Suggestions for Data Storage and Backup

Lalexyfyf on 30/05/2025 - 10:27
Last edited 30/05/2025 - 13:58

Hi All,

I'm considering building a NAS maybe start with 4-bays.
Data is around 10-20TB at the moment, including personal and also work related data. Not sure how fast it will grow.
When doing the research, I learned quite a bit about backups.
So my idea now is to build a NAS with easy access and another copy of cold backup.

When looking for hard drives, I found for NAS, it's just easy just to go with Seagate Irowolf or WD red plus, which are deisgned to run 7*24.
But for the cold backup, which should not be accessed very often, there are some suggestions to go with the more premium ones but also some also suggest just use such WD blue or Seagate barracuda.

So what consideration should be taken to choose the offline/cold backups?

Thanks a lot.

Computing NAS

Comments

  • bargaino on 30/05/2025 - 10:52
    +1

    How large is your organisation, and why are you not using cloud like everyone else?

    • boomramada on 30/05/2025 - 10:57
      +3

      It for OP's personal Linux distros, no one can trust the cloud with those

    • alexyfyf on 30/05/2025 - 14:00

      was thinking to put the cold backup to aws galacier earlier, but for the NAS part, not considering the cloud at the moment

  • Gunther on 30/05/2025 - 12:15
    +1

    Cloud storage is usually the best option for business-critical data backups due to offsite redundancy and accessibility.

    How much data are you dealing with? For most small business or home use cases, portable USB external hard drives are more than enough for cold backups (infrequent access).

    If it’s mainly Linux distros - a RAID 5 setup in a NAS should be sufficient. It gives you decent performance and fault tolerance

  • hoey888 on 30/05/2025 - 12:53
    +1

    Seen HDD failures of older hard drives due to them spinning 24/7 over in in small factor computers. Generally anywhere between 4-5 year mark.

    Having experienced this, moved away from consumer drives (Seagate Baracuda) to something more heavy duty (Seagate Constellation). As it was designed as a datacenter type hard drive; its much noiser and hotter. Probably gonna last my lifetime as cold NAS storage that gets used once/twice a month.

    More premium from spinning disks would be SSD storage; subject to your data size.

    If you have space and time; you can install linux based NAS systems on practically any used PC. Try it out and upgrade hardware accordingly. Buy the best hard drives your budget allows.

    For comparison I'm using HP z2 g4 SFF running (E-2136/32gb) on TrueNAS/TrueNAS Core as my home NAS.

    • alexyfyf on 30/05/2025 - 14:03

      I have some used old laptops, ~10 year old. Is that ok to build a NAS on that. I have skills and experience dealing/working on Linux so software wise it's not a problem for me.
      And for the data center drivers, I read they have better lifetime running 7*24 rather than keep them cold. is that true? Thanks

  • joka on 30/05/2025 - 12:57
    +3

    I have a four bay NAS setup at home which I've had for years. For me it was more about the plug and play nature of it and i just like playing with gadgets.

    Do i have any real need to have my data available shortly after a hard drive failure? Nope.

    Do I really need four bays rather than one large drive? Nope.

    Do i really need to invoke any type of RAID? Nope.

    I feel like a backup drive connected to a smart plug which powers up and powers down once week for backups is more than enough. Do i really care if i loose a weeks worth of data? Probably not.

    Most routers provided by internet providers these days even have the capability for you to plug in a USB drive and make it available over the network.

    • alexyfyf on 30/05/2025 - 14:04

      I do agree, NAS is more for a fun and play, at the moment, I'm not using it for multi-user working scenario.
      I probably only need a cold backup regularly atm

  • AustriaBargain on 30/05/2025 - 13:42

    You should probably have your IT department handle all this.

  • dominator293 on 30/05/2025 - 17:35
    +1

    On the cold backup side, I use BackBlaze, a cloud storage solution (hosted out of the US I believe, so may not be suitable for your data). Relatively cost effective and reliable so worth checking out.

    Regarding NAS, I installed TrueNAS Scale on an old gaming PC I hadn't used for the last 5+years that I had laying around. Put together a neat little case running 4 x Seagate Ironwolf's and an SSD for cache. 6months on, still running great and much better to use than QNAP for example. Simple to set up SMB shares and map them to whatever you want.

    I'm not a mega tech geek, just interested in IT and set up what I need to run my home efficiently, but hope this helps a bit at least.

  • jugsy on 02/06/2025 - 11:55

    Separate setups for personal and work use. Dont cross the streams.

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