Giving a friend a NAS....

Urbanfreestyle · 4 Oct 2015 at 10:31

Not too sure where i should post this as it is both drive related and network related.

I'm currently building a new PC for a friend of mine and have been talking about backup options. We are going for total overkill as his data is very valuable to him (lots of photography work)

We are looking at storing his photos on a 2TB WD Black drive that backs up internally to a RAID1 consisting of 2x WD Red drives.

He wants to do an offsite backup and i have offered my old DIY NAS for this purpose.

The machine i have allocated is an Artigo A2000 to be filled with 2x WD Red as JBOD (spanned disks)

Would it be better to run that or get something like Thecus NAS Server N2310 2-Bay RAID Server for SOHO (N2310)

Danny091 · 4 Oct 2015 at 11:08

Depending what his upload speed is like it might be better just getting a subscription to a cloud backup service.

I would most likely look at it like this
Save the photos to the wd black
put the two WD reds in a NAS (in the same house)
Use backup software to sync them
use the nas to upload the data to the cloud. (so it can do it through the night)

Urbanfreestyle · 4 Oct 2015 at 11:12

We both have uploads at around 7mbps and downloads of around 150mbps Both on Fibre.
The amount of data he wants to store will start costing him a lot (wants to have 2 - 4 tb total space to backup to)

Is there any specific reason that cloud is better than having a friend host the data?

Danny091 · 4 Oct 2015 at 11:21

No specific reason other than it means that he wont be using your connection and of course your power ext.
Also gives him the positive of having his own nas should he would to do other things with it in the future.
I know backblaze offer unlimited data for $5 a month.

TheVoice · 4 Oct 2015 at 11:30

I wouldn't want to be responsible for someone else's data backup solution, let alone one for their work. You'll be blamed (or at the very least, feel guilty) if something goes wrong.

I'd sooner do what Danny has suggested than have the data being stored in triplicate inside the same machine. If the PSU goes pop and takes the drives with it, you've lost the majority of your redundancy in one go.

Richdog · 4 Oct 2015 at 11:34

TheVoice said:
I wouldn't want to be responsible for someone else's data backup solution, let alone one for their work. You'll be blamed (or at the very least, feel guilty) if something goes wrong.

I'd sooner do what Danny has suggested than have the data being stored in triplicate inside the same machine. If the PSU goes pop and takes the drives with it, you've lost the majority of your redundancy in one go.

Ditto on this, OP. Let him buy or build a NAS himself because if it goes pop with all his data on it then you will get the blame. Fact.

Urbanfreestyle said:
Not too sure where i should post this as it is both drive related and network related.

A quick search would show you that NAS threads generally go in the storage section.

Urbanfreestyle · 4 Oct 2015 at 11:42

My apologies for wrong section.
I just thought it could be a good use of my spare computer, Perhaps send it to him to turn into a nas in his own home.

Caged · 4 Oct 2015 at 11:53

CrashPlan is the same cost regardless of how much data you wanted to back up.

Steveocee · 4 Oct 2015 at 13:04

Caged said:
CrashPlan is the same cost regardless of how much data you wanted to back up.

Cloud solution would be much more beneficial. Including the points above about your hardware going pop and you getting the blame, at least then YOUR connection won't get unnecessary hammer when he deletes 200GB then decides to copy it back over.

Sparx · 4 Oct 2015 at 13:29

What about using Backblaze?

https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-backup.html

Urbanfreestyle · 4 Oct 2015 at 13:34

Will point him at that but i think he was looking for free / lower cost solutions. I know $5 isnt much but $50 is.

Steveocee · 4 Oct 2015 at 13:40

I know he is a friend but maybe a slightly uncomfortable conversation about if his data is his work and it is precious to him then maybe he should actually invest some into it?

If it's not worth a few quid a month then it probably isn't worth all the effort you're going to.

Sparx · 4 Oct 2015 at 13:58

He wants a free solution? Good luck.

I thought you mentioned he valued his data.....

Skimping $5 pm for invaluable data? Tight!

Urbanfreestyle · 4 Oct 2015 at 14:37

fair enough, I'll have a word with him and see what he says.

Caged · 4 Oct 2015 at 14:49

Urbanfreestyle said:
We are going for total overkill as his data is very valuable to him (lots of photography work)

Urbanfreestyle said:
Will point him at that but i think he was looking for free / lower cost solutions. I know $5 isnt much but $50 is.

Does not compute. Tell him to stop being tight, trying to do this for free is stupid. $50 a year is nothing.

iraiguana · 4 Oct 2015 at 22:10

It is either important, therefore worth $5 - 50 per month or it isn't important and he can save the money and risk the data.

Urbanfreestyle · 4 Oct 2015 at 22:20

I Dont mind hosting it and hence saving him the money. I think I'll stick freenas on it and then either keep it for myself or give it to him for a small fee so he has his own nas

Caged · 4 Oct 2015 at 23:04

There's helping someone out, and then there's this. You can't provide the same sort of service as a company for who their literal only job is to make online backup work. Save yourself the hassle, tell him to spend a tiny amount of money.

Urbanfreestyle · 4 Oct 2015 at 23:59

bledd · 5 Oct 2015 at 08:46

Buy a Synology NAS, use WD Red drives.