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General discussion

Backup and System Storage

by njpatentdad Jan 4, 2010 3:07AM PST

Question: What is the best option for creating centralized network storage and automatic backups for a small home network on a tight budget (under $100)?

Network: 2 desktops (1 AMD 64 single core, 1 Celeron - both running Windows XP), 3-4 laptops running var Windows (XP and Vista but might include a Windows server OS at some point). Router is 802.11g with 4 x 10/100 ports and wireless connection which the laptops use.

Problem: Thousands of digital photos at 3-5megs each are chewing up storage very fast. I fear a disk crash wiping them out. Kids adding multimedia files too. The main desktop hard drive (150gig) is dangerously full and I want to move about 80 gigs of data off of that onto another drive. I would like a central place for all this data to go that any computer on the home network can access.

Thoughts: With an unlimited budget, I think I would get 2 or more 1 Tb drives and put them in an NAS enclosure with a 1 gig Lan connection but money is an object. My current thought is get 2 x 500 meg drives at around $60 ea. (WD green drives) and to mount them in my better desktop which runs XP. I may have to buy them a few weeks apart. I would set up the first drive as a Network drive that the other computers can store media to. The second drive would be used to backup data from the first drive and all the other computers using Smartsync Pro or similar. I dont think that I need to set them up in any kind of a RAID configuration for my purposes. I suspect that transferring data may be slow perhaps unusably slow.

Any thoughts on whether the system I propose will work or adjustments? Please keep in mind that the budget is limited. However, phasing stuff in over time may be possible. For example, I dont plan on making these newer better drives bootable because I might want to get an NAS enclosure and put them in that instead at a date some months from now.

Discussion is locked

4 Posts
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Unlikely but think about it.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Jan 4, 2010 3:28AM PST

centralized means that you'll have a centralized point of failure. Backup means not only a copy but a copy off the location and not easy to erase.

You could take a 50 buck drive like http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=ST3750330AS-R&cat=HDD and put that into a case like http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=MAP-AI32US-PB&cat=CSE
and on a NAS thing like http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=EZ-NAS&cpc=SCH

But while that gets you some ethenet connected space the problem remains "Where is the backup?"
Bob

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Unlikely?
by njpatentdad Jan 4, 2010 3:57AM PST

Thanks Bob for your quick response and thoughtful comments.

I want to make sure I understand you though. I proposed 2 physical drives: 1 for central storage and 1 for backing up all network data.

So are you opining that it is bad to have 1 central area for storage of the storage hungry files like photos, audio, video? My reason for doing so was that that kind of data was overwhelming the HD for 1 computer and will probably start affecting the others too. Obviously putting all my eggs in one basket makes the possibility of a disk failure more catastrophic which is why I wanted a second physical disk that would backup the first at least and other data as well if its big enough.

Or are you saying that a 2nd drive is fine and well but it also needs to be located in an environment separate from the central storage disk? I realize that both disks in the same computer or NAS enclosure means they are simultaneously vulnerable to flood, fire, theft, etc. but my PRIMARY fear is the HD just dying. However, if mounting, say, the backup drive in a second computer can be done reasonably (e.g. backups aren't too slow) then maybe I ought to do that?

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Your choice.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Jan 4, 2010 9:27AM PST

But 100 bucks looks slim to make two such devices. But one looks like it makes the 100 buck mark.

I opted to install the 750GB drives in a few machines and run SYNCBACK at times. We also SYNCBACK to 2 USB externals. And some final backups of stuff that can't be lost to DVDR, USB MEMORY STICKS and that's as backed up as I can get today.
Bob

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PS. The other reason.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Jan 4, 2010 9:30AM PST

What many forget about network storage is the glacial speed compared to USB speed. In short.

Common network = 100 megabits per second.
USB 2.0 = 480 megabits per second.

Syncback helps by only syncing the changes or per your configuration but some find NAS to be "glacial."
Bob

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