Creating a backup solution (inc. off site) to large amounts of data..?

[Technique]

"That's not large". Agreed. One (wo)mans large is another (wo)mans small, but I'd argue that this is going to be more than just your average PC user while not as large as some of you and while Plex & my media library is going to be a large part of this & BudMan has helped me massively, I know it wont be as large as his.

 

But nevertheless, onwards........

 

If/when I get things sorted at my own home, I'm wanting to shift away from inserting a USB drive (be it passport or desktop kind of hard drive) and then manually backing up to it.

 

What I'm thinking of is something like this. NOTE: It doesn't have to be a 4-bay. That's why I highlighted something.

 

I don't know a lot about this area so please correct me if I'm wrong but my thinking is something like that link connected to my router & some kind of auto-backing up system whereby my PC is backed up direct to that.

 

Not only that but that's also what my media library will be stored on - all my digital movies & music which (if I've understood right) would enable people not at this address to watch whatever movies I have (currently my PC needs to be turned on for that to happen and the movie needs to be in the folder that Plex is pointing to - which if the movie is on an external drive is no good).

 

All this is well and good but then I'll need a back up of that as well - and I'm thinking off site.

 

I should add in here right now that I'm not a fan of 'the cloud' and even more than that I am not a fan of subscriptions to the point where I will actively avoid them unless 100% necessary and by 100% necessary that doesn't equate to you thinking it's a good idea, it equates to there being literally no other option.

 

The only place off site I'll have access to is my mother's home.

 

Now what I don't really want is to have to manually insert a hard drive via USB and painfully copy over everything. I want things automatic as it eliminates forgetfulness.

 

How would you go about that? Would I need to buy a second NAS enclosure, have this connected to my mothers router with same capacity hard drives inserted?

 

Is there any other way of doing this or is that really the best way?

 

 

 

CAPACITY.....

 

Finally a note on roughly what we're talking.

I have an 8TB external which is full of blu ray movies.

Another 4TB external which is mostly full of movies and some music.

6TB internal which is full of movies and music.

A couple 2TB drives which are mostly full - various documents, pictures, some music etc.

 

 

So very very very approximately, let's say 20TB. That could/will reduce if/when I give it a spring clean.

It would certainly reduce further if I was able to compress the movies, however my PC is 11 years old and to do a single movie requires setting it up through the night and at this stage I'm not 100% sure on the settings to be using - and I don't want to delete the main file until I'm 100% sure.

 

 

 

Anything else you need to know - just ask.

 

 

[Technique]

Should I have asked in a different section of the board?

 

A board like this, I'm sure there's more than 1 of you who've orchestrated such a setup.