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I just read this article http://www.petemarovichimages.com/2013/11/24/never-use-a-raid-as-your-backup-system/, and now I am at a loss.

 

I fell that this guy doesn't know much about what he is talking about, but then again I could be that person. I was looking for affordable backup solutions for my two computers, however looking at the cost of a tape drive and its tapes, as well as problems with tapes, I decided a RAID backup solution would be a good idea (RAID 5 for me). If one disk fails, then I have a chance to rebuild it before another disk fails (though if both disk fail at the same time then I am SOL).

 

It seems that the author of the article above didn't think about using backup software in combination with a RAID storage solution. I don't plan on mirroring the disk, but rather have my initial backup followed by daily incremental backups, weekly, and then monthly. Not too many files change on my computer and I would like the opportunity to go back a few months if I accidentally delete a file.

 

I was also looking at the Drobo as a viable solution.

 

Any input? I've never dealt with raid before but I do know a little about it. Thanks!

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  On 19/04/2016 at 23:31, xendrome said:

Dropbox if possible (size limits) and then Raid Mirror or Raid 5 etc are just fine.

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I don't trust online storage solutions though, but I figured RAID would still be just fine. Unfortunately, if my house burns down then I am SOL but I'm not too worried about that at this time.

There is nothing special about RAID other than the obvious stuff you already know. It is not magic. It increases the reliability of a single point of storage by some percentage. The improvement is hard to calculate due to many factors. If you buy five drives from a "bad batch" for example, then two drive failures are almost as likely as one etc. (RAID is not meant for backup, it is designed to increase availability i.e. less downtime from a business point of view)

 

Adding a second backup is probably a more reliable technique than using RAID.

 

And a third off-site backup etc.

 

I have heard great stuff about BackBlaze and their openess is a breath of fresh air for the industry.

 

 

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For your backup solution you will normally want to insure it is not your primary storage on your main computer, connects externally to your computer and can be used to restore your backups if your computer suffers a complete failure.  Normally your backup device should have at a minimum RAID5, RAID6 or higher is recommended if you have at least 4 disks.  If you want to cover the loss of your physical media at home you can use an offsite backup solution.  For the advanced technical people this normally means using a colocated server or servers in a highly secured datacenter with a fast connection, terabytes of storage in RAID10 or higher that is heavily encrypted and only accessible via a VPN.  For the average person this would normally mean something simple like dropbox

BackBlaze does look interesting! I definitely do want something other than Dropbox, already had my identity stolen courtesy of the US so I may be persuaded by other providers, though I may just set up my own server somewhere else when I start a company in the next few years.

 

Thanks all!

  On 20/04/2016 at 01:35, SpeedyTheSnail said:

BackBlaze does look interesting! I definitely do want something other than Dropbox, already had my identity stolen courtesy of the US so I may be persuaded by other providers, though I may just set up my own server somewhere else when I start a company in the next few years.

 

Thanks all!

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Any U.S. company has to ultimately obey U.S. law although there will probably be some legal battles to clarify that in the next few years as the 2 giants of cloud storage Amazon and Microsoft locate more and more data centers worldwide. (and also come under European and Asian laws)

 

There are some German companies such as this one that imply  protection from Government prying via encryption:

 

https://www.hornetsecurity.com/en/services/encrypted-online-storage

 

Somewhere, sombody must be giving the problem a lot of thought...

 

 

 

while RAID has its uses as a technology, Ive been burned professionally with RAID5 losing more than 1 disk in the array rendering the volume dead on at least 3 occasions in the last 10 years. even with its hot spare if more than 1 go, your screwed, it cant rebuild when half the volume and data has been lost on dead/dying disks (any more than 2 in the array die, and it cant recover), its more common than you think. Thank the stars for TBUs. 

 

it is not bombproof and i certainly wouldn't want to use it as a permanent backup solution for storage in a device. For a repo to then be archived to tape/optical/online then fair enough, but no not a permanent medium, its just a bunch of disks set up in a set, in some ways more prone to failure than a single disk (disk firmware issue/design flaw/disks being identical make and capacity)

 

spread your backups across various medium, offsite, LTO (if it fits) and disk archive fine.

 

 

BackBlaze does indeed look interesting - thanks for the intro.

 

I use a QNAP to back up to, cheap and easy to use but also have an Office365 which is a PITA to use but gives an offsite.

Edited by Depicus

Reference:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backblaze

 

Backblaze is an online backup tool that allows Windows and Mac OS X users to back up their data to an offsite data center. The service is designed for end-users, providing unlimited storage space and supporting unlimited file sizes.

 

https://www.backblaze.com/

 

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/

 

The blog has some great articles including plans on duplicating their custom "storage pods"

 

 

That article is about think putting your data on raid 5 is a "backup"  Raid is NOT a backup solution..

 

But if you have data on disk A or array X (raid 0, 1, 5 whatever) and you want to backup this data to a different disk or array, be it raid 0, 1, 10, 5 6 whatever that is fine..

 

The point of that article is that thinking because your data has parity that you do not need an actual backup is wrong.  Raid is not a substitution for an actual backup.  But your "backup" can for sure reside on a raid array.

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^ This

 

Whenever I see the words RAID and Backup in the same sentence I always feel the need to make this point.

RAID can (depending on the type) give you both performance and/or redundancy.


However redundancy is NOT equal to a backup, it will hopefully mean you don't have to use the backup, but it isn't a replacement for a backup strategy

 

RAID is not something I'd deploy a production server without, but it wouldn't be RAID5 an any case these days (I'd do RAID10 or if I HAD to use parity based RAID, RAID6)

(I'm not sure I agree with the author of that article that RAID5 would be good for a video production scenario - yes the reads are quicker than standard disk, but the write performance on RAID5 even with a decent cache + BBU/FBWC is not that hot)

 

But as has been said backup to a RAID based device is fine, although you should have off premises backup too of course

(which if you're using any of the big providers - AWS/Azure etc. will be stored on array's of disks ;) )

 

The other thing of note is to test that your backups are actually recoverable. A non-tested backup/restore solution isn't a solution it's a liability.

 

Disks and Backup solutions are cheap, data and lost productivity is not.

 

 

I'm surprised no one has mentioned StableBit here, considering BudMan wore me down until I purchased it ;) Not quite accurate but it was a decision I don't regret.

 

I currently "backup" my systems like this;

 

Desktop -> Storage Server -> Amazon Cloud Hosting ( I will be adding another backup location when I finish configuring my network )

 

Anything in my drive pool J:/ is backed up. Anything that is "new" is backed up. Sadly, the cloud beta tool I use, only supports up to 10TB "virtual" drives/folders on the Amazon Cloud. I'm going to look into compressing and encrypting my files before I upload them to the cloud, just as an extra precaution. The more hoops and jumps people have to go through to get to my data, the better. Just imo. Ask anyone, I'm a nut job :p

  On 20/04/2016 at 08:45, DevTech said:

Reference:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backblaze

 

Backblaze is an online backup tool that allows Windows and Mac OS X users to back up their data to an offsite data center. The service is designed for end-users, providing unlimited storage space and supporting unlimited file sizes.

 

https://www.backblaze.com/

 

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/

 

The blog has some great articles including plans on duplicating their custom "storage pods"

 

 

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going to go look around the web and read some reviews about backblaze, but if they are good I think i'll switch to backblaze. Currently using carbonite but HIGHLY annoyed they still don't offer two factor authentication, when an online storage site more than anyone should be offering it. Add to the fact they even had the nerve to post a blog entry talking about turning two factor authentication on for other services.

BD lets be clear what a backup is... Just because you set the pool to store data on more than 1 disk in the pool -- this is NOT a backup!!!  This is more of a selective raid 1 if anything.. 

 

Anything that is real time sync of data is not a backup..  Lets say for example you have fileA on disk 1 of the pool, and its copied automagically to drive 2 and 3 in your pool..  That will protect you from even disks 1 and 3 failing, but it is not a backup.  Since for example you got hit with a ransomware that encrypted fileA.. Your copies on all 3 disks would be encrypted.  Or if you overwrote your data with different data on accident, etc..

 

A backup is copy of the data that is isolated and only created/updated/copied to this backup when you do the backup.  It would be up to you to make sure the data is how you want the data when you overwrite you backup copy.  Or up to use to use versioned backups.. Say copy of data that is 1 day old, one that is 1 week old, one that is 1 month, year, etc..

 

I use stablebit pool, to store my data - and yes I have it create multiple copies of my critical files.  But this is not a backup, this is just me using the features of the pool to not have to restore my critical files from backup on loss of a single disk in the pool.  Nothing more..   You still need to have backups..  Another scenario where this sort of system fails is fire or flood, or tornado takes you house to OZ sort of thing..  Does not matter how many disks or copies of said file are located in the house if its in OZ ;)   While you can have a backup in same location in case your disks in a pool or raid get zapped or server catches fire, etc.. Or get hit with something bad that overwrites/encrypts/corrupts them..

 

Your best option for backup of critical files is going to be multi pronged...  You can have raid/pool with multiple copies of files to help in the case of a hardware failure, but you should have a copy or 2 or 3 on other disks/systems/media while you also have a copy offsite for that worse case scenario as well.

 

What constitutes a critical file would be up to the owner..  I don't consider my media library critical, be it music or video - that can always be recreated.  Be it I rerip it - go to the store and repurchase with the insurance money because my house is gone, or just not even worry about it since it was just in my library and have already watched/listened too it and no longer interested, etc..   Critical to me is what can not be recreated - home movies/pictures being a prime example.  Pretty much anything else could always be recreated or gotten again.  This reduces the storage space needed for your actual "backup"..  There is a big difference in speed/space/cost requirements for backing up a few hundred gig or TB of home movies/pictures vs the typical multiTB media library..

 

You can go over the top like WarWagon with multiple disks in safety deposit box.. If your copy of season 2 of Gilligan Island is critical to you then you should back that up.. While to me its not worth the time/cost to do so..  But how do you put a price on the home video of your kids first steps or birthday party, etc.

 

If the OP is looking for stuff in the cloud as backup location.  Make sure its not written too on on file change, or if it does make sure it keeps revisions and goes back a ways so you can always get back your files if your files got encrypted/corrupted and you didn't notice for 6 months, etc..  I use amazon glacier as archive of my critical stuff, I also have crashplan and also copies of my movies/pictures on my webhost that has lots of space..  While there is also a optical copy not only in my house but my son's house 40 some miles away, etc..  And the files are always on multiple systems and disks in the house as well.  So while if beer got spilled on my storage machine I would still have a copy.  Or if the house gotten taken to OZ, there would still be multiple copies in multiple parts of the country with different companies, etc.

Oh, I know that. My storage box is just the focal point, makes more sense to have everything moved on the LAN, then hitting your router with 4 - 6 connections to the same service. It'd take forever.

 

Your critical files are the same as mine, as well as my mom's medical recordings, and legal documentations. I have physical copies of those, in a fireproof safety box. But I understand what you're saying.

  On 21/04/2016 at 17:27, BudMan said:

What constitutes a critical file would be up to the owner..  I don't consider my media library critical, be it music or video - that can always be recreated.  Be it I rerip it - go to the store and repurchase with the insurance money because my house is gone, or just not even worry about it since it was just in my library and have already watched/listened too it and no longer interested, etc..   Critical to me is what can not be recreated - home movies/pictures being a prime example.  Pretty much anything else could always be recreated or gotten again.  This reduces the storage space needed for your actual "backup"..  There is a big difference in speed/space/cost requirements for backing up a few hundred gig or TB of home movies/pictures vs the typical multiTB media library..

 

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This point is worth hilighting. I think every individual and corporation should categorize data into what is critical and what is not. There is also often a connection with security in that critical data is often the only data worth security attention, a point corporations actually tend to be obvivious to more than individuals.  When paranoid attention is focused on backup and security of all possible data, the critical stuff is not getting the proper proportionate allocation of resources!

 

That being said, there is a kind of third category somewhere between critical and replaceable which is "replaceable data that takes a lot of time or effort to replace"

 

  On 21/04/2016 at 17:27, BudMan said:

Another scenario where this sort of system fails is fire or flood, or tornado takes you house to OZ sort of thing..  Does not matter how many disks or copies of said file are located in the house if its in OZ ;)  

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Plus, you then risk having your data stolen by the wicked witch.

^ exactly ;)  Unless you have the good which on retainer that could happen for sure... heheheh

 

As to the third type of data "replaceable data that takes a lot of time or effort to replace"  Sure while you can replace your media by reripping all dvd's cd's on your shelf -- its possible you don't want to do that if a disk fails.  This is where parity can come in to play.  Yes there is cost involved in setting up something that has parity, it can help in removal of having to replace data because 1 disk fails.  How much money you put into not having to replace data be it from a full backup or just rebuild from the parity is up to you.

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