Help choosing a small business NAS for remote backups

[sevendustweb]

Hello:

I need some help choosing an NAS for my business. Yes, I have reviewed the NAS charts, but I still have not found a solid answer.

Essentially, I plan to open several retail establishments. In each store, there will be roughly 3-5 computers running Win 7 and POS software that uses ODBC (Square and other simpler POS systems are out of the question due to the nature of my business).

In my mind, I want an image of each computer created daily. The image would then be transmitted remotely to an NAS that would reside on my home. By doing so, if a store computer goes down, I can remotely restore the image and be up and running again quickly.

I have looked at a variety of solutions, including Backup Exec combined with a Synology NAS, but I am still confused as to how all of it works together.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[kanewolf]

Is your thought to have a NAS at each business and have software on each PC create an image file to the local NAS? Then have the distributed NAS boxes upload their images to somewhere?

I guess you could avoid the local NAS units if you partitioned the PCs into C: and D: Create the backup image of C: on D: then have the PCs upload.

The problem I see is network bandwidth and time. If you create an image file that is say 30GB for each PC and you have 5 of them that is 150GB of data you have to upload. At 50Mb/s you could do that upload in about 7 hours. BUT you have to have a receiver that can handle that 50Mb rate from each store simultaneously.

If you are going to do something like that, I believe you would want to use true cloud storage -- Amazon, Crashplan, etc. They have sufficient bandwidth and disk to handle your simultaneous backups.

 

[KenZ71]

Not sure I would go with Win 7 but that is not the point.

Would it be possible to have the same OS image for all PCs? That would mean far less storage & bandwidth needs. Also for the inevitable hardware failures simply swap out the box. You could Have FedEx drop one off and staff hookup.

Each PC might have a small data partition but the data should all be sent back to HQ or the home NAS.

 

[Samir]

What is the likelihood of a system needing to change once it is set up? If this is infrequent or near zero, I'd look at thin clients or using deep freeze to just set up a system for no changes. Then you don't need daily backups except for data saved to a local file server. You could even just set up a VPN and have the file server itself sitting at your house.

 

[stevech]

Hello:

I need some help choosing an NAS for my business. Yes, I have reviewed the NAS charts, but I still have not found a solid answer.

Essentially, I plan to open several retail establishments. In each store, there will be roughly 3-5 computers running Win 7 and POS software that uses ODBC (Square and other simpler POS systems are out of the question due to the nature of my business).

In my mind, I want an image of each computer created daily. The image would then be transmitted remotely to an NAS that would reside on my home. By doing so, if a store computer goes down, I can remotely restore the image and be up and running again quickly.

I have looked at a variety of solutions, including Backup Exec combined with a Synology NAS, but I am still confused as to how all of it works together.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

My suggestion: Primary backup would be a USB3 drive near the NAS. Automatic backups one or more times a day. If you have VIP files, auto-backup these folders more frequently.
Keep the USB3 drive out of sight of thieves. Maybe even put it in a locked cash box with a hole for the cable. I think theft is the most likely data loss risk.

Offsite backup - either have 2 USB drives rotate them, keep one off site.

Backup over the Internet is too flaky, esp. without super speeds (on the uplink).

Don't use a cloud service. Too slow and too much risk of data compromise by a disgruntled employee/contractor.

On PCs, I use SecondCopy from Centered Systems to backup to the NAS files that SHOULD have been on NAS shares to begin with, but users won't change habits.
I image the entire PCs' disk every 2 weeks or so, using Acronis True Image ($30 if you shop) to write to the NAS.

 

[Shabbir Rao]

Don't use a cloud service. Too slow and too much risk of data compromise by a disgruntled employee/contractor.

May I ask why no cloud service? People these days are shifting there entire data back up system using any sort of cloud services. And there are proper permission or access granting system so that data won't go in the wrong hands. And these days incremental back up method has also increase the speed of data transfer to any cloud. Moreover, there are plus and minus for every product and services but I believe cloud services are far more better than copying data to any certain hardware on daily basis and you can also face many problems like Data corruption, Data recovery e.t.c.

 

[System Error Message]

small businesses (depends on size) rely on existing services since they usually cannot afford their own infrastructure which is why there are cloud services, google mail with your own domain and more. A cloud service relies on upload and also depends on what you are backing up. With the way ISPs are upload speeds are lacking and video files from cameras may be too large but there is also the price to pay for such storage although even with an upload like 10Mb/s you can transfer gigabytes of files within a few hours so that would need to be a batch job.

If your business is the size of a house hold (like 6 people) than you can go with an embedded NAS but if it is bigger you would want to be making your own NAS. In your case you should build your own NAS because you have multiple stores so it isnt really a small business.

The performance is dependent on your download at home and upload at stores and if you are going for images you would be looking for filesystems that can use snapshots. ZFS uses snapshots and a snapshot of a drive is done instantly so it means not much space is needed and not much upload is needed. using disc images means transferring many gigabytes each day and you have to take into account the uploads, your download, the time it would take, the amount of electricity consumed and wasted since other things could be done at the same time, space could be saved and you wouldnt need so many drive images. Some places instead of backing up disc images would restore a disc image from a fresh install daily and only backup and keep data.

 

[stevech]

I chose not to upload to a cloud service any personally sensitive information. I do use ADrive for certain other info (selected folders).
Same for a company's sensitive info, especially that of its clients.
I use triple local backup, all automated, low cost. One physical copy is kept off site, but nearby.

 

[System Error Message]

Theres no shame in paper copies or even slides if you want them resistant to weather. No bandwidth to worry about, no electrical usage, no cloud service to worry about, no high upfront costs.

 

[stevech]

Open Drive, DropBox, others have been hurt badly in the past by rogue employees and contractors.