Simple backup strategy

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GardG
Posts: 6
youtube meble na wymiar Warszawa
Joined: Wed May 19, 2021 7:42 pm

Simple backup strategy

Post by GardG »

Hi all
I'm on the verge of buying a Lockerstor 4 for my office, but I'll need to factor backup into this as well, so I'm trying to figure out a reasonable and above all easy and simple solution.

I'll be starting out with 2x8TB in RAID1 in the NAS, then expanding to a 3 or 4 disk RAID5 later on. It will store various project assets and backups of our laptops.

The backup system needs to be so simple that it actually gets used, but I'd like to have at least one copy that's manually synchronised – I'm worried that if everything happens automatically, there's a slight risk that malware/ransomware etc might spread to all backups. (The only remote access to the NAS will be through VPN so this is highly unlikely, but you never know …)

One possibility I've considered is having two USB drives, one at home and one at the office, which could swap places every few days. They'd be synced with the NAS using the front panel button. It's simple enough, but if when I expand the NAS' capacity it'll become too large to fit in a single USB drive, and this system would become cumbersome.

Another possibility would involve backing up to a drive (or second NAS) at home via Rsync, and to a drive (or DAS) at the office manually (front panel button etc). The backup at home would protect against burglary, fire or power surges at the office, while the manual backup at the office should be safe from malware. This solution also avoids having to physically move drives, but adds a little complexity. I don't have the budget for a second NAS at home now, but I could probably just use a drive and a Raspberry Pi connecting to the Lockerstor over VPN and running Rsync. It doesn't need to be fast.

Any thoughts or better ideas? Would prefer to avoid paying for cloud backups – it adds up quickly, for 8TB I take it Backblaze would cost $480/yr, I'd rather put that towards hardware I can repurpose later.
ilike2burnthing
Posts: 379
Joined: Thu Apr 09, 2020 8:01 pm

Re: Simple backup strategy

Post by ilike2burnthing »

GardG
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed May 19, 2021 7:42 pm

Re: Simple backup strategy

Post by GardG »

That's also an interesting option! Instead of expanding to s 4-disk RAID5, I could use a 3-bay RAID5 for hot storage and additional archive drives for cold storage. The backup of the hot storage could then fit on a single drive.

I could also use MyArchive drives instead of USB drives for full NAS backup, but I guess that would have to be triggered through the web interface, so would lose the front button convenience. No big deal though.
ilike2burnthing
Posts: 379
Joined: Thu Apr 09, 2020 8:01 pm

Re: Simple backup strategy

Post by ilike2burnthing »

You can set automated local backup jobs to run on MyArchive volumes.

I've never used MyArchive, so I'm not sure if it's just limited to running at a set times, or if it can be configured to run on mounting, or effectively create this with a 'if scheduled backup is missed run at next available opportunity' setting but, if not, you could just set it to run every Friday at 1:15pm so you can plug it in at lunch and remove it after (or whatever day(s) and time you'd find most appropriate).

You could later add additional MyArchive drives either for different backups (e.g. media, active projects, old projects, contracts and emails, etc.), or for one kept onsite for daily/weekly backups, and another kept offsite (e.g. your home) for weekly/monthly backups.

You can also encrypt your backup drives with a paired USB key if you feel that level of security may be needed.
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