Sunday, April 24, 2016

Protecting data

We all have large amounts of data we need to store. Pictures, files, receipts, records, movies, music, all types of data. It needs to be stored and protected.

I recently updated my data storage. I installed a NAS to handle all of my storage needs. I originally tested the WD MyCloud, but that thing was a piece of crash ridden junk. After just two days, I had to return it. It was one problem after another.

I chose the QNAP TS-251 as my storage device. It is running with two 4 TB Seagate NAS ready drives that are configured in a RAID 1 configuration, to insure against a hard drive crash. This thing runs like a dream.

To guard against power failure, the NAS, my router, and my modem are all powered by a UPS that can power the system for 90 minutes after a power failure.

I have about 150 GB of movies, 25 GB of music, 40 GB of pictures going back to the 1970's, and 30 GB of other files. The NAS is also storing the video from my security cameras. Since I am only using about 300 GB of the 4 TB I have available, my storage needs are filled for the time being, except I want to build a bot more redundancy into the system.

I am also looking for an off site backup solution. I need to be able to back up about 300 GB of data from the NAS. I want it encrypted before it leaves my house, needs to backup at least daily, and I want to keep costs low.

Any ideas?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just out of curiosity, why the need for all of this? 8 Tb of storage seems a little bit excessive, as does NAS in a RAID config. Personally, I have a 1 Tb external drive that I back all my user files and configs and phone up to once a month. I use PGP to encrypt certain files on the drive and LUKS to encrypt the entire drive. Very secure and extremely portable.

Divemedic said...

A RAID 1 config gives you 4 TB of storage, as the drives mirror each other. I wanted a central server for all of my files that would eliminate the need for using USB drives to move files from place to place.

Anonymous said...

I've got a RAID with 3 TB working space, and it's filling up. Home video, pix, and full image backups take a lot of space.


For offsite storage, mail a drive to a friend?

nick

Anonymous said...

Sorry, missed the part about daily backups.

Send a NAS drive with cloud access to a friend? You host his, he hosts your...

nick