OK Rippers...What's your data backup strategy?

I've just replaced my buffalo LinkStation Live 1TB with a Drobo FS with five drive bays and rather good it is too ! Currently has 4 X 750Gb drives in it .
I use it to back up all my Mac's as well as stream music via a Sonos to my system . I also use a LaCie firewire drive as an extra back up for my music library as well as a Time Machine back up for my main Mac .

Ed

A good system is to have four copies of your data in order of how frequently they will be accessed: an archive copy (i.e. physical CDs), a backup copy (in case of equipment failure), a working copy (where rips are added and organized) and finally a playback copy from which you do your listening. In some systems the working and playback copies may be the same, but it is likely that several versions of the playback copy will live on different devices such as a NAS drive, mobile phone, tablet or even a car's sound system.

In my case I have CDs as a physical archive, a Time Machine backup of my iTunes library and that same library as my working and playback copy. I'm evaluating several music servers including the UnitiServe to be the digital source for my hi-fi so that my working copy won't have to do double duty as my playback copy. Right now I stream music over my network to an Apple TV which is not my preferred method. Once I've chosen a server I'll re-rip my CDs to one filetype (right now it's a hodgepodge of MP3, WAV, FLAC and ALAC files) and burn all my downloaded music to CD in order to homogenize my library across all its copies.

Music all on a share on ReadyNAS Duo with 2 x 2Tb drives in it, which of course gives me redundancy but not true backup. once a month I attach a 2Tb USB drive and do an incremental backup which I store at work. Guess I should really have two -  just in case something happens while the backup drive is at home . . . !

John

I'm using a Synology DS 209 II + (Raid 1 means 2 HD inside) and an external HD

1) Raid 1 is basically used for data accessibility/availability in case of 1 HD crash...Never expect from a Raid 1 to become a backup, because in case of Controller  failure you have a major risk that both HD will be corrupted....means data lost !!

2) So for "real backup" i'm using a external backup (simple USB 2 Gig HD) connected to usb port of the DS with DS Daily script....

So best of both word in term of data availability and security and extremely reliable ..no error since 5 years.....just perfect for my need.

Phil

TogServe (Vortexbox) + external USB 1tb drive = instant backup of music folders.

Tog

Carbonite. In the cloud. No worries. And a Philip Starck 1TB Lacie Drive, because it is so nice.

Backup NAS to backup my Music NAS

I have a QNAP NAS, did used to have a drobo, it was a horrid product I would not have one again.

 Music is currently on NAS and backed up nightly to a USB harddrive.

However I have gone all 'tog' and am currently playing with a vortexbox. Currently ripping to an external USB drive and this backs up to the NAS.

I seem to have copies of music every where

Glad to see folk are taking Data backup seriously. It is an easy trap to fall into to be casual about this and regret it later.

Gary..I read a story of someone having a terrible time with a failing Drobo. The fact that the event log on it was encrypted was also no help.

Early days with my Drobo , mine is the NAS version and it is very user friendly , especially the desktop controller rather than going through a browser like my Buffalo to add shares etc .

Time will tell .



Ed

You might be alright.

ON mac at least the drobo had a habit of not mounting properly so would be mounted as a new device 'drobo1' itunes would no longer see its library. Then the next time as 'drobo2'

Apparently its still happening, you cannot access the drobo forum without a serial number which is telling.

TBH the main issue I had with drobo was the speed, which is crippled and the 'apps' bit which is just a disaster.

I expect its got better, I ditched mine over a year ago.

I've been using a Drobo as my main storage for a good few months now & I think it's excellent. Connected as an exterior drive to my mac via Firewire 800 it's very fast, silent and never gives the slightest hiccup.

My Qnap NAS which I originally used has been relegated to a backup disk, on my network using ethernet cabling. It's very slow (particularly with photo stuff) and would occasionally stop playing music for no apparent reason.

I also back up onto a Time Capsule which I've just upgraded to 1.5 TB (a doddle by the way, and the new disk runs quieter and cooler than the original) and a 1 TB LaCie hard drive which I carry round in my car.

I had a hard disk failure a few years ago & my backup also failed at the same time, so I'm a bit OTT with backups!

I have been bad with backups until last week when I finally coppied my library to a second external drive. I have always had my seedees of course.  For my 4 th backup I plan to memorize all my music for retrieval by humming the first few bars to the record store guy who will hopefully recognize the track and sell me the CD.  This will work until the last record store closes it's doors, which at the current rate of closure will be next month some time.

I have about 800 cds on a Synology NAS,  two drives in raid 1, which sits on a switch with my wife's iMac in an upstairs room. The NAS backs up automatically every day to a 1tb internal drive in my PC in the listening room, which is set up as an rsync client with the free utility DeltaCopy. I also back up the PC to the same drive using Acronis.

The iMac and Mini are backed up to a Time Capsule. I also keep an Acronis backup of PC files on the Time Capsule.

I wired the house with Cat 5 a few years ago, the only wireless connection is between the Time Capsule and the Mini, which are in the same room. I could run a network cable between them but no real need. 

If all else fails I still have the cds of course.

I wired my house with ethernet as well, a wise move if one has the ability. Lukily our walls had not be insulated yet so sending thw wires down was easy. It just gives plenty of options for backup. For instance I have three ethernet points in the garage.

My thoughts are, probably in vein is that in the event of a house fire the garage will probably be ok because it is double walled to the house and the roof is not connect to the house roof.

What kind of backups do you guys use?

Are you making sure that if you delete or lose a file on your server that it is not also deleted from the backup the next time a backup is done?

Originally posted by Geoff P:

"I have a 4 Disk NAS which is running in RAID 1. In principle this allows me to recover from a single disk failure PROVIDED the disk that fails does not take the OPERATING SYSTEM with it."

...so that would tell me that your data isn't protected.

If there is a way for the data to be lost then I'm afraid that it isn't protected - if only one drive holds the OS for the NAS and that drive going down could take the OS with it then it's a very poor design. :-(

My *PRIMARY* server is a home-built 15-bay Windows Home Server with 10 x 2Tb, 2 x 1.5Tb and 3 x 1Tb drives in it (in addition to a boot drive) ... this is the server that I use day to day and it holds my user data (personal files for the users defined on that server), my software library, my photos archive, my ripped CDs, my ripped DVDs and ripped Blu-Rays. This data totals about 15Tb and most of it has folder duplication enabled on it (so the data exists in two places straight away).

This is the only server that is accessed by users on the network.

I have a *SECONDARY* NAS enclosure which has 2 x 750Gb drives mirrored - this is set up so that at 3am every morning a SyncToy job runs on the primary server which snaphots the users folders, photos archive, software library and public folders ... so in conjunction with the primary server that's that data now in four places.

I then have a final server containing 12 x 1Tb drives (drives which were mainly rotated out of the primary server as the 1.5Tb and 2Tb drives were rotated in) which is powered up once a week and automatically runs a batch file that spawns off three consecutive SyncToy jobs that snapshot the CD, DVD and Blu-Ray folders and then shut the machine down again - this took about two weeks to run the first time but now takes about an hour or two a week. (So the media files are in three places.)

I tend to think that covers me in respect of most day-to-day eventualities. ;-)

Phil

"...so that would tell me that your data isn't protected."

Phil
The NAS is running WHS which in principle allows the possibilty to re-install from a provided DVD AND offers to recover data on the 'system' disk though there is no guarantee it will succed. 
Which is why as I said :
"I also have the contents of the NAS backed up to a USB 2 TB drive which sits in a cupboard except on occasion when it is re-attached to the NAS to do an incremental backup of anything added".

Geoff

So, phil wins that round.

Does Phil have any room for like furniture and stuff ... can just imagine Mrs Tog's reaction to ... "Hi honey I'm home with a 12 TB Server, 15 bay Home Server, a secondary NAS ..and a bottle of milk ..... What do you mean did I buy any flowers?"

Other than finding somewhere to sleep that is ....

Tog 

I will probably be buying a NAS, but in the meanwhile:

All media files (music/photo/video) on a 1TB ext USB HDD, attached to my upnp server.
All Photos copied onto the HDD on the upnp server.
The HiFi Laptop that I stream to, that sits near the nDAC, has a 500GB HDD. All Music files and Photos xcopied to that HDD, so only changes are copied - script set up via the scheduler to happen in the wee small hours.

Photos also on my laptop.

Periodic, 3 monthly, full copy to external HDD that is stored at a friends house - off site backup.


I have set up shares on the upnp server that each of the ladies in the house can access from their PC, for them to us as a backup space; these files are copied automatically to the external HDD via a CRON job.


The NAS
I'm toying with a few options. But I think the base question for me is, 'Do I want to RIP my DVDs?'.

If YES, then I will need some serious storage.
if NO, then what I have got will last me for at least 18 months.

.....thinking.

M

There's no "winning" wanted or intended here ... I don't want *ANYONE* to experience the "I just want to sit in a corner and be sick" feeling that I had last year when my WHS box decided to eat its boot drive one weekend while I was away.

I had tried to log into it remotely for some files while I was away and hadn't been able to so I already knew it was poorley when I arrived home but after trying to do a "reinstall keeping data intact" and failing and then having to pull the data off all the WHS drives manually and individually (a process which took about 5 weeks) I vowed never again would I have all my data in one box even if it should be "safe"...

"Does Phil have any room for like furniture and stuff ..."

I'll have you know I have all the essentials - somewhere to sit, somewhere to sleep and my hifi - and a bathroom that is kept warm and toasty from the heat from a small server farm. ;-)

Phil

I have sort of taken the short view on data protection, i.e. essential stuff like photos and work stuff is backed up three times. But music etc which is on CDs anyhow, is only back up once.

Backed up though

When I had a drobo, two drives went south in the space of a year, and on both occasions the whole 'just swap it out' mantra went belly up. Not a nice experience.