Backup & Storage

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I need to sort out my backup and storage and have been looking at various options. I'm undecided as to whether I should or need to go to a NAS device with or without Raid and a separate external drive/s for the second backup copy. The alternative is to stick with two external drives, but that does not give me the easy option of centralised data that both my desktop and laptop can see.

If I go to a NAS system, I'm considering the Synology DS211 for a two disk NAS that will give me RAID or the DS111 if peoples opinion's are that RAID is not really necessary. Any views on these Synology NAS boxes?

So my questions really are:

1. Is a NAS box the best option and if so, do I really nead RAID?

2. Can anyone reccommend any external hard drives that they have used, that have a LAN port for easy network connection? This would also give me the option of having the second back up drive in an attached garage as a 'sort of' off site backup.

3. Would an e-sata connected external drive be better/quicker than a LAN connected drive?

Any comments/info would be welcome.
 
Whatever you do have at least 2 copies of your data on 2 separate devices and/or media.

Raid counts as 1, despite being able to mirror data you're still vunerable to deletions and corruption and some hardware failure. Do not trust a single copy of your data on raid.

I use synology kit and rate it highly, easily better than others I've used.

Personally I store my raw files on the nas (ds1010+ one of the big ones) in raid 5 (won't be possible with a 2 bay model) accessed by lightroom over gigabit LAN. then copy off to usb hard drives. I also burn a copy to bluray which goes off site. Factor in an offsite backup if you can.
 
Neil, accepting that Raid counts as 1, and that RAID 5 is not possible eith a 2 bay NAS, will RAID give me any advantage - single user and not a pro tog? If not, then the single bay DS111, with a seperate exterrnal drive may be the way forward. I'm also considering Blue Ray as the offsite backup for my RAW files.

Do you find the USB drives quick enough? I've got a couple of USB (which are also powered by USB), but find them slow.
 
One other thing to consider with a 2 bay raid device is lack of expansion, consider a 4 or 5 bay at least in my opinion and start it off with 2tb drives which would give you at least 6tb (roughly before raid overheads are factored in) before you needed to think about upgrades.
 
Neil, thanks for all the info.

Not sure about the 4 or 5 bay NAS and drives; bit more than I want to spend at the moment, so I'll probably just go with a DS111 single bay NAS and USB external. Any recommendations on makes of external USB drive or exterrnal caddys for me to add my own drives? I like Samsung drives, but not sure if you can get them as complete external drives.
 
I can second using Synology gear. Not sure about RAID, I'd go with NAS, backed up to eSATA HD via the Synology [you can setup multiple backup HDs on the synology boxes, so you can rotate between offsite/onsite] and lastly a cloud option like Carbonite.
 
The saying is

"if your data doesn't exist at least 3 times then it doesn't exist at all!"

Personally id try to keep things simple and just use USB / firewire / esata drives

Have a separate hard drive in your PC (assuming your on PC not mac) just for documents photos etc you want to back up.

Then have another HD the same size attached to your pc via USB/Firewire/esata and do backups maybe twice a week to it automatically using something like sync toy maybe.

Then get a portable USB drive again the same size as your other 2 drives and once a month create a complete backup of the internal drive. Then take this either to work, parents house, daughters house, wherever as a proper off site backup.
 
I have a similar system to what Ben has just described, only i back up far more often and use Carbonite for offsite backups aswell.

When importing images through lightroom the option is their to have a second copy done at the same time, i cant see any reason why not to, if you have a decent spec machine and reasonable speed hard drives you wont even notice a backup running in the background every couple of hours.
 
Personally I think the key to any solution is multiple copies in more than 1 location.

The original copy should be on your main PC.

A 2nd copy should be backed up to your NAS drive

Using RAID 1 is a good idea (making a 3rd copy) however bear in mind that if the primary drive begins to fail the data corruption can be replciated to the 2nd drive as well.

Ideally the 3rd copy should be physically separate from all the others. So either cloud based of perhaps an external drive you bring on site to resync but then lives somewhere else.

Every few weeks I back up my photos to an external drive and take it back to my family home and copy it onto a PC there - so it's physically removed from the other copies.
 
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