Opinions on how to back up my NAS

[dugimodo]

I have a Qnap TS231 NAS with 2 x 4TB WD red drives in a striped array I use for most of my file storage.
I also have 2 x 4TB Seagate green drives that have been sitting in my gaming computer as a software dynamic disk backing it up once a week using a scheduled robocopy script.

Thing is I don't really like using the gaming machine for that purpose and it's the only PC I have with drive bay space to do it so I'm looking for some way to have it all happen without the PC being involved.
I put the 2 Seagate drives into a 4 bay USB 3.0 drive enclosure I have and plugged it directly into the NAS but that failed (after a few hours), I believe the enclosure is faulty and this last attempt at using it seems to confirm that.

Currently I have the 2 drives in a dual bay USB 3Dock which is not Ideal, they have to be formatted as individual drives and it's really slow. Currently it looks like it'll take about 4 days to do the initial backup of around 3.5 TB

So, any thoughts on how best to achieve this preferably using the 2 drives I already have? A new dual bay enclosure possibly with RAID functions?, 2 single enclosures for simplicity and price?, put the disks back in the PC and live with it?, a second NAS ?(pricey), find an old low power PC to use just for that?, something else?

I'm not concerned with separating the backup to another location, nothing on it is really that critical. I just like to have a backup to prevent me losing stuff due to stupidity on my part or a hardware failure. Don't bother suggesting RAID solutions, RAID is not a backup.

[wainuitech]

My

Same As I have here.

Use an old PC, can be low powered that can be hidden under a desk, cupboard outside someplace, doesn't need a KB/Mouse or Monitor, run either a Old OS like XP, or dedicated NAS software. One of mine has atom CPU + 2 GB Memory ( real grunt machine )

Theres a few free ones about, but I personally use the Free version of https://www.open-e.com/products/data...tware-v7-soho/ Download page https://www.open-e.com/download

The Free version takes upto 4TB of drives. You create a free account to get a licence number - that's it. The paid options allow you to add on more storage, but from memory you can get several free codes.

Its set up as a separate NAS storage and can be accessed like any other NAS. ( takes a little bit of setting up unlike the Store brought NAS software, but its all in the instructions).

Then on a computer set up sync program to sync what ever you want from one PC to the NAS. I been using EaseUS Sync, http://www.easeus.com/file-sync/works great, set it and then forget it. I've got mine setup so certain folders are monitored all the time, and any changes are sent to the NAS automatically, it's set to sync only one way.

Got the program installed on a Customers setup. They have a NAS, as well as a backup PC (actually has a Vista OS) , some of the staff access the NAS others Access the backup PC, there are Literally thousands of Photos and folders on both and both need to be kept in sync with one another.
Its not uncommon to have 3-5 people dumping their work or working on various files on one or the other all the time, and of course the software automatically syncs them both. Any changes to documents automatically sync, as well as any additions. (software is set to add/ sync, but not remove/sync files).

The First sync will take the longest time as it has to copy from one to another, but after that - really forget about it, unless you want to make the odd check now and then.

OK so maybe

[wainuitech]

Forgot to add in, the E-Open OS is installed on a flash Drive plugged into the rear of the computer, then has separate Hard Drives.

[gary67]

Been running Amahi on an old P4 for about 5 years solid as a rock sits in the garage gathering dust and chugging along.

[dugimodo]

Looks like pretty good software, another thing to add to my list of options. Something Else I'm considering is using my NUC running windows 10 to do it, but that means some kind of external storage device. Currently it's used as a media PC in the lounge but it's pretty efficient and quiet and I already have it. Another advantage is I can use the NUC to record TV once TiVo shuts down, unfortunately I can't seem to get anything but windows to recognise my Avermedia network tuner and it's software is not wanting to save files to a network drive but that's another issue for another day.

For my uses I only need a 1 way sync as a backup and prefer it to be scheduled rather than real time, maybe I'm thinking about this wrong but it seems like a real time backup would duplicate my mistake if I deleted something I shouldn't. All I want is something that can automatically duplicate all the files on the NAS at least once a week without any input from me most of the time and that it's easy to recover them from if the need arrives or the NAS is playing up (rare but it has happened). The old setup worked fine but requires the power hungry gaming machine to be running and is a little annoying if I'm gaming when it happens.

[wainuitech]

For my uses I only need a 1 way sync as a backup and prefer it to be scheduled rather than real time

As they say, Piece of cake:



Options are yours

[dugimodo]

EaseUS sync looks good, but I note the Qnap can backup using Rsync and the software yourself & Gary suggest both seem to have Rsync support. If I could get that to work there would be no need for any other devices to be running and the NAS could back itself up.

[b....]

What happens with these real time automatic backups if the source computer gets screwed, eg virus, cryptolocked, or just corrupted in some way?

Will the backup also suffer the same failure?

[dugimodo]

That's my concern too. It's why I have stayed with weekly scheduled backups so far.

[wainuitech]

What happens with these real time automatic backups if the source computer gets screwed, eg virus, cryptolocked, or just corrupted in some way?

Will the backup also suffer the same failure?

It can do, but with something like a cryptolocked event, it can go right through a whole LAN in a matter of seconds, so any PC, NAS what ever thats always connected can get hit. The only real safe way is when the backups are not physically connected to a LAN / Device OR even online storage. AND what usually happens is people forget to reattach the backup drives & do backups - so they never get done.