Samurai Jack
New Around Here
Okay, so I'm starting to get paranoid enough about my data to implement a proper backup scheme. I'm going to be doing this both for both my home and my parents' home network. This is for personal use in my parents' case, and call it "prosumer" use in my case. I'm a Software Engineer on the job about 12 years, and a hobbyist tinkerer in A/V and such (I hang around on AVSForum), so I'm generally tech savvy. I'm not a networking specialist, but I know enough to be dangerous (ask me about the time I tried to cut off my finger pushing Cat5e strands into a wall port with a drywall knife because I couldn't find the plastic tool thingy).
Right now, I'm kind of in line with this guy:
http://storagemojo.com/2007/05/30/home-raid-vs-backup/
BACKUP is my main concern. Pictures, source code, documents, nothing heavy duty. But since I'm designing this solution, I'm looking to throw NAS into the mix because I've always wanted to have some media streaming and some remote access to my data. Eventually having a movie library available to my home theater (dedicated room, digital projection) interests me, but is down the road. I don't see this as being a big thing for me. I'm one guy. I can take the BluRay disc itself from room to room, or with me. Kinda meh on complicating it for no real return-on-investments there.
In my youth, I've made the almost-mistake of RAID-1 as backup before. I understand exactly why RAID is not backup. To my thinking RAID is about (a) capacity and (b) uptime. Capacity is of interest to me. Uptime isn't terribly important. If I'm down for a day rebuilding a volume or something, so be it. I merely want to avoid technical catastrophes like drive failures and serious pilot errors.
What I plan is this. Let's imagine just one site for now. Let's say right now I have one PC only, a laptop. Let's say I work on my data on that laptop while at home and when away. It's my living data. I will sometimes be connected to my LAN via gigabit Ethernet, sometimes by wireless-N, and sometimes I'll be offsite and wanting to remote in for something (web access is good enough, VPN is of interest if it's possible).
There's an NAS. It houses backups of the data from my laptop. Additionally it houses some future store of larger media files (maybe there's some subset pulled onto my laptop for travel right now). Additionally it makes accessible to me, from some other random computer, some of the same...particularly my pictures, documents, source code, etc. I'm out of town and want to show friends vacation snaps, or I want to use the hotel lobby workstation to print a document I forgot. I also want to stream to say, music/video an XBox or some other set-top thing (UPnP) if I want to. Print server is nice for future, but my current color laser has Ethernet.
Now, I envision the NAS is backing up my laptop (and maybe a second laptop or other device down the road), but the laptop doesn't have terabytes of data capacity (I'd that laptop to be a lightweight employing a solid-state drive, not some crazy glow-in-the-dark AlienWare deck). And the NAS has some big media on it, perhaps. So finally there's likely to be a backup of the NAS itself...eSata or USB 3.0 or what-have-you, to another drive that I might go so far as to keep off site, or at least locked up or in a firebox or something.
Ignoring the obviously basic ~$100 NAS "home user" toys, there seem to be roughly two classes of devices (three going by the guide on this very site, but I'm simplifying). (1) 1-Bay enclosures with lower performance and (2) Multi-Bay enclosures with higher performance.
Now here's my question. Why don't there seem to be single-drive units with high performance? Is this purely a capacity issue? I don't really need the "R" in RAID and I don't even much like the added complexity and overhead of the controller.
If I can say to myself, "self, you'd be fine with 3TB" is there a SIMPLE 1-drive NAS out there that isn't lackluster in performance? It seems like I have to have a 2-bay unit to get to go-juice. And anyone who mentions buying a 2-drive unit only to implement RAID-0 to maximize capacity almost uniformly gets hammered in the forums with anything ranging from "madness I tell you!" to "you'll be soooooorry!" to "for shame, does your mother know what your doing with those drives?!"
I really can't see myself hot-swapping anything, ever. Not even for fun. What I can see myself doing is copying files around and streaming media...quickly...and enjoying the fact that it doesn't seem like a drive share that's tacked on to my computing solution with bubble gum and hot glue. I want it to kinda just hum and get that lovely "it just works" feeling when I access my data. And I want to know it's secure against the reasonable things I can expect to happen. I'm not too worried about the fire/flood/robbery/martian invasion/comet collision kinds of scenarios. If the universe wants my data dead that bad, I'm probably not going to stop it with consumer electronics.
So is there a SIMPLE but PERFORMANT device that gives me the NAS functionality while allowing a good way to hook up a device for scheduled BACKUP of the NAS itself?
Or is it the case that when getting into that kind of price territory, you might as well have a multi-drive enclosure for future proofing? Why RAID? Do I want or need it? Somebody explain why I'd care...either that 3TB is a silly small number in the grand scheme of the lifetime of this solution, or that not being able to rebuild automagically from a single drive failure is just too painful for words. Somebody help me understand why I'm right to lowball this or why I need to gleefully spend money on a mad-scientists looking server room full of blinkenlights and whirring fans (and yes part of me thinks that'd be inherently awesome...that part that doesn't have to work for paychecks).
Here's what I've considered, and I can easily see myself spending 300-400 for what works (thinking my folks site), or (at my site) up to about $700-$800 for a starting solution / scalable foundation that really does put a nail in this coffin for a long time to come and that ultimately saves over two or three bandaid approaches.
Is part of the puzzle that COMPLETE backup of the NAS is probably not necessary (crucial personal file sand photos, perhaps not big old media images of discs I own anyway)?
---- Lowball but Non-Toy, Basic video capability ----
PC --> Synology DS111 --> External eSata 3TB Backup (manual)
PC --> Synology DS111 --> Synology DS111
(scheduled, in a basement locked cabinet, etc,
or maybe really offsite atmy parent's...with theirs at mine?)
---- Somewhere in Between, but why RAID Really? Capacity? RAID-0? ----
PC --> Synology DS211+ --> USB 2.0 External Backup
PC --> Synology DS411+ --> External Backup Drive (partial backup only?)
PC --> ReadyNAS Ultra 2 --> USB 3.0 External Backup
PC --> ReadyNAS Ultra 4 --> ReadyNAS Ultra 4 (full on backup?)
---- High Performance with Futureproofing, Same RAID Questions ----
PC --> Synology DS710+ --> External eSata now, another Synology later??
---- Mega Ultra Supergood DoublePlus GeekCard Approved ----
---- Obviously Capable of a Media/Movie Jukebox ala AVSForums ----
PC --> Synology 1511+ RAID 5/6 --> ??????!
Me: longest post ever award.
You: appreciated if you weigh in on ANY of it, deserving of some kind of humanitarian award / donuts.
Right now, I'm kind of in line with this guy:
http://storagemojo.com/2007/05/30/home-raid-vs-backup/
BACKUP is my main concern. Pictures, source code, documents, nothing heavy duty. But since I'm designing this solution, I'm looking to throw NAS into the mix because I've always wanted to have some media streaming and some remote access to my data. Eventually having a movie library available to my home theater (dedicated room, digital projection) interests me, but is down the road. I don't see this as being a big thing for me. I'm one guy. I can take the BluRay disc itself from room to room, or with me. Kinda meh on complicating it for no real return-on-investments there.
In my youth, I've made the almost-mistake of RAID-1 as backup before. I understand exactly why RAID is not backup. To my thinking RAID is about (a) capacity and (b) uptime. Capacity is of interest to me. Uptime isn't terribly important. If I'm down for a day rebuilding a volume or something, so be it. I merely want to avoid technical catastrophes like drive failures and serious pilot errors.
What I plan is this. Let's imagine just one site for now. Let's say right now I have one PC only, a laptop. Let's say I work on my data on that laptop while at home and when away. It's my living data. I will sometimes be connected to my LAN via gigabit Ethernet, sometimes by wireless-N, and sometimes I'll be offsite and wanting to remote in for something (web access is good enough, VPN is of interest if it's possible).
There's an NAS. It houses backups of the data from my laptop. Additionally it houses some future store of larger media files (maybe there's some subset pulled onto my laptop for travel right now). Additionally it makes accessible to me, from some other random computer, some of the same...particularly my pictures, documents, source code, etc. I'm out of town and want to show friends vacation snaps, or I want to use the hotel lobby workstation to print a document I forgot. I also want to stream to say, music/video an XBox or some other set-top thing (UPnP) if I want to. Print server is nice for future, but my current color laser has Ethernet.
Now, I envision the NAS is backing up my laptop (and maybe a second laptop or other device down the road), but the laptop doesn't have terabytes of data capacity (I'd that laptop to be a lightweight employing a solid-state drive, not some crazy glow-in-the-dark AlienWare deck). And the NAS has some big media on it, perhaps. So finally there's likely to be a backup of the NAS itself...eSata or USB 3.0 or what-have-you, to another drive that I might go so far as to keep off site, or at least locked up or in a firebox or something.
Ignoring the obviously basic ~$100 NAS "home user" toys, there seem to be roughly two classes of devices (three going by the guide on this very site, but I'm simplifying). (1) 1-Bay enclosures with lower performance and (2) Multi-Bay enclosures with higher performance.
Now here's my question. Why don't there seem to be single-drive units with high performance? Is this purely a capacity issue? I don't really need the "R" in RAID and I don't even much like the added complexity and overhead of the controller.
If I can say to myself, "self, you'd be fine with 3TB" is there a SIMPLE 1-drive NAS out there that isn't lackluster in performance? It seems like I have to have a 2-bay unit to get to go-juice. And anyone who mentions buying a 2-drive unit only to implement RAID-0 to maximize capacity almost uniformly gets hammered in the forums with anything ranging from "madness I tell you!" to "you'll be soooooorry!" to "for shame, does your mother know what your doing with those drives?!"
I really can't see myself hot-swapping anything, ever. Not even for fun. What I can see myself doing is copying files around and streaming media...quickly...and enjoying the fact that it doesn't seem like a drive share that's tacked on to my computing solution with bubble gum and hot glue. I want it to kinda just hum and get that lovely "it just works" feeling when I access my data. And I want to know it's secure against the reasonable things I can expect to happen. I'm not too worried about the fire/flood/robbery/martian invasion/comet collision kinds of scenarios. If the universe wants my data dead that bad, I'm probably not going to stop it with consumer electronics.
So is there a SIMPLE but PERFORMANT device that gives me the NAS functionality while allowing a good way to hook up a device for scheduled BACKUP of the NAS itself?
Or is it the case that when getting into that kind of price territory, you might as well have a multi-drive enclosure for future proofing? Why RAID? Do I want or need it? Somebody explain why I'd care...either that 3TB is a silly small number in the grand scheme of the lifetime of this solution, or that not being able to rebuild automagically from a single drive failure is just too painful for words. Somebody help me understand why I'm right to lowball this or why I need to gleefully spend money on a mad-scientists looking server room full of blinkenlights and whirring fans (and yes part of me thinks that'd be inherently awesome...that part that doesn't have to work for paychecks).
Here's what I've considered, and I can easily see myself spending 300-400 for what works (thinking my folks site), or (at my site) up to about $700-$800 for a starting solution / scalable foundation that really does put a nail in this coffin for a long time to come and that ultimately saves over two or three bandaid approaches.
Is part of the puzzle that COMPLETE backup of the NAS is probably not necessary (crucial personal file sand photos, perhaps not big old media images of discs I own anyway)?
---- Lowball but Non-Toy, Basic video capability ----
PC --> Synology DS111 --> External eSata 3TB Backup (manual)
PC --> Synology DS111 --> Synology DS111
(scheduled, in a basement locked cabinet, etc,
or maybe really offsite atmy parent's...with theirs at mine?)
---- Somewhere in Between, but why RAID Really? Capacity? RAID-0? ----
PC --> Synology DS211+ --> USB 2.0 External Backup
PC --> Synology DS411+ --> External Backup Drive (partial backup only?)
PC --> ReadyNAS Ultra 2 --> USB 3.0 External Backup
PC --> ReadyNAS Ultra 4 --> ReadyNAS Ultra 4 (full on backup?)
---- High Performance with Futureproofing, Same RAID Questions ----
PC --> Synology DS710+ --> External eSata now, another Synology later??
---- Mega Ultra Supergood DoublePlus GeekCard Approved ----
---- Obviously Capable of a Media/Movie Jukebox ala AVSForums ----
PC --> Synology 1511+ RAID 5/6 --> ??????!
Me: longest post ever award.
You: appreciated if you weigh in on ANY of it, deserving of some kind of humanitarian award / donuts.
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