Economical Way to Backup Network Attached Storage (NAS)

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randl

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Home grown systems are getting to be such that, common storage is needed to be able to easily share photos, clips, and files, (Data) within the family. It becomes very laborious to "store" this data in various computers and run the risk of loosing some of it through disk failures and such. What I am thinking is to invest in an NAS system. This would maximize data availability and we can switch all our machines to SSD's which will make them faster and not worry about holding a lot of storage in any machine.
One question I have not been able to answer easily is "How to backup the NAS?"
Has anyone been able to find an economical solution? the cloud backup storage out there goes for about $10.00 per month per terabyte. Which, assuming the need for about 4 terabytes of storage will pay for a new NAS every 2 years. Or new HDD's for the NAS every 7.5 months.
So, how to backup the NAS? Or, live without it, or build a local backup as well?
 
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popatim
Ideally you want at least two backups because you don't want to be in a situation where you only have 1 copy of important data.
The best backups are ones that are easily portable and are not left connected to power. (you don't want the lightning strike that kills every drive in your NAS to kill your backup too)

Tapes are very good at long term storage and being over-written numerous times but the initial cost can be high.

USB storage is good but care must be taken when handling the drive if its a mechanical hard drive.

DVD's are cheap, last a reasonable length of time, but creating them can be very time consuming.

Backing up over the internet is limited to your internet speed but If you can find someone to share space with (you...
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TyrOd

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You would back it up to a large external hard drive attached to the NAS and then to second device off site with...A) a second external rive that you physically take off site, or B)Cloud backup provider that offers NAS backup and/or unlimited backup, or c) A second NAS set up at another residence(friend, relative, etc...)

They all have their own associated pros and cons.

A)A second external drive taken off-site.
- Obviously you'll need to periodically bring the drive back to manually back it up or you can rotate the 2 drives.
- A 4Tb external hard drives will run you about $150 on sale
B)Cloud backup
- Backing up 4TB on a 1Mb/s upload speed is going to take over a year, so you'll run a greater risk of losing your data in the mean time
- Some cloud backup providers offer a initial seeding service, though this will be expensive, so it sort of defeats the point of having the most inexpensive option.
- This is probably the least expensive option in the short term

C)An offsite NAS of your own.
- obviously this allows you the control and security of an off site backup without the downsides of cloud backup
- However, you'll obviously need to have this in a location with someone you can trust
- the cost involved can be as little as ~$200 for a 4Tb single drive "personal cloud' solution
 
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popatim

popatim

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Ideally you want at least two backups because you don't want to be in a situation where you only have 1 copy of important data.
The best backups are ones that are easily portable and are not left connected to power. (you don't want the lightning strike that kills every drive in your NAS to kill your backup too)

Tapes are very good at long term storage and being over-written numerous times but the initial cost can be high.

USB storage is good but care must be taken when handling the drive if its a mechanical hard drive.

DVD's are cheap, last a reasonable length of time, but creating them can be very time consuming.

Backing up over the internet is limited to your internet speed but If you can find someone to share space with (you backup to their NAS and they backup to yours) this might be the cheapest route.
 
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TyrOd

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+1 on this.
Tape, DVD, and sharing NAS storage with friends/family with free versions of backup software are all good options depending on the cost/time you have.
 
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