Looking for Backup Strategies

[tonylima]

I understand that RAID is not a substitute for backups. I'd like to hear strategies you've developed for backing up your QNAP NASes. Specifically, I'm looking for advice about hardware (tape v. disk v. cloud, for example), software, and off-site storage. Backup frequency is also important.

I have three QNAP NAS. The TS-431P3 has 28tb. The TS-451+ has 20 tb. I've looked at a few cloud sites. This much data gets expensive.

If you're curious, my wife and I use technology intensively. Her interests are photography and video (recording and streaming). Mine are writing and number-crunching (economics variety). We are both retired meaning we have plenty of time to create new content.

Thanks in advance to everyone who takes the time to give me some ideas.

Best,
Tony Lima
Silicon Valley

[tonylima]

Update. I have now read "Daily Incremental backup with rsnapshot." Thanks to everyone who contributed. Would appreciate other suggestions.

[dolbyman]

If the backups are too large for a single large external HDD, then backup Multidisk NAS, multidisk DAS, etc come into play.

[Moogle Stiltzkin]

sometimes your nas can be backed up by an external drive, but if the source is too big, you may need other alternatives.

i find that cloud backup paid services tend to be highly expensive for huge amounts of data. at this point i felt it was cheaper just to buy my own drives and backup locally myself (i also don't have to worry when the cloud backup service will decide to change their policy and do a rug pull with my backup). If you have another premises with internet, you could potentially setup your own offsite backup for remote backup if you can set it up nicely (use vpn for example).

i posted some of my backup strategy here, although my requirements are different than yours
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=164726


yes backups are also part of the total cost when you plan to make sure the data you store is kept as safe as possible. so thats why i did not get bigger storage more than i need, and i can afford to buy the backup for it as well.


here you can use this raid calculator

like for example 4 hard drives with 10tb capacity each is a total of 32tb USABLE space
https://www.qnap.com/en/selector/raid-s ... ,10&raid=5

so to be enough space to fully backup your nas, you would need something like this.

A seagate ironwolf NON pro 10tb cost about $249.99 each. So you need 4 of them
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/wbsmP6 ... 0000vn0008

And some sort of device to put them into. Whether it is another NAS, or perhaps something like a TL or TR series box (keep in mind the tl 4 bay box i use for creating raid5 using qts, is highly dependent on a nas to setup the raid5 most part. A full nas option would be a bit more flexible as a backup candidate)
https://www.qnap.com/en/product/series/expansion


as for lto tape backups i think it was said you would need to be backing up HUGE amounts of storage probly in excess of 50+ tb in that ballpark before it makes sense to be spending on that you can do the math to figure that one out. (tldr; the initial cost for lto tapes is expensive, but the running costs for buying the lto tapes themselves which can store lots of data is in fact more cost effective compared to convenientional HDDs used in NAS. Not to mentioned that LTO reliability is much better for storing data long term, you can google this up and discover that lto reliability for storage is quite good if thats a concern)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evV8SntMFpM



the cloudbackup services tend not to like or support usage with a nas. and the ones that do tend to be crazy expensive. you can do your own research on that if you wish

Best Online Cloud Backup 2021 | Backblaze vs iDrive vs Carbonite vs Crashplan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn8hbF5nSRw


this one looked interesting, but i'm not sure if it's relevant still? basically it's a work around to get your nas to work with a cloud backup service, by tricking them to not know the source is a nas that has a ton of storage. it's basically like abusing all you can eat buffet

$10 Unlimited NAS Cloud Backup 2019 - QNAP Crashplan Tutorial
https://youtu.be/-dZaTRKfETg

Brian Luria
5 months ago (edited)
Hey man! I'm late to the party. I'm setting this up but they've dumped the NAS shortcut off the desktop which is making it much more difficult to create the backup set. You have any simpler solutions (than smb and trying to find it and making sure its always connected etc)

*Looks like using docker and installing crashplan pro that way might be the way to go. Still researching

Hank Du
1 year ago
This method no longer works - i tried it just now following everything. its just backs up the folder but not the content.


Edlerer
1 year ago
any update on this? or solution you went with?


upfdph
1 year ago (edited)
@Edlerer try creating a folder underneath the top level folder. Select it, and then anything (files or folders) in that worked for me.

this guy investigates into backing up nas into cloud backup services

Cheapest Way to Backup Your NAS to the Cloud? NFAQs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpNwcdXF87c

in the backblaze calculator i saw him using to backup 40tb, the 12month cost is like roughly 2438.85 usd.

For that kind of cash, i rather just buy the drives and the enclosure and backup locally myself, or like i said, store it at a 2nd premises i own and setup my own remote backup (via vpn).

[tonylima]

Moogle, that's exactly what I was looking for. Many, many thanks.

Best,
T

[Moogle Stiltzkin]

Moogle, that's exactly what I was looking for. Many, many thanks.

Best,
T

ur welcome. i've thought long and hard on this myself. so i've researched some of the options and chose what was best for me (i'm usually budget minded )

if you do plan on using that 10usd deal (to my understanding, crashplan requires 1gig of ram per 1tb of data stored, also initial upload for lots of data is slow, also possibly their download/upload might be slow so u have to test if it meets your requirements or not before you commit; also make sure you test from time to time it actually works. and when it no longer works, you have to scramble for an alternative plan.

[Moogle Stiltzkin]

further explanation on lto

Is There a Place for Tape Storage in Your NAS Backup Strategy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5Jmkj2vNlA

i think at one point qnap did have a model that supported lto tapes directly if not mistaken
https://youtu.be/8qV9I5J7ZFw