Simply backup

[MrOlaf]

Just looking for advice.

Hard drives eventually fail so I'm looking for NAS with 2 drives I guess.

Basically what I want is the ability for any computer on the network to save important files to a shared drive that automatically backs up the data in case of a drive failure.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Sorry I don't have any recommendations, there are plenty of people here that will help with that .

But can you just clarify something.

Are you wanting to protect against disk failure on the PC's, so the NAS is the backup device (using something like Windows Backup).

Or are you saying that the PCs store data on the NAS and you want to protect the NAS against disk failure. In which case configuring the NAS as RAID 1 will give you redundancy (but not archived backups).

Sorry to sound pedantic, but a RAID solution is not the same as a backup solution.

 

[sfx2000]

Hard drives eventually fail so I'm looking for NAS with 2 drives I guess.

Basically what I want is the ability for any computer on the network to save important files to a shared drive that automatically backs up the data in case of a drive failure.

NAS can be handy, but also since many do start backing up to a NAS, ensure that there is a backup plan for the NAS itself.

Most vendors do have solutions there... most to local attached storage via USB, and some to a cloud provider to some degree...

 

[MrOlaf]

I was thinking to have the NAS as raid 1.

If the drive was used as simple photo and disk storage dumped from cellphone cameras etc. would archived backups be needed?
Archived backups are good for virus or accidental deletion I assume.

 

[ColinTaylor]

If the drive was used as simple photo and disk storage dumped from cellphone cameras etc. would archived backups be needed?

That's something only you can answer.

Archived backups are good for virus or accidental deletion I assume.

Exactly. So it's dependent on how you choose to use the storage. If the NAS contains the one and only copy of the data and it is accidentally overwritten, then it's lost. You have to decide how valuable the data is, the risk of it being overwritten/deleted and how much time/trouble/expense you're willing to go to to protect it.

Some NAS devices have the ability to backup their contents to other locations (like the cloud) and keep previous versions. So that could be a useful feature if you have enough cloud storage and a fast enough internet connection.

On the other hand, you might be confident that because of the way you copy/organise your files, it is extremely unlikely that they'll get overwritten. And if some of them are, they're just a bunch of photo's - it's not life and death.