Noob - Best way of keeping media backed up?

gam3r

gam3r

gam3r

Soldato
Joined
20 Jun 2005
Posts
3,826
Location
London..
Hello,

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this but here goes anyway:

I have a HP Microserver at the moment which has a single 2TB drive installed that contains various media, home movies etc(approx. 70% of the drive is full). I've been walking a tightrope by not really having any of it backed up but as the prices of HD's have been ballooning I haven't got around to doing it.

Now I'm finally thinking of just shelling out for the extra 2TB drive, while I would just plain love to use it for storage it will purely have to be just for backup purposes.

The Microserver is running ubuntu server and I was thinking of just setting up a script that does an rsync between the two drives as I don't really want to mess around with RAID as I really have no clue where to start with that.

Are there any better suggestions on how I can keep my stuff backed up? I'm guessing cloud backup is a silly idea?
 
If you only want to use the two disks, then you're quite right not to consider RAID. RAID cannot be considered a backup solution because if you delete a file accidentally then it will go from both disks.

I would suggest putting your second drive in an external enclosure and then creating a cron job to rsync between the two (as you suggested). I would use an external enclosure for the extra freedom in terms of taking your data with you if required (maybe popping round to a mates/family members house and want to show them those holiday pics or something). Also (rightly or wrongly), I'd feel more comfortable with the fact that the second drive is running on a different power supply.

If you can afford a third drive then IMO the best option really would be to get a 2 disk RAID 1 array going in Ubuntu (easily done with software, don't bother with the card on the mobo) then backup that array to an external drive.
 
I'd agree the above sounds perfectly adequate. Removable is key as there's no point keeping a backup in the same room as the original data. Pipe bursts and floods the room - what you gonna do?

Another option with less admin overhead would be to use a NAS enclosure for the backup disk as opposed to a directly attached USB or eSATA one. The advantage of this is it can sit in a physically separate location permanently but is always available to the media box for backup/restore.
Nas boxes cost a bit more than USB or eSATA, but imo are worth it. Most support rSync or similar to get the backup working. Somethinhg along the lines of the Netgear ReadyNAS boxes would be what I'd be looking at.
 
Last edited:
My recent experinces with cloud backup would suggest that it would take eons to actually initially upload that much data

2 weeks and I've managed just under 300Gb's.. that's on Virgin cabled 50Meg package. It's your upload speed and capping that you have to contend with as a home user.

As a first line backup I would go with the straightforward rsync to a external portable device. Be it usb, Esata or network attached.

Just bear in mind as you expand your data pool on the N40L, you'll have to double it with an extra drive of the same size for redundancy (backup)
 
Thanks guys,

I was thinking. My router Asus NT-56U has two USB ports, so if I got an enclosure like suggested I could possibly hook it up to rsync over the network? My network is completely Gigabit as well so should be speedy enough to do so I think.
 
gam3r said:
Thanks guys,

I was thinking. My router Asus NT-56U has two USB ports, so if I got an enclosure like suggested I could possibly hook it up to rsync over the network? My network is completely Gigabit as well so should be speedy enough to do so I think.
Click to expand...

Hear what your saying ... but hooking an external HDD to a router via USB = slow transfer speeds

To be honest ... most routers with USB are not really up to it. Yes it will work.... don't get me wrong but I'll be much surprised if you get blistering speeds even with a Gig network structure :)
 
If your doing this ^^ best thing to do is plug the USB directly in, take a full copy, then just rsync the changed/new files daily in a background process
 
It depends what you're saving. rSync will sync changes so slow transfers are fine if you do the initial sync directly as suggested above, and only update small amounts of data, the odd MP3 download.
However if you download and save HD movies or full DVD rips, even the differential traffic will be fairly hefty. In this scenario where you're updating GBs at a time there's no substitute for a proper NAS enclosure.

Infact for arguments' sake, given the price difference between a decent eSATA/USB3 enclosure and a gigabit NAS enclosure; I can't ever see there being any reason to bodge it.
 
I hear what you're saying :), sounds like a sensible option, but for me that means I have to invest in another NAS as my microserver in effect is my NAS :)...
 
gam3r said:
Hello,

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this but here goes anyway:

I have a HP Microserver at the moment which has a single 2TB drive installed that contains various media, home movies etc(approx. 70% of the drive is full). I've been walking a tightrope by not really having any of it backed up but as the prices of HD's have been ballooning I haven't got around to doing it.

Now I'm finally thinking of just shelling out for the extra 2TB drive, while I would just plain love to use it for storage it will purely have to be just for backup purposes.

The Microserver is running ubuntu server and I was thinking of just setting up a script that does an rsync between the two drives as I don't really want to mess around with RAID as I really have no clue where to start with that.

Are there any better suggestions on how I can keep my stuff backed up? I'm guessing cloud backup is a silly idea?
Click to expand...

The problem you have is that by just using rsync you are in effect just creating a mirror of your data. This is in essence the same as raid 1 but with the second drive being remote rather than in the same machine. This will protect your data in the state is was the last time rsync ran but would not give you a historical backup. For that you would need to add a wrapper script to handle separate folders for each day/week etc. Usually you would backup and then compress to save space but with video, the compression is usually already done meaning you are unlikely to get much space back from using it.

Take a look at rsnapshot. It creates snapshots of changes based on an initial full backup. Ideally you would have a second disk in a remote server and mount a NFS share of its volume on your Prod box and use that mount for the snapshots. Failing that you have the second drive in the same machine but you inherit the same location risks.

RB
 
TBH that is exactly what I do with my homeserver. Ive got 6 drives 3 of them are active and the other 3 mirror the first set daily using robocopy. I dont mind that ive not got a historical backup as most of my data is media and if I delete it its because I dont want it anymore and tbh the same is true of my files. Nice easy system to setup and work with.

Sounds to me like you need to invest in 3 drives which will add you redundancy and storage.

hawker
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom