The economics of NAS servers and other backup options

[chagzuki]

I've had a long spell of not needing to worry too much about data preservation, but now it's becoming an issue again. The old days of burning stuff to DVD seem rather quaint, and I don't currently have an optical drive... perhaps I should get one.

Totally uncharacteristically I ended up with a Mac a year ago, though I have a Windows PC too... so whatever routes I go down will depend on whether I decide to stick to one platform. When I got the Mac I looked at Apple's cloud options and thought there's no way Apple is going to get more of my money... however, recently the cloud pricing halved (I think), and is perhaps a very good option. But it's limited to 2tb, and that only takes one so far.

I've never run a server... I have a vague idea of what's involved, and my general mindset in the past would be to DIY it, to learn the ropes and become a master. That sort of approach has worn a bit thin over the years, as I've lived through tech shifts that make skills redundant, and one finds oneself a novice again etc.. I'm not sure if it's worth the trouble... but it might be.

But how does it pan out in terms of total cost? Obviously the start up cost is significant, a couple of hundred quid of a NAS server... I have a bunch of old hard drives which presumably still work OK... then there's the energy cost, which tends to get overlooked. Realistically, how much is one spending on electricity to keep these things running?

[askoan]

I see NAS servers as current day use : being current data/backup or weekly backups.
I don't see the use of a NAS for long time backups, i mean it would be under exploited.
As I see it, long time backups and weekly backups are 2 different things : do you need both ?

[Etienne1973]

I backup via macOS TimeMachine on an non-NAS but decent external HDD. Additionally affordable but secure AFAIK: Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage as a second safety net.

[chagzuki]

I see NAS servers as current day use : being current data/backup or weekly backups.
I don't see the use of a NAS for long time backups, i mean it would be under exploited.
As I see it, long time backups and weekly backups are 2 different things : do you need both ?

Aha, a reply at last! In fact two in a row.
I must say, I hadn't really made that distinction... now that you mention it I'm thinking long-term backups would most likely be a way to store stuff that you want to remove from your working hard drive... which I suppose might come to be necessary, though probably not in the immediate future.

I was more thinking of an on-going backup of my current system drives, for more than one computer.
And currently I don't seem to generate that much data... I would imagine that 8 terabytes of backup storage would keep me going for a very long time, probably for years.

I'm also concerned about burglary/theft. I like the idea of syncing with a friend in a different geographic location and having my files encrypted on their server.

I'm currently using Time Machine on the Mac with external HD but as yet nothing on the Windows machine.

[jdnz]

I must say, I hadn't really made that distinction... now that you mention it I'm thinking long-term backups would most likely be a way to store stuff that you want to remove from your working hard drive... which I suppose might come to be necessary, though probably not in the immediate future.

NAS for local/fast/continuous backup (time machine is supported on all the major NAS vendors) - then some second level off-site backup for disaster recovery (in case of total loss due to burglary/fire/natural disaster)

The nice thing with a NAS is since it's on 24/7 it can happily sit and chug away pushing to your preferred second level backup platform (backblaze/glacier/whatever) - without tying up your main workstation

Other option if you don't like the cost of the commercial backup providers - buy a 2nd NAS, locate it at a friend/family's house and use the NAS vendor's remote replication tools to just mirror your primary NAS - more upfront cost but no ongoing cost. Ideally do a deal with them for a 'I'll replicate yours if you'll replicate' mine (if you've got techy friends/families who have NAS hardware of their own)

You can cut that upfront cost by down-speccing the raid level of the off-site (so maybe run raid5 on your local/primary but raid0/jbod at the remote) if you can live with the risk

[lunardigs]

You can always take a used PC and turn it into a NAS. In fact, stuff like openmediavault or FreeNAS make it pretty trivial to setup and maintain.
In terms of hard drives, there are very energy efficient ones offered for NAS and security camera systems. Last I checked, Seagate offers application specific drives up to 18TB.

In terms of hosted solutions, I don't think there's anything--certainly storage space-wise--which could compare for cost effectiveness.
That said, if you wish to access your NAS remotely, the above distributions can enable that.

If it were me, I'd definitely spin my own storage solution. Good news is there's loads of free tools to enable anyone wanting to do this.

[mixtur.se]

I must say, I hadn't really made that distinction... now that you mention it I'm thinking long-term backups would most likely be a way to store stuff that you want to remove from your working hard drive... which I suppose might come to be necessary, though probably not in the immediate future.

NAS for local/fast/continuous backup (time machine is supported on all the major NAS vendors) - then some second level off-site backup for disaster recovery (in case of total loss due to burglary/fire/natural disaster)

The nice thing with a NAS is since it's on 24/7 it can happily sit and chug away pushing to your preferred second level backup platform (backblaze/glacier/whatever) - without tying up your main workstation

Other option if you don't like the cost of the commercial backup providers - buy a 2nd NAS, locate it at a friend/family's house and use the NAS vendor's remote replication tools to just mirror your primary NAS - more upfront cost but no ongoing cost. Ideally do a deal with them for a 'I'll replicate yours if you'll replicate' mine (if you've got techy friends/families who have NAS hardware of their own)

You can cut that upfront cost by down-speccing the raid level of the off-site (so maybe run raid5 on your local/primary but raid0/jbod at the remote) if you can live with the risk

Hard drives are relatively inexpensive so I wouldn’t bother. My setup is a symbology plus two external drives all with the same size.

Active projects and samples are on my PC while archives goes to a symbology NAS. Every two weeks I backup both to the external drives which are stored reasonably separate.

I’ve had the solution for 3 years now so the cost per month is reasonable and I maintain full control. A cloud backup is an option but the cost for terabytes of data can be huge and the transfers would hog my internet connection.The first sync would be huge, like 12 tb in my case.

[mixtur.se]

.
I’ve had the solution for 3 years now so the cost per month is reasonable and I maintain full control. A cloud backup is an option but the cost for terabytes of data can be huge and the transfers would hog my internet connection.The first sync would be huge, like 12 tb in my case.

Btw, the NAS has mirrored drives so in total I have 4 drives plus the one in my PC.

I also use the NAS for some other things, like streaming video plus it handles file history duties etc. There are tons of cool apps for the synology NAS. It may not be cost effective for backups though if all you need is a copy of files (just use an external drive).

[chagzuki]

You can always take a used PC and turn it into a NAS. In fact, stuff like openmediavault or FreeNAS make it pretty trivial to setup and maintain.

What are the pros and cons of going this route? I see Synology include 'Complete surveillance solution' in their product blurb... there's quite a lot of separate elements to consider... I'm feeling the appeal of something which makes it all easy, but then I don't know how difficult it would be to create a DIY solution with an old PC. What OS would it make most sense to run on a DIY option?

[chagzuki]

Oh, hang on, those actually are operating systems rather than software that runs within Windows or Linux.

[Etienne1973]

Depending on your Mac/PC preferences vice versa. Windows PC data backup into a disk image or separate partition NTFS formatted on your Time Machine HDD?

[lunardigs]

Oh, hang on, those actually are operating systems rather than software that runs within Windows or Linux.

Right; you can take a spare PC, plus a couple drives--or just one, I don't think RAID is obligatory, albeit best--then install a turnkey NAS OS. Moments later you should be able to access it via web browser and begin exploring and using it.

The pros:
- low startup risk
- low cost possibly too
- open source, with all that's good about that
- premium features and power without a premium price
- repeatable & disposable
- not a unique platform, so there's a community of users who have a shared interest--a lot of other users, in fact, worldwide

Cons:
- you're the technician, which might be a pro
- not ideal as could be designed by a specialty brand--speaking mostly in terms of the hardware
- open source style support, so no customer service line/email you can ring

[jdnz]

What are the pros and cons of going this route? I see Synology include 'Complete surveillance solution' in their product blurb... there's quite a lot of separate elements to consider... I'm feeling the appeal of something which makes it all easy, but then I don't know how difficult it would be to create a DIY solution with an old PC. What OS would it make most sense to run on a DIY option?

we're in the process of migrating our cameras from Unifi Video (after ubnt did the dirty and announced going forward you HAD to use their NVR hardware rather than running the NVR on commodity servers) to Synology's surveillance system - works well, much better than unifi video.

That's probably one of the big selling points for QNAP/Synology - their NAS os has a pile of different things you can run on it (mail server, web server, CRM system, dropbox replacement - heaps of options), all with minimal tech knowledge required - and that's really their selling point, basically a turnkey 'server in box' solution

I have run FreeNAS, and admin a pile of Unix servers, and yes, you absolutely can do all this with a generic Linux distro, and often do it better (for example synology still run samba 4.4 - miles behind the current 4.13 release - and the old version is an issue if you want to run smb multichannel). But doing it 'from scratch' on standard distro does require a lot more knowledge, and integrating everything can be a battle.

[chagzuki]

When Synology mentions a 'surveillance solution' am I right to think they're talking about software which is mainly about giving options as to how the data is stored/managed coming from any camera source, and what sort of notifications to send if e.g. movement is detected? Once camera technology got to a certain level it seemed that wifi cameras became marketed a general purpose rather than specifically for surveillance or webcam usage... so I'm guessing one could use an assortment of cameras from different brands, i.e. general wifi/ethernet cameras? I've never used a cctv-type set up before. I did have a cheap wifi/ethernet security camera in the past but I never used it beyond some initial tests, so I didn't become particularly familiar with the system.

[jdnz]

When Synology mentions a 'surveillance solution' am I right to think they're talking about software which is mainly about giving options as to how the data is stored/managed coming from any camera source, and what sort of notifications to send if e.g. movement is detected? Once camera technology got to a certain level it seemed that wifi cameras became marketed a general purpose rather than specifically for surveillance or webcam usage... so I'm guessing one could use an assortment of cameras from different brands, i.e. general wifi/ethernet cameras? I've never used a cctv-type set up before. I did have a cheap wifi/ethernet security camera in the past but I never used it beyond some initial tests, so I didn't become particularly familiar with the system.

yes, they provide the NVR side of things to manage the footage storage, motion detection (if not using on camera motion detection ), alerts etc.

It's pretty hardware agnostic with a staggering list of supported cameras ( https://www.synology.com/en-nz/compatibility/camera ) - at least some of the d-link wifi cameras are listed (forget about nest/arlo - they're locked into the vendor's cloud system)

We're running a mix of unifi g3, dahua and acti cameras (all wired/POE) - works fine. Just be aware you only get a 2-camera license included with the NAS, you need to purchase additional camera licenses after that (about us$50 per camera)