The economics of NAS servers and other backup options

[lunardigs]

If you're interested in a security camera system, take a look at https://www.zoneminder.com/
It's FOSS and I'm pretty sure it's been made into a plugin for FreeNAS.

[AdvancedFollower]

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?

The lower-end Synology or QNAP devices are perfectly adequate for this. You only need the more powerful units if you want to transcode video or do other things that demand more power. Using them as plain file storage/backup devices doesn't require much CPU at all. Since they use low-power ARM or Intel CPU's, they are also very energy efficient, quiet and compact.

I have it set up so that my PC backs up to the NAS every day. The NAS also has a USB drive connected, which takes the backup from the internal NAS drives. The NAS also sends the backup to BackBlaze B2 cloud storage for long-term storage. I pay about $6/month for 1 TB. This is necessary because if the house burns down, is broken into, hit by an earthquake etc., the cloud backup is still safe in another part of the world.

[robotmonkey]

Synology is a good option. You might get a smaller model with two or four drives. It can do so much more than just backup.

Alternative is just to use couple of external drives.

The main difference would be that your Synology is a always on solution. You could schedule backups and everything would work automatically. You would also have good data redundancy. With external HDD you'd probably have to do some HDD switching and rotating manually. Always have several copies for backup with one copy always kept offline.

For long term archival BluRay is a good option. A double layer disc can hold 100G of data which is pretty good for backing up projects and such.

[chagzuki]

I'm not in a hurry to get this done, so it's been filed in my brain under "hope various information falls into place in order to make a smart consumer decision". However, what tends to happen is that I open a load of tabs on a variety of NAS servers on Amazon, I browse through a few reviews, and then at the end I still have no idea how the various models differ. It seems it will take a bit more of a proactive approach.

I've never run a RAID configuration; way back in 2001 I kept thinking about it, in the days when there was a desperate need to squeeze every last ounce of performance from a crappy old PC... but I could never justify the cost. So I've not gone down that rabbit hole. Am I right to assume that the standard setup on a 2 bay model is to run it in RAID for the purposes of data preservation on failure of a singe drive? And so with a 4 bay model you'd generally have 2 RAID configurations?

[lunardigs]

... Am I right to assume that the standard setup on a 2 bay model is to run it in RAID for the purposes of data preservation on failure of a singe drive? And so with a 4 bay model you'd generally have 2 RAID configurations?

Yes, that's basically it.
Upon setup, you should be able to choose your RAID configuration (RAID Level - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels ) and your choice will depend on how many drives are within the unit. Although, it would most likely be just one RAID--utilizing all available disks--not two separate RAIDs.

That said, the unit may offer an ability to run two separate RAIDs--possibly two mirror RAIDs whereby 4 disks are present.
In general though, you'd use all available disks in a single RAID as it concerns a consumer NAS.

Do I sound confusing?

[DJ Warmonger]

With 4 disks you can run RAID 10, as I do. So data is split between two disks (doubling capacity and speed), while each of disks also gets a copy.

This year I replaced 2 of my failed disks, but didn't lose any data since I use this configuration.

This is handy if you want to store large amount of rarely-accessed data, such as old music projects (but not only).

[lunardigs]

With 4 disks you can run RAID 10, as I do. So data is split between two disks (doubling capacity and speed), while each of disks also gets a copy.

RAID 10 is pretty cool ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nested_RAID_levels ). You get the best of both RAID 1 and RAID 0.

[jdnz]

Am I right to assume that the standard setup on a 2 bay model is to run it in RAID for the purposes of data preservation on failure of a singe drive? And so with a 4 bay model you'd generally have 2 RAID configurations?

on a 2-bay your RAID options are 0 (striping - zero redundancy, but increased speed as drives are read/written in parallel) and 1 (mirroring - you're protected against a single drive failure but speed will be the same as a single drive). Plus JBOD mode if your chosen brand of NAS supports it (single volume made by concatenating 2 drives - handy if you have a couple of different size drives, but again zero redundancy and speed still that of a single drive)

on a 4-bay you have more options - you could indeed build two, 2-drive raid0/raid1 arrays, or you could run raid01/10 to have the speed gain of raid0 but the mirroring of raid0. More likely you'd choose raid5 though, so data is written across all 4 drives with parity data, you're protected against a single drive failure but get 3/4 of the space usable (so better efficiency) and you get increased speed due to all 4 drives being accessed in parallel. Depending on NAS you may also have the option of RAID6 on a 4 bay (2 drive redundancy - but if you want 2 drive redundancy raid10/01 on a 4 bay will get you to the same place - raid6 is more useful on larger arrays)

if your chosen nas has a high speed ethernet port (so 2.5gb or 10gbe) and your desktop/laptop has one as well (or can have one added via a pci/usb adaptor) the speed gain from raid1/raid5 can be very worthwhile, if the NAS only has 1gbe ports then even a single drive will be faster than the network interface so you won't see those speed gains.

[chagzuki]

More likely you'd choose raid5 though, so data is written across all 4 drives with parity data, you're protected against a single drive failure but get 3/4 of the space usable (so better efficiency) and you get increased speed due to all 4 drives being accessed in parallel. Depending on NAS you may also have the option of RAID6 on a 4 bay (2 drive redundancy - but if you want 2 drive redundancy raid10/01 on a 4 bay will get you to the same place - raid6 is more useful on larger arrays)

if your chosen nas has a high speed ethernet port (so 2.5gb or 10gbe) and your desktop/laptop has one as well (or can have one added via a pci/usb adaptor) the speed gain from raid1/raid5 can be very worthwhile, if the NAS only has 1gbe ports then even a single drive will be faster than the network interface so you won't see those speed gains.

Thanks, that was extremely helpful. I'm still trying to digest all of this... think I'm getting there.

[yul]

I am all for local storage/backup. I stay away from the cloud aside for small personal stuff as a redundant backup.

Present strategy is around external classic platter HDD and burning DVDs.

I would sometimes backup sensitive stuff on both at the same time.

Platter HDD have longer storage lifespan than SSD, especially of there are only for backup and get used once in a while. I use diskfresh on my HDDs every year to refresh the disk so the magnetic imprint stays strong.

I am lookingn at RAID/NAS presently based on classic HDD.

You can keep all the permanently backed up elements separate around the house in case of fire etc..Your NAS might allow to remove HDD for this purpose.

[chagzuki]

I saw a power consumption stat online suggesting that something in the region of 35 watts would be normal. I wonder how much this varies depending on the type of usage one puts the NAS to, i.e. as a CCTV station it would be running all the time, but surely for more general data backup it would be in some sort of standby mode most of the time? If it were constantly consuming 35 watts that would add up to around £45 per year. Not terrible... if Apple's 2TB cloud storage is around £80 per year.

[jdnz]

Platter HDD have longer storage lifespan than SSD, especially of there are only for backup and get used once in a while. I use diskfresh on my HDDs every year to refresh the disk so the magnetic imprint stays strong.

with modern SSDs longevity is purely down to write cycles, so for backup I'd say there's nothing in it.

It's when you come down to $/tb and storage density per unit that spinning rust drives still win.

bitrot is a real thing though - so something 'smart' (NAS or DAS) with a suitable self-healing filesystem (btrfs) is really the way to go (also a lot less hands-on than your approach - I want my systems to look after themselves)

[chagzuki]

I still haven't taken the plunge. It looks to me as though synology's SHR system is super-handy, particularly as I'm a cheapskate, a novice, and I change my plans often, so adaptability in combining different size drives sounds ideal. I have some quite large old HDDs, not NAS-specific ones, and I'm wondering if there'll be issues in trying to use them as a cheap starting option: since I've never used RAID setups I don't know if I might expect firmware issues that make SHR impossible? Also, I don't know how much constant work the drives will be doing... e.g. if Time Machine is doing minor backups every hour, and the SHR management system is constantly optimizing how data is distributed, will using non-NAS old HDDs be inviting premature failure (and therefore pointless headaches)?

[chagzuki]

I finally got my NAS a couple of days ago, a low-tier 4-bay Synology. Kinda funny having the old clickety-clack drives running again... haven't figured out yet where I'd put the NAS in the long term... probably in the loft, if I had one.
I get the impression it's going to serve me well, though the form-factor seems archaic in this age. I'd imagine it won't be long before this type of device will be the size of a matchbox given already existing developments in ssds and processors.

I watched a few tutorials on backup methods and so far I've just tried standard Time Machine and Windows backup to the NAS, using the integrated encryption methods, rather than have the NAS perform the encryption duties. I'm not decided on the merits of encryption, and this being the first time I'm using it for these purposes it's astoundingly slow. It looks as though the initial Time Machine backup (of only 500GB or so) will take several days, and WIndows backup probably a similar time. So I'm thinking it makes sense to shift the processor load off the machines which are both used for music purposes, and onto the NAS. I'm not sure how that would work in the case of e.g. restoring the Mac via a Time Machine backup, and whether it might introduce problems.
Perhaps encryption is not actually a good idea in this instance... I'm thinking in terms of the scenario of burglary/theft it makes sense to simply put the NAS somewhere out of reach/view.

[jdnz]

I get the impression it's going to serve me well, though the form-factor seems archaic in this age. I'd imagine it won't be long before this type of device will be the size of a matchbox given already existing developments in ssds and processors.

3.5" form-factor is still totally relevant for large scale storage - all the 16-20tb drives are 3.5"

there are already smb/soho oriented options using either 2.5" ( synology ds419slim, qnap hs-453dx) or even all m.2 ( qnap tbs-453dx) - and of course plenty of rack mounted enterprise oriented all ssd options (synology fs line)

It looks as though the initial Time Machine backup (of only 500GB or so) will take several days, and WIndows backup probably a similar time.

shouldn't be that slow for 500gb in time machine - last time I did a full backup of about that much data it was maybe 4-6 hours. What's the connection from the mac to the nas - all wired, or do you have the mac on wifi?