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Backup & protection plan


MrPlow

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Hi all, 

Very new to Xpenology & NAS storage overall, am hoping I can get some feedback on my backup/redundancy plan.

Also hoping I'm posting in the right area.

 

We're a 4 member household, multiple pcs & macs, mobile phones etc.

At this stage I've got 1.5TB of files on the NAS but seems to be growing (I'm sure that's happened to others lol)

 

Concept is shown below, essentially:

  • Iphones can be backed up to NAS periodically, and photos automatically captured to NAS folders using DS file (photo sync function, works for Android also). I've not tried the other photo app but DS file is working well
  • Family members can sync personal file folders to the NAS with Drive client (or just stash stuff on the NAS)
  • NAS is running snapshots every hour, with advanced retention policy 9days/weeks/months/year)
  • I'm syncing the NAS contents to a hot-swap HDD for on-site duplication
  • Thinking of cloud sync to Onedrive (family account offers 6TB for $129 AU pa including Office apps, similar to what I'm paying for Sugarsync 500GB!!)
  • Snapshot replication offsite to 2nd NAS, which I can house at my office

 

My thinking is:

Family stuff is safer on the NAS in terms of drive failure, I want the cloud sync because I'm a noob and don't yet trust myself/my XPE boxes, and the snapshot replication to 2nd NAS is pretty cool but also allows fast recovery if something dies elsewhere in the structure.

 

Any holes or suggestions to do things more simply?

Thanks in advance

 

 

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I'm going to venture to say that most any points of feedback are going to be of personal preference, as you are thinking through this pretty deeply.  So I'll share some opinions, and in no way are these critical of your approach:

  • Snapshot and replication are where it's ultimately at in this scenario.  This is protecting from ransomware and temporal data loss and should be the primary method for recovery.
  • When you start replicating, you'll find that hourly snaps are probably too frequent for the overhead.  Is your change rate that fast?  Also snaps are dropped and the data is not cumulative (i.e. if you create a file and delete it, if that happens before the snap it is gone. If that spans a snap it will be retained, but then if that snap is dropped due to retention the file is gone), so consider that in your snap frequency and retention plan.
  • Every time I've tried to use cloud storage when I have a snapshot target available, it makes no sense financially or from a performance standpoint. YMMV.
  • I'm a big fan of VEEAM Free to backup Windows and Linux clients.  You get baremetal and file restore in one, with incremental, self-managed file storage on the NAS. For me this is preferable over the "Drive" client functionality.
  • My non-portable PC's have their Windows Documents folder rehomed to their user's home folder on the local NAS.  You may not like this choice if you don't have 10Gbe.
  • With this much dependency on XPEnology, consider a test environment part of your data security strategy.  All this tech isn't helpful if it bricks on an update.
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24 minutes ago, flyride said:

I'm going to venture to say that most any points of feedback are going to be of personal preference, as you are thinking through this pretty deeply.  So I'll share some opinions, and in no way are these critical of your approach:

  • Snapshot and replication are where it's ultimately at in this scenario.  This is protecting from ransomware and temporal data loss and should be the primary method for recovery.
  • When you start replicating, you'll find that hourly snaps are probably too frequent for the overhead.  Is your change rate that fast?  Also snaps are dropped and the data is not cumulative (i.e. if you create a file and delete it, if that happens before the snap it is gone. If that spans a snap it will be retained, but then if that snap is dropped due to retention the file is gone), so consider that in your snap frequency and retention plan.
  • Every time I've tried to use cloud storage when I have a snapshot target available, it makes no sense financially or from a performance standpoint. YMMV.
  • I'm a big fan of VEEAM Free to backup Windows and Linux clients.  You get baremetal and file restore in one, with incremental, self-managed file storage on the NAS. For me this is preferable over the "Drive" client functionality.
  • My non-portable PC's have their Windows Documents folder rehomed to their user's home folder on the local NAS.  You may not like this choice if you don't have 10Gbe.
  • With this much dependency on XPEnology, consider a test environment part of your data security strategy.  All this tech isn't helpful if it bricks on an update.

Thanks Flyride, much appreciated for the comments. Sounds like snapshot replication (offsite) and cloud backup (docs) will be the keys for me.

 

Congrats on reaching 1,000 posts too, yourself and the various gurus are very generous with your time & expertise.

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  • 7 months later...

I used Google Drive for a long time as offsite Backup with HyperBackup for a long time and it works flawless. I switched to OneDrive a few month back because it is a better overall deal. You get Office for 5 PCs for around $60 and you get 5x 1TB storage on top. The only issue is that you cannot backup with HyperBackup directly to OneDrive. There are some workarounds but they are all ugly. What I do now is that I just backup to a local folder and then have that folder sync to OneDrive with CloudSync. That also works fine for several month but of course you need the local space to keep your important files more than once but storage is not really that expensive anymore.

 

Stephan

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