data access for a small charity

_Jimlad_ · 20 Jul 2014 at 20:41

hello all,

i help a local charity that have 4 computers, at present they have all the data (not really sensitive) on 1 pc and share from that, they have a backup and operate on a low budget.

clearly that pc needs to be on, and a few issues with it highlighted the need for a better solution.

What would you guys recommend, i am thinking a easy to install nasbox? if so could anyone point me in the right direction, there data comes in at 130gb

open to other low cost options, whatever they do needs to be done on a shoe string budget

Caged · 20 Jul 2014 at 20:46

A Synology NAS backed up to Amazon Glacier. Or put them on an Office 365 nonprofit subscription for their email (it's free) and use the OneDrive storage that it gives you.

_Jimlad_ · 20 Jul 2014 at 22:39

which model would you recommend ? low budgets and all ?

Rroff · 20 Jul 2014 at 22:47

(Ultra) Low budget and NAS ain't a great combination IMO would also stay away from setups that rely on online connectivity as the primary access method rather than systems that backup to an online system for redundancy as it will have an impact on ongoing work if their internet connection goes down for any length of time.

Depending how far the budget stretches ideally you'd want something like the cheapest synology NAS with an external USB drive doing replication and configured to backup to something like glacier as mentioned above.

_Jimlad_ · 20 Jul 2014 at 22:50

sorry maybe not being clear enough. I have a backup in place that is ok. I just want to see if i can get the data on a network drive / box so all users can access without having to have the main pc on.

Caged · 20 Jul 2014 at 22:50

A DS214 with two disks in RAID1 is the absolute lowest I'd go. Stay away from the j variants.

Chicken #16 · 22 Jul 2014 at 13:42

what about cloud storage? Charities get Microsoft's sharepoint / office 365 free and I think they get 1TB storage. Takes a little bit of setting up though.

Google Drive for Non-profits is free and might be an option too but not sure how much storage you get.

https://www.tt-exchange.org/partner_catalogues/by_donor/ms_title_groups

https://www.google.co.uk/nonprofits/products/

have a look at that tt-exchange site if you've not used it before. Some very expensive products for £10 admin fees (as long as the charity qualifies)