Looking for a new backup system (raid1?)

[phildaint]

I'm looking for a raid 1 system to backup my huge collection of photographs as im a photographer and need something a bit safer than just my normal external drives. i've been looking at one of these http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-050-SY

what i'm wondering is if i could for example plug my spare wifi dongle into the back and could access it from my laptop wirelesly aswell as my desktop (which it will always be plugged into anyway)


The friend who also is helping me choose which has also asked which drives come in it if anyone knows?

i'm a bit clueless when it comes so computers so apologies for what may be Daft questions

 

[memyselfandi]

Synology post a list of compatible USB dongles here

... but copying a lot of (relatively) small files to it over wireless is likely to be pretty slow so you'd probably want to do at least the initial backup over a wired connection.

I'm assuming that you are going to have this as a backup copy of what you have currently instead of moving all the files to it and relying on the RAID1 protection (remembering that RAID1 is not itself backup, just resiliency). Personally I would also look at getting a 4TB USB3 external disk as well and making a backup copy to that as well so you can store that somewhere else (drawer at work for instance) in case of fire/theft.

 

[phildaint]

Synology post a list of compatible USB dongles here

... but copying a lot of (relatively) small files to it over wireless is likely to be pretty slow so you'd probably want to do at least the initial backup over a wired connection.

I'm assuming that you are going to have this as a backup copy of what you have currently instead of moving all the files to it and relying on the RAID1 protection (remembering that RAID1 is not itself backup, just resiliency). Personally I would also look at getting a 4TB USB3 external disk as well and making a backup copy to that as well so you can store that somewhere else (drawer at work for instance) in case of fire/theft.

the plan is to store my current externals at a firends or familys house for the fire/theft scenario and then rely on the raid 1 to hold everything at home

i dont currently have a 'decent' laptop to edit off so its just thinking into the future if i was to get a laptop

what do you mean with raid one is not backup?

 

[memyselfandi]

the plan is to store my current externals at a firends or familys house for the fire/theft scenario and then rely on the raid 1 to hold everything at home

i dont currently have a 'decent' laptop to edit off so its just thinking into the future if i was to get a laptop

what do you mean with raid one is not backup?

RAID in any form is not backup, although there is a common misconception that it is as a RAID1 system will have two copies of your data. But if you delete a file by accident that that file will be gone from both copies immediately so it is not as if you can go to the second copy to get it back as it's gone from there as well. Hence not having a single instance of your data on the NAS device and instead also maintaining a copy on other independent media. What RAID1 does give you is the ability to still access your data if a single disk device fails (in the case of a two disk NAS) ... it doesn't protect from accidental or malicious deletions.

 

[Caged]

The 2 drive Synology units will allow you to store files on one disk and then copy them to the second disk every night. So you end up with the same storage space as RAID 1 offers you but you get some time to realise you deleted something.