Best NAS Solution for Client?

[NWtek]

Hello everyone,
I am new to the NAS arena and have a client who has a few parameters that I am trying to meet.

1) Needs to play nicely with both PC and MAC
2) Needs to have hot swap and/or eSATA (both would be a huge plus)
3) Needs to handle 1-2 TB's of data
4) Needs to support Raid 1 or 5
5) Needs to have software to manage daily incremental backups to two separate hot swap drives (or to the external eSATA... or all 3) so that they can be taken off site for data safety in case of a disaster at their facility.

Essentially they have a lot of sensitive data that needs to be saved and backed up as easily as possible for everyone in their facility. RAID 1 or 5, hot swap and/or eSATA is very important along with automated incremental backups.

So far I have been looking at this model:

http://www.synology.com/us/products/DS1511+/spec.php

and this one:

http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/nas/nas-reviews/31403-new-to-the-charts-qnap-ts-419p


Do you have any recommendations for this NAS newbie? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Ease of use and implementation also plays a huge factor in this for me so advice on products with "easy" software would be great as well

Please let me know if I have not listed any other important factors so that I do not miss anything.

Thanks everyone.

 

[claykin]

Hot Swapping for the purposes of backup is not an option with a NAS. By hot swapping you will break the RAID and force rebuild. During the rebuild process your array is exposed to total loss. Only in the case of RAID 1 can data from a broken array be easily recovered.

Even if you use RAID5+Spare it is not intended for the spare to be pulled for backup purposes as your described.

If you are set on eSata for your external backups then look at Synology or Qnap.

Check warranties and repair/replacement policies. The day your client goes down, they're going to want to be up very quickly. Some NAS vendors don't make it easy to get repair work done.

 

[NWtek]

Thanks for the info. Do you have any other recommendations based off of what I previously listed? Perhaps something that would work better in this scenario (especially if something went down)? Should I just build a custom PC with shared drives on a Windows 7 Machine? FreeNAS? Sorry but like I said I am new to this area. Thanks again for your insight.

 

[claykin]

Well, one option is to purchase two units and keep a working spare.

Or, you can consider a Netgear Readynas and get their Pro Support option that provides Next Day hardware exchange during warranty period. However Readynas has no eSata support.

If you choose to use a Freenas type solution, make sure you have spare parts to keep it humming along. use a quality PC with server grade components if possible for longevity. Use 24x7 Enterprise disks that are approved for use with the NAS solution (this goes for any NAS).

I could go on and on and spend a lot more of your clients $ if we start talking about a VM running in the cloud to keep his storage replicated and redundant.

 

[Ken_z71]

There are a lot of variables.

How geographically close are you to the client? Do you want the client to call you when they have issues? Or do you want the client to call the hardware manufacturer's tech support? If you off load support to the manufacture the client might say why did we hire this consultant.

What kind of performance response times are needed?

Would a cloud system be better? Would you want to host the storage for this client and potentially others from your office / home ? You could offer redundant backup as well.

 

[NWtek]

Thanks for the info. As far as geographic location I am literally right across the street, so them calling me would be the best case scenario.

As for cloud storage, this particular client is 100% against the idea. They do contracting for the Department of Defense and want a local onsite shared backup solution. They currently have a NAS (unsure of which brand) that has an external USB 2.0 hard drive hooked up to it that takes "26 to 30 hours" to perform a full backup of the data that is on the NAS itself. Thus they are looking for something that can perform quicker backups so that they can take them offsite.

They originally asked me to build them a cheap server, but I feel that is overkill in this scenario because all they truly want is data storage and the ability to take backups of said data offsite.

 

[thiggins]

Fastest backup is to an attached eSATA drive on QNAP or Cisco NSS 3XX series NASes. Check the charts.

 

[ntm1275]

If the whole point is to create a fast backup for 'sensitive' data to store off-site, the I would assume that this 'sensitive' data should be encrypted in case it gets lost or stolen while away from it's base

If that is the case, then you realise that encrypted backups are normally much, much slower than unencrypted backups

The fastest backup is by eSATA, and as Tim has already mentioned a couple of companies are the best to go with

or

You could use two NAS's, and do an full backup at the main site, and then move one to another site (the boss's home for instance) and do incremental backups from then on
Incremental backups only backup the files that have changed, so the time taken to backup should be much shorter

I don't know about other companies, but Synology now have a shared folder sync option that creates an exact copy of the original NAS, so that if the main NAS goes down for some reason, it can be substituted for the backup NAS to keep everything going

Both the two options above can be set to backup at specified intervals or with the sync backup it can also be set to automatically backup every time a file is modified, so no waiting for a backup to be completed - and this can be done with the data encrypted, and also it can be compressed to save on bandwidth

 

[NWtek]

So far I am leaning towards two of the QNAP, Cisco or Synology units.. One onsite and one at the bosses house... FreeNAS in a custom box is still a possibility. However, i'm finding it tough to find information on it. Does it do incremental backups to an external drive via eSATA or USB 3.0 or are those protocols even supported? I will be heading over to speak with the client at some point today and i'm hoping that we can finalize something.

Thanks for all your help and support!

 

[stevech]

Some Synology units have eSATA.

I wonder if USB3 is a good-enough alternative to eSATA?

 

[teknojnky]

how much space is need NOW, and how much is projected to be needed within the next year or 3?


if you only need up to 2, maybe 3tb, you may want to consider a 2 bay device, to keep costs and complexity down.

if 2 bay solution sounds like a fit, you might also consider a couple of the readynas pro 2 which has a front usb 3 port for external backups.

You can also setup secure rsync over ssh to backup the primary to the secondary over the internet.

In this manner, you could do something like:

backup job 1: nightly (or weekly) rsync incremental to usb3 external drive(s) (possibly 1 external drive for each day for the week or week of the month, if needed)
backup job 2: weekly (or nightly) incrementals rsync over ssh to remote device 2

ie:
main > external
main > remote

alternatively, or additionally, you could run the external backups from the remote device if more convenient, ie

main > remote > external

all dependent on your backup needs/desires

 

[thiggins]

Some Synology units have eSATA.

I wonder if USB3 is a good-enough alternative to eSATA?

Most QNAPs have eSATA.

Check the USB 3.0 test on the NETGEAR ReadyNAS Pro 2.

 

[stevech]

The eSATA in some PCs doesn't allow AHCI and hot-plugging. That is, one must reboot or do some sort of Add New Hardware manual operation.

Presumably, this would never be the case in a NAS.

And USB3 would by definition be hot-plug capable.

 

[NWtek]

So, I think i've decided on the following:

http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=165


This unit seems to be the optimal choice for my clients needs. It offers a LOT that they will not take advantage of. However, the AJAX based software (one of his major complaints with his current Buffalo NAS is the shoddy/buggy software) looks phenomenal and easy to use. Also, I've decided to go with 2 alternating USB 3.0 backup drives (to avoid any possible hot plug issues with eSATA). This appears to be the best choice.

I do have one question though, on QNAP's FAQ page there is a question:

"How can I execute incremental backup job?" found here:

http://www.qnap.com/faq_detail.asp?faq_id=554

And this model the TS-459 is not listed. I am assuming this is just a discrepancy on the website? But this will indeed do incremental backups to the different attached USB 3.0 drives when they are plugged in each day correct?


Any other things I should be concerned about?

Regards

 

[thiggins]

All QNAP NASes will do incremental backup. For the same processor family, i.e. Marvell, Intel, features depend on the QNAP OS, not the model.

 

[NWtek]

Good to know thank you! As long as I can alternate USB drives and it does incremental from there we are golden!

 

[thiggins]

I don't know if alternating drives messes up the incremental backup.

 

[NWtek]

Ah darn, does anyone know the answer to this one?

 

[stevech]

good backup software allows you to keep the last n versions of files.

 

[NWtek]

http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=165

This is the unit I plan on purchasing. I am presuming that the backup software is intelligent enough. If not.. It's got 2 USB 3.0 ports... So if the swapping of drives in one port is not the case I assume that I can plug one drive into the front port, one drive into the back port, and alternate which drive is taken home each night without any issues cropping up.