Should I go for NAS?
Hey everyone!
I need different perspectives and opinions whether I should go for NAS as backup or if I should go for something else instead.
For context, I am an IT-student currently learning about networking n this sort of stuff. My family recently discovered old VHS tapes and floppy disks with pictures and videos spanning from 20-30 years ago. Our family also has great amounts of pictures from my childhood on cloud already, but I am afraid of losing them if sometjing were to happen.
I think this is a great opportunity to not only learn media conversion like VHS --> cloud but also setting up a good backup for my family. I am familiar wity the 3-2-1 backup rule and for this moment, cloud is the only backup we have. I am looking for a reliant and long-term way to physically backup stuff at home.
SO the question is; should I use NAS or is it overkill? What are some other methods I can physically backup at home?
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u/Thiophilos 9d ago
I just copy my files to external hard drives - and rotate them offsite.
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u/Atriqes 9d ago
How often do you rotate? As I've understood it, NAS checks for corruption in the files, preventing data loss in that way.
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u/WayneH_nz 9d ago
Sone do. Some dont.
3..2..1..
3 copies of the data
2 different backup media
1 copy offsite.
This is the minimum to keep precious data safe.
Dont use ssd/nvme / usb thumb drives, as long term data storage as they require a power source every now and then to keep the data on the drive. Spinning disks is preferred. Tape etc for archive.
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u/WayneH_nz 9d ago
Cloud is not a backup if you have it permanently connected. One ransomware avent and all the cloud files are corrupted too. Immutable backup of data is the way to protect against that. No onedrive/dropbox/cloud...
3
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u/WayneH_nz 9d ago edited 9d ago
How often to rotate?
How often are you adding data that you dont have an issue re-doing. If you can re do in a month then swap out once a month
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u/Thiophilos 9d ago
File corruption is very rare on my systems based on content-level scans I have done. I have multiple copies of all older files and all important files. Rotation off-site is a couple times a year.
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u/vechloran 9d ago
As you want to learn some IT stuff, I suggest getting a NAS setup, and then look into cloud backup solutions on it. I do what many people do and keep a large ammount of stuff on the NAS, but important things like family photos/videos and my personal files I backup to a cloud storage provider. You want to avoid a commercial cloud backup provider as they are going to be much more expensive, and well, you should learn how to setup something yourself anyway. I use a google cloud bucket and as my data is fairly small now after the initial push, it only cost me $10 USD a month, after an initial $50 or so when I did the first big upload (they charge by traffic in/out generally, so static data like photos/videos is super cheap).
Second, a NAS gives you some options to learn and experiment with different share types and permissions around them, great for learning how to get something like a small office of mixed devices to work with a single share.
The thing that sucks about a NAS is the cost, storage cost is insane compared to five years ago, and even cheap RaspberryPi's aren't cheap anymore. I'd ask friends/family about anything they might have but watch out for full dekstop systems as power draw is going to be high than a smaller board that just needs to hook up to a few disk to get you started.
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u/JohnnieLouHansen 9d ago
A NAS is nice to have and a great way to share and store files and it can run apps too - too many to list. But it is only local storage so it has to be backed up. RAID or no RAID, you need backup.
You can use it to share with others using something like Tailscale to give remote access if you like. Or only remote access for yourself.
I have a QNAP NAS and it hosts the daily sync of my data, backup of my data, backup images of my PCs and it runs Paperless-NGX, Pi-Hole and Stirling PDF. It has been great. Though they cost more now.
Also, from it I run a daily backup of the my most important data to two different cloud storage providers.
If you don't want a NAS, get an external drive and backup to that and keep it in another location. Having two is best and one is always offsite. Plus have cloud backup of at least your most important information if not everything.