Enclosure, too? I could turn it on and off when needed.

I am not too bothered about off-site backups, and something local will do. It doesn't have to have a raid, either. Any would do (USB Enclosure, NAS, Internal HDD)

I just want a decent amount of storage to hold a full backup and extra files.

I was even thinking of buying a 16TB Sata Disk and putting it in my PC.

1. 16TB SATA Disk is around £180
2. 16TB USB enclosure maybe £260
3. 16TB NAS and disks probably £400+??

If my main drive went, At least I would have a full backup on the 16TB disk.

The NAS option sounds great but it would be costly.

What do you think?

Thanks

I'd definitely recommend at least some sort of cloud backup, if you're not able to keep a physical copy offsite. Ideally you should follow the 3-2-1 approach. 3 copies, including the original. 2 different media. 1 offsite copy. Backblaze works out at about £10 a month.

Offsite/remote backup means you're covered if there's a fire, flood, burglary etc. Definitely don't use an internal drive - it's way too high risk if anything happens to your rig (I've seen bad PSUs take drives with them when they die).

 

[midiman]

No, a single drive is not the answer, especially if it's internal to the PC. Think about what happens if the PSU puts a spike on various voltages.
You need multiple drives used in rotation. I have four external drives that can each hold three images of my PC. So, imaging once a month, I have a year's worth of backups interleaved across the drives. This is in addition to what my NASs get every night/week. I admit this is probably OTT but I used to set up backup strategies for major companies when I was working in the City and some habits are hard to break.

Hi,
Yes I think you are going a bit OTT for home us. I work in IT and we have a PB's of total storage.
Were we run Site to Site, and Amazon backups.

I don't anticipate my house burning down, or going to the extremes of any major disasters. I just want something to hold a backup so that I can get to if necessary.

An external drive would do.

 

[midiman]

I'd definitely recommend at least some sort of cloud backup, if you're not able to keep a physical copy offsite. Ideally you should follow the 3-2-1 approach. 3 copies, including the original. 2 different media. 1 offsite copy. Backblaze works out at about £10 a month.

Offsite/remote backup means you're covered if there's a fire, flood, burglary etc. Definitely don't use an internal drive - it's way too high risk if anything happens to your rig (I've seen bad PSUs take drives with them when they die).

Hi, that could possibly happen but in all of my 25 years in IT, I have never seen two drives taken out at once, and I have worked in Multimillion Pounds Data Centres with huge NAS Arrays.
There is a risk to everything but some are slim.

 

[Semple]

Given your risk appetite to loss of data, I would go with option 2.

My reasoning:
1) this isn't a backup, this is just mirroring the contents of your other drives, offering very little protection.
3) sounds like it would be too much if you can fit all your data on a USB drive - at least it has the added benefits of being able to take it out of the house.

 

[midiman]

Given your risk appetite to loss of data, I would go with option 2.

My reasoning:
1) this isn't a backup, this is just mirroring the contents of your other drives, offering very little protection.
3) sounds like it would be too much if you can fit all your data on a USB drive - at least it has the added benefits of being able to take it out of the house.

Hi Semple,
You are probably right but I am hearing a lot of reports that most of the USB Enclosures are no where near 16TB.

Option 1 - would give me ample space to store my data. I am backing up my PC using Veeam, so it will not be mirroring. The backup file will be saved onto the disk.
The only option that it wouldn't give me is being removable.

Thanks

 

[Semple]

Hi Semple,
You are probably right but I am hearing a lot of reports that most of the USB Enclosures are no where near 16TB.

Option 1 - would give me ample space to store my data. I am backing up my PC using Veeam, so it will not be mirroring. The backup file will be saved onto the disk.
The only option that it wouldn't give me is being removable.

Thanks

You're missing the point, storing a "backup" of your PC on your PC is not a backup!

You're only really protecting yourself against finger fumbling with that strategy, every other data loss scenario and your backup is useless.

 

[CaNsA]

Grab a used N54L from the bay.
Populate it with drives as you see fit.

These things just keep chugging along.

I think it's worth mentioning this again.

It's cheap, low power, low maintenance and easy to configure.

 

[midiman]

Hi,
I ended buying a 16TB USB external enclosure from Amazon.
I took a gamble on it but so far it's great.
It looks amazing and I am getting about 15TB from it.
I can't complain and it looks great.

It comes with a 2-year warranty, and my backups are working well. I still have 12TB!! left to store additional data.

It is smaller than an Mac Mini and sits nicely next to my desktop PC.

It is called UnionSine 16TB External Drive and I thoroughly recommend it for the price and peace of mind.

 

[Armageus]

It is called UnionSine 16TB External Drive and I thoroughly recommend it for the price and peace of mind.

May as well have not bothered backing up then... you don't know the actual brand or model of hard drive being used inside it, or where it was sourced from

It comes with a 2-year warranty

Good luck with that from a brand no one has ever heard of.