How many are running Networked Attached Storage (NAS) for your files?

[binki]

We had been using one of our computers as a server/work station with cloud backup nightly. This was problematic as when the machine went down or needed to otherwise be replaced we had a 3 day ordeal of moving the files to the new computer.

Last week we installed a NAS with RAID 1 and set up two 1.6T drives mirrored with error recovery for damaged files. The drives are Solid State Drives (SSD) and we also cloud backup the NAS nightly.

The performance of the network has increased greatly and also the ability of our computers to be dedicated workstations. The total cost was about $2000 which included shipping and sales tax. Installation was very easy.

Is anyone else running such a setup? Is there anything we should do better or have I missed anything?

 

[ikarasu]

We run one. We used to use our server... But our storage needs have gotten greater and server hard drives are $$$.

We use mechanical hd's - most of our files are under 100 mb, so we don't need SSD speeds. Especially in raid, we use 4 16 TB HDDs.

We set it up so it gets real time uploaded to the cloud, as well as nightly / weekly backups and snapshots.

We have 3 graphics designers and 4 sales reps constantly accessing it and it works great.

It's limited to being a file server though... The cpus kind of suck... If you ever end up needing more cpu power (I did at home) look into turning your server into a true Nas box.

 

[MikePatterson]

We run 2. One at our primary location and one offsite. We use a backup software that does comparative file check and only updates the slave NAS if the file size is larger or date is newer.

 

[binki]

Yes, HD's are really expensive. The 2 we purchased were $1600 of the $2K price tag. They are going to get more expensive as there is a shortage because of a large mistake made by a company that caused their inventory of chips to be contaminated. This is helping spike prices. We purchased right before this all happened.

 

[johnnysigns]

We run a Synology mechanical HD NAS that Casey at Signburst set up for us. We were flooded just after summer and we weren't remotely backing up the files. I was extremely fortunate that the hard drives didn't get water, but the NAS system did. I was quoted $19,000 from a hard drive recovery place to get our data back, but again, we were really fortunate that all the drives narrowly escaped damage. Casey and his support have been second to none.

 

[ikarasu]

For those with a Nas and no remote backup
... $15 Canada ($10ish usd?) For unlimited backup per month to google cloud. Then if a us fails, you get malware or anything happens.. you can do your files from Google as needed right away while getting a new Nas/HD and doing a full restore..best money ever spent.

 

[ikarasu]

Also, if you have a Nas... I highly, highly suggest some form of backup.

Ransomware is going crazy right now, they encrypt all your files then try to make you pay 100k to get them back... And NAS's are targeted right now.

 

[brdesign]

We had been using one of our computers as a server/work station with cloud backup nightly. This was problematic as when the machine went down or needed to otherwise be replaced we had a 3 day ordeal of moving the files to the new computer.

Last week we installed a NAS with RAID 1 and set up two 1.6T drives mirrored with error recovery for damaged files. The drives are Solid State Drives (SSD) and we also cloud backup the NAS nightly.

The performance of the network has increased greatly and also the ability of our computers to be dedicated workstations. The total cost was about $2000 which included shipping and sales tax. Installation was very easy.

Is anyone else running such a setup? Is there anything we should do better or have I missed anything?

Yes NAS with Raid is a great way to set up a small network system. I thought that SSD drives were not recommended for NAS and long term storage, has that recommendation changed recently?

 

[binki]

Yes NAS with Raid is a great way to set up a small network system. I thought that SSD drives were not recommended for NAS and long term storage, has that recommendation changed recently?

I am using a Synology box and drives. They were recommended for the box. I also listen to a well respected tech show and they recommend it also. I have had it with spinning drives. I have 4 dead computers sitting here, all failed HD's.

 

[WildWestDesigns]

I run 3 FreeNAS/TrueNAS rigs here. 2 are backups to the one main one (the 2 are offsite as well, so they are actual backups in case something physically was to happen to the main one as well).

I would suggest having backups that are offsite, a rig like this only can do so much if there aren't any backups. I would actually suggest against cloud backups. Yes, they are cheaper, yes they are more convenient not having to maintain all that hardware and the cost associated with it, however, those pros come at a cost. Typically that is in relation to control. Now, if that isn't something that is on "your" worry list, just make sure to have some type of backup solution in place.

I use a RAID 6 setup, which means 2 harddrives can fail before data loss. I also would use software based, versus hardware based. If that physical controller goes, bye bye everything. Nice thing with FreeNAS/TrueNAS is that when swapping out drives for whatever reason, it only deals with what has been written, not the entire drive itself, so rebuilding(even despite the slower write speed of RAID 6) is quicker compared to say that deals with the entire memory, not just used memory.

 

[ChaseO]

I'm running 2 (mirrored) 4TB SSD drives in my NAS box. Seems to be working really well, I still use the computer hard drives daily, but they automatically back up once a week. I have lost hard drives before and it really hurts.

 

[netsol]

I am using a Synology box and drives. They were recommended for the box. I also listen to a well respected tech show and they recommend it also. I have had it with spinning drives. I have 4 dead computers sitting here, all failed HD's.

Hard drives are like light bulbs. It is just a question of when they will go bad.

HOWEVER

you do realize that ssd's will fail as well. They are just a flash drive with a different interface.

Online backup is essential, (assuming they are doing their due diligence & protect backup from your ransomware attack

 

[netsol]

For those with a Nas and no remote backup
... $15 Canada ($10ish usd?) For unlimited backup per month to google cloud. Then if a us fails, you get malware or anything happens.. you can do your files from Google as needed right away while getting a new Nas/HD and doing a full restore..best money ever spent.

I found the unlimited for $10 figure suspect. 3 years ago a large client spent $48,000 for a cisco server with 60 TB of raided storage running veeam. on premises, SINCE IT WAS CHEAPER over 3 years than their figure for the same backup repository at the server farm in commack, LI

 

[WildWestDesigns]

Online backup is essential, (assuming they are doing their due diligence & protect backup from your ransomware attack

Backup is essential, not online backup. I have seen where online backup places, through their own interfaces had infected their clients with ransomware. The backup facility got ransomware, that ransomware went through their program to their client computers and infected their client's computer. So not only was the backup gone, but also the client computers as well.

 

[netsol]

A real, reputable backup repository, protected from ransomware attacks (not just a copy of your ransomware encrypted files, in an additional place) would let me sleep soundly, but you pay real money for that.

Bringing a large client back from a ransomware attack (they actually bought $250,000 in bitcoin, to pay the ransom, but we managed to avoid them having to pay the hackers) was the longest 72 hours without sleep i probably ever experienced

 

[WildWestDesigns]

A real, reputable backup repository, protected from ransomware attacks (not just a copy of your ransomware encrypted files, in an additional place) would let me sleep soundly, but you pay real money for that.

Well as protected as it could be. Unless one is manually moving files from one location to another without connected to the internet, there is always going to be that vector with regard to connection. I actually have backups set up at random times (or as random as they can be) on the two other NAS devices (not at the same time as well), otherwise there is no open port to the outside. That's about as good as one can get it without transferring by hand from one location to the next.

But what enables me to sleep at night is knowing exactly what all has been done as I oversee it all. That isn't something that one is going to get when going through a 3rd party nearly as much (to be honest, most normies would just roll their eyes if they got that much info).

 

[victor bogdanov]

I have an old computer converted to a server running True NAS getting backed up to Carbonite and Backblaze, Right now there are 4 10TB drives in the server, mirrored for a total of 20TB storage. Running low on space so will add more, the mother board has 8 sata plugs so still have some room to gorw, then will add Pcie sata cards

 

[ikarasu]

I mean, if there is a limit I haven't reached it yet. There is a daily limit of 750 GB before they cap you for the day but again.. I don't think anybody will be hitting that. It may be an issue if you are restoring a few terabytes and you want to restored really quick, but there are ways around that as well.

I've had roughly this amount on for 2 years and no issues!

 

[netsol]

Wow.

It may seem like a silly question, have you ever needed to restore.

An attorney client had his office pc crash & carbonite's response was "we will email you in a few days when your files are ready to be restored"

 

[ikarasu]

Most of that is file storage, not critical holes... it would take years to restore over a network for sure!

I have restored from Google when we were ransomwared though. We run everything via VM, I have real-time backup at the file level as well as daily snapshots, and then the VM image is actually backed up daily for 7 days weekly and then quarterly so we keep roughly nine images backed up. I believe it's about 8 terabytes for a whole backup... So roughly 75 to 80 terabytes of that is for restoring.

We got ransomware twice. The last time was actually 2 weeks ago.. it's a night of work and most of that is restoring the unbacked up personal computers, restoring the servers takes about 2 to 3 hours but again it's only an 8 terabyte image.

I am very anal about my backups as you can see, I have backups of my backups of my backups!

This is just what is on the cloud. I just recently set up a true Nas VM but nobody has access to and it pulls its own backup of the VMS and file level as well, so we also have a local copy.

And of course isn't fully isolated from the network, but it's as isolated as it can be without unplugging it every night.

Usually I'm not this crazy about backups, but there is so much ransomware going on with everybody working from home, and our system is more exposed than I would like it because our sales reps insist on doing a lot of work from home.... So I overkill it.

But both times we had ransomewhere we were retored within a day and it was a 100% complete backup.

The owner of the company asked me why people end up paying the hundreds of thousands of dollars they ask for if it's so easy to recover from... I told him I was up until 5:00 in the morning getting us back up and running, and he was lucky that I am is anal as I am about backups otherwise we would have lost a ton of data because they managed to encrypt our acronis backup. They target the Enterprise level back up providers and somehow got that data, my guess is they don't even look for Google backup!