Backup NAS

Chris, as a backup device I believe you're right.

Chris

You're right.  I have a ReadyNAS Duo V2 with a single drive in it which I use only for back up of my UnitiServe.  It works fine.

It also worked fine as a music server when the US was back at Salisbury being fixed last year, streaming from the backup directory. 

David

I use a basic QNAP one disk NAS as well. I also don't see the point of any more.

Make sure you use a HD that is designed for a NAS. I used the supplied Seagate to start with which gave up the ghost. I now have a WD Red which you mention and it appears to be much better. 

Just to put the argument for having two discs in the NAS, even when it is used just as a backup, the way this is normally configured means that the two discs automatically mirror each other and if one of those fails, you just plug in a new one and let the NAS get on with copying the files from the good one.

So it certainly is a belt and braces solution, but these discs are not expensive, so why not? I use a Synology NAS with two WD Red discs configured that way as a backup to my Unitiserve.

Best

David

Sounds logical and about right. Mirroring ain't a bad idea when you consider the relatively low cost of HDDs, but the box can fail (ask me how I know this!) and it's more important to back up the backup onto something like a USB device off the NAS. Easy and you don't have to do it all the time.

You certainly don't need anything sophisticated. I've written a few times that RAID is generally irrelevant to domestic UPNP needs, and as a back-up you only need as much disk as the US has. I use a Twonky WD My Book Live, which is just about the cheapest thing out there, and it's fine. I wouldn't serve music from it, but that's not what it's for. 

I've got a single drive QNAP 2TB as back up for my Unitiserve and didn't see the point for anything more.

Idid go for the Fanless version as they can be a bit noisy, depending on where yours will be situated.

Ive also got another copy on another drive, just in case, though that is a bit belt and braces.

Make sure to set up your automated back up via DTC to avoid ever having to think about backing up again, it's a great function.

My NAS isn't on all the time, so I automate my US to back up (differential back up) to my NAS once a week at a time when my NAS is auto switched on.

I use mine as the music server and it's been fine for nearly 3 years! I've not tested it against another NAS but there was nothing to distinguish between it and the same files on USB. I did make a linear PSU for it though.

A more logical use of 2 disks in a NAS is for use as a Father / Grandfather backup scheme which gives greater protection against accidental error (or ill-conceived actions) by the user.  After all it only matters if your backup disk fails at the same time as your level 1 (primary / working) data store, otherwise just replace the disk and run your backup process again.

Chris SU,

I also have a Unitiserve and have backed it up with a single bay Synology, i then boxed it up and put it in a wardrobe up stairs,hopefully I won't need to use it but it was good to know that i won't have to re rip hundreds of CDs,

I couldn't see the point in spending any more money on extra bays.

Karl

When you get your NAS, Chris, remember that the US automated backup job only backs up the store for ripped CDs.  It does not back up playlists or the Downloads store.  Which is a PITA and something they will hopefully fix if there is ever another firmware release for the servers. 

I use a free copy utility recommended by one of the forum members to backup the downloads folder form time-to-time.  There is a function in DTC that will back up playlists, but as far as I can work it you have to run that manually.

David

If it's just for backup purposes you do not even need a NAS, I would say. You should be able to just connect a reasonably sized external HDD to your router. I have a 4TB HDD connected to a Raspberry Pi which I can access remotely and, of course, on the LAN. If backup speed is not a concern, this is a very flexible solution, in my view. Best, nbpf

You could be right, although I can't help thinking that if that's all that was needed, everyone with a Unitiserve or NAS would be doing it. I've played with this idea a while ago, and I seem to remember that I'd have to restore everything, including CD rips, to the downloads folder.

Not for the first time, this interesting and lively thread reminds me that the Streaming Audio part of the Forum, in particular, seems to have three types of participants.  There are 1) the IT whizz "it's all trivially easy if you do the following ten not-at-all-complicated, interesting and obvious, things" people who really know what they are doing.  There are 2) the "I don't understand any of this I just want to listen to the music so I need help" people and there are 3) those in-between the other two, who understand things a bit, are willing to play about with networks and so on, but ultimately are likely to find some of the things proposed by the first category as far too much of a faff. As a person who falls into the third of the above categories, I notice that there are some amongst us who masquerade as being a member of the third yet actually are truthfully members of the first, able to trade highly technical stuff with each other that if they were true members of the third category, they would not have heard of. 

With regard to this thread, you can see different backup strategies working best for each type of person.  Which is why we don't all do the same things. And the recent long thread on rolling back firmware demonstrated the different categories of Forum participating people too. i find it fascinating.  Just saying........

David

I largely agree with that and I also see myself as a member of the 3rd section.

I do think though that being a 3rd section member does have it's issues, at least for me, because on a number of occasions I have been reluctant to question or query accepted wisdom.

A good example of this is that, like Chris in the post above, I don't quite get the 'noise' around being able to only back up rips from the UServe and not downloads. Like Chris I save my downloads to a separate file on my IMac and then transfer them to the UServe. In a scenario where the Hard Drive on The UServe failed then I would use the backup NAS to transfer the CD Rips onto the new UServe HD and transfer the downloads from the IMac to the new UServe Downloads folder. Job done.

I accept that if both the IMac and the UServe went at the same time then I'm 'knackered' but in all reality that is pretty unlikely unless the house is struck by lightning in which case the NAS would go as well and I've had it anyway.

Or am I missing something?

Hi Chris,

It does depend on your router actually providing that functionality in the first place of course.

We usually recommend NetGear ReadyNAS, Synology or QNAP NASs with externally accessible drive bays because:

1) They've proven to be reliable in our own usage over the years.

2) They provide appropriate functionality for using the backup functionality of the servers.

Some of the other brands of NAS drives (LaCie, WD "Cloud", Seagate GoFlex, Buffalo etc.) we've had issues with when trying to set them up as backup devices as they are intended as personal cloud devices and don't allow for the creation of simple SMB shared folders. So, rather than trying to keep track of individual models (and firmware versions) of those brands then we stick to recommending something that we *KNOW* works and works reliably and is easy to swap drives in should a drive fail.

(Yes, we have had customers with dual drive NASs where you have to take the casework apart to swap out a failed drive who have taken out and replaced the wrong drive ... )

What you use as a backup device really depends on just how far down the backup "Rabbit hole" you want to go ... yes, a single drive NAS would be a bare minimum that I would go with but as I would never actually buy a single drive NAS for my own use (other than as a "jobbing" NAS to just transport files around) then I will always have dual-or-more drive NASs and because drives are so cheap compared to the "value" of the data that is on them then I always just bite the bullet and spend a few quid more on adding a second drive.

Beyond that, my main media server (in excess of 40Tb) is backed up to a second server that is located in a highly secure location (OK ... the garden shed) and my personal documents NAS is backed up remotely to another NAS at a friends house some 75 miles away ... as I say, it all depends on how far down the backup path you want to go.

Phil

I suppose that my solution of a 2-bay NAS backing up the UServe, with a USB solid state back-up for the NAS, all of it on a UPS is a bit of an overkill. But having had to recover a library (albeit only an iTunes library) without recourse to any back-up, I am happy to accept the belt/braces/6" nail approach.

+1 nbpf. A usb external hard disk will provide a perfectly decent backup. Depending on how you set it up, it might require some discipline to remember to do the back up, or you can get software to automate that. It can work out a bit cheaper than a NAS, which is a more sophisticated piece of kit, and generally a usb hard disk is also smaller and more portable.

I use a NAS to reduce the hassle and also because I back up the other computers in the house as well. For really critical work/finance things I also back up automatically to the cloud.

While I agree with Phil that you might as well get the best spec you can for a NAS, because you'll need it in the end, there is no pressing need to get two disks rather than one. Even grand-fathering the back-ups sounds more effective than it might be. If your NAS goes pop, the chances of recovering either disk intact and transferring it to another enclosure aren't all that good - the only back-ups that count are physically separated from the source, eg a separate NAS in Phil's garden shed, the cloud or a usb hard disk.

Question ...

OK - so you've pulled off a copy of the music onto an external USB drive on your computer.

How do you get it back onto the serve *FROM* your computer in the event that you need to restore it? The Serves internal drive is not writeable from the network, only readable.

Backing up to NAS is incorporated into the serve so that if you need to restore a backup then all you do is set the backup location as a Music Store and use the Move Music functionality of your serve to transfer everything back (and you can even use your serve to play all your music whilst it is doing so).

Just pointing out that backup isn't backup unless you know how you're going to restore it too...

Phil

The only NAS we've had to actually go "POP" was a NetGear ReadyNAS belonging to a friend of our ex-MD and now chairman that let out the magic smoke... (We've used so many of these over the time I've been here that we had to see a failure at some point.)

NetGear replaced the NAS immediately (it was only about a week old), both the drives were swapped over from the old NAS and it worked with all data intact.

Phil

Agreed ... there is a well known (and well worn) phrase which is "RAID isn't backup" and that's why I make sure I backup my data multiple times.

However using a mirrored NAS as a backup does provide a very "fit and forget" way to back up your server with a decent confidence in it being reliable for someone that doesn't want to be messing about with computers and taking USB snapshots etc.

In the words of the great Fleetwood Mac - "You can go your own waaaaayyyyyyy" - but quite often people just want a "Give me a simple solution" solution and not want to have to get too involved.

Phil