Safe Back-up Query

You could try setting up a QNAP or Synology NAS.

Yes - it would simply connect to your network and act as a second network storage.

Thanks Adam...G

No problem with backing up to a second WD NAS drive but it might be a good idea to only have it powered and connected to your network as and when you do your backups since that will protect it from any power outs etc. which might affect the network.

Yup you can add another NAS and it won't be a problem regardless of what make it is.

However... the cold backup you are currently doing where the USB disk gets (hopefully) gracefully removed and locked away after backups is going to provide the best resiliency. Unless it is a realy pain in the arse to manage, you might just want a more reliable USB drive that is not so temperamental. That will provide you protection in case of electrical storms etc. which a seperate NAS won't necessarily do.

Just one word of caution, you may get advice to go for RAID1 or similar. Which definately increases redundancy but shouldn't be confused with actual backup. Your current approach is probably pretty good if that drive wasn't giving you so much trouble. A NAS that supports designating a single drive as a cold backup on a schedule where it powers down the device outside of that schedule may also be useful but you need to make sure that the format of the disks and so forth is going to be readily transferrable to another NAS should something go wrong. Another reason why, if you are not sure about the finer details, I give yet another vote for your current method but with a more relaiable USB disk.

For what it's worth, I use a NAS with software RAID1 (so that it is not dependent on proprietary hardware RAID controllers - what can fail just like disks) on 2x 6TB WD Red drives and a 3rd bay with another WD Red drive that purely accepts backups and is otherwise powered down and removed. The original NAS did fail a while back and there was no problem after reslotting the disks into a new NAS and doing some manual setup everything was back again pretty quick.

Interesting - the USB hardisk storage solution appeals for the sake of simplicity so I may just go with that.

Thanks again,

G

I'm not convinced at all that you need another NAS for backup,  a lot of folks around here use a simple USB solution such as WD "My Passport",  it's a small carry around black block that you hook it up to a USB port on the main NAS as & when a backup is  needed & then store it elsewhere.    Have you considered that the problem might be the NAS that you have, or something is wrong with it or the USB backup program//path.

I haven't come across the WD redbook NAS but if is similar to the 2TB and 3TB WD My Book Lives which I have, then there is no USB expansion conection but only a single Ethernet port on the enclosure.

Incidentally, I eventually replaced these with a 4 bay QNAP NAS and now only connect up the WD MBLs for monthly backup duties.

Thanks MIKE-B & Yes SJBABBEY that's the one, no USB expansion.

G

Graeme, I believe that the MBL range has been replaced by WD's My Cloud NAS drives and I'm not sure what UPnP server software they have installed. I suspect they no longer use Twonky.

Mike is correct that a USB drive is fine for backing up your files but you still need to have a working NAS or use your computer's UPnP software.

sjbabbey posted:

Graeme, I believe that the MBL range has been replaced by WD's My Cloud NAS drives and I'm not sure what UPnP server software they have installed. I suspect they no longer use Twonky.

Mike is correct that a USB drive is fine for backing up your files but you still need to have a working NAS or use your computer's UPnP software.

Sure. The NAS is working fine.

I think I'll follow the maxim 'keep it simple stupid'!

G

Grame,

I run my NAS separately. Every time I buy a high res album, I make two copies to two separate WD drives, that I simply connect to my laptop. Only then a copy is uploaded to a NAS. This one runs 2 x 6TB in a RAID mode for ease of swapping if a drive fails.

WD dives are stored in a fire proof, non-magnetic safe. CD rips - I tend to make a back up once evey quarter or so. All those are then backed up to another NAS which I keep in the office and use for streaming music there.

So - KISS

Adam

Thanks Adam.

G

I found that the WD my cloud I had was pretty hopeless. I now use a Qnap, which I plug a My Passport into. It gas a button to press on the front, which enables a differential backup with no need to get the computer out. In fact, I have two USB drives, a black one and a blue one. Having two means that I can take one in the car and play all the music. 

Graeme

 Why not simply buy a 2TB hard drive and stick it in the PC.

 Rip/download music to this, install backup software on the PC, don’t bother with scheduled backups, just backup to the NAS when you want to listen to the downloads. (presumably you're streaming from the NAS) If you want to backup to a USB drive, you can do so from the PC.

 That’s what I do. The NAS usage is kept to a minimum, it sits there doing nothing unless I stream music from it or manually copy music or photos to it.

fatcat posted:

Graeme

 Why not simply buy a 2TB hard drive and stick it in the PC.

 Rip/download music to this, install backup software on the PC, don’t bother with scheduled backups, just backup to the NAS when you want to listen to the downloads. (presumably you're streaming from the NAS) If you want to backup to a USB drive, you can do so from the PC.

 That’s what I do. The NAS usage is kept to a minimum, it sits there doing nothing unless I stream music from it or manually copy music or photos to it.

Which is 100% fine but that basically makes the PC a NAS except now you have to manage the PC as well. If the host is dedicated this is not an issue (though invariably it will use more resources than would be necessary). If you use the PC for other stuff also, it is not really recommended. You may want to make sure it is not setup to do automatic updates which can break things or cause it to restart when you least expect. And the more people with access to it, the more chance there is of problems as people install and unstall god-know-what.

But indeed, many of us refer to a NAS (myself included) which is not an off the shelf NAS but something we built up and dedicated for the task. It just takes a bit of planning. I find it easier to do with Linux than Windows since there is less to turn off and disable.

I used to run data from 2.5" WD and Seagate drives exclusively, with each master having two backups. After having a few drives fail on me over the years, and a particularly nasty issue recently (and the recent back-up not being recent enough) I realised that small form factor high capacity drives are still fickle but that the the human commitment required to keep all these back-ups up to date is my key weakness, and I started looking for a fully automatic solution. 

Over the last few days, I have adopted the following solution, and look forward to finding out its resilience and reliability:

- main storage: 2-bay NAS running Raid1. A Synology diskstation, which I was pleasantly surprised can do a:

- daily automated back-up to Amazon Cloud Drive. 

I still want to find out exactly how private Amazon drive is, but at least the NAS software allows me to scramble the back-up on the client side. For redundancy and peace of mind, will also back-up the NAS locally from time to time, but the pressure is off, for the time being.

The issue I still need to work out is what to do if my NAS fails. I should be able to take one of the drives out and cradle it to the mac, but assuming I can get it to read an ext4 partition, I wonder if it will be able to access the drive correctly.

Cheers,

EJ

If you are comfortable with mounting hetrogenous file systems and think you can manage that using what backup disks you have after a failure on whatever NAS is used that is fine (and certainly, most Linux boxes can mount most file systems). But, if this starts sounding a bit of a "you what and you what?" type of sceanrio, then an external drive where the backup is not of the volume but of the files (so the volume type of filesystem are not relevent) is far simpler. That means again, something like a USB drive with differential file backup to a disk that is something simple and easily understood by many systems... FAT32 or UFS for example.

You can then be pretty sure that if the moon explodes and your NAS dies and you loose everything, then a new NAS will almost definately understand the data on the USB drive and, as some have mentioned, if it doesn't support USB storage, you can always plug the drive into your Mac/PC and drag the files over to the new NAS. Remember, for the backup to be as resilient as possible it needs to be as universal as possible. If you're not completely comfortable with handling filesystems, then FAT, FAT32 or UFS are probably the way to go for the offline backup.

What you don't want is being stuck with backup data intact but struggling to find a new NAS or a system that can extract it.

+1 to the above!!!!

Keep it as simple as possible - my strong recommendation for the off-line backup: simple folders, grouped by whichever way makes sense to a user (e.g. by artist) with sub-folders usually denoting albums.

Thanks gents, paricularly FEELING_ZEN who hit the nail on the head in terms of the answers beginning to go a bit over my head (sorry folks).

A USB hard disk is where I'm headed.

G

Personally I'd never rely on a single type of backup...

If you use an online (internet) 'backup' service, then you're subject to the whims and commercial vagaries of that service and you should keep a local backup to ameliorate that risk.

If you keep all your backups in your house they're vulnerable to fire and theft (although in the case of fire you've probably got a lot more immediate pressing concerns than music).

If you primarily use backup stores that are writable from your network, then you need a backup in a non addressable location to protect from Ransomware.

If all your backups are in overwrite mode, then you are vulnerable to user error, and you should use at least one in incremental mode so you can still undo changes after the backup has run.

Mirror is not backup: As any fault (user error, erroneous deletion or data error) will (almost) instantly be duplicated on the mirror, deleting the copy of the old (correct) data.

Finally you may want to consider combinations of these.

I do have all my CD's if the worst ever came to the worst...

G

GraemeH posted:

I do have all my CD's if the worst ever came to the worst...

G

me too

+1

Also required as proof the files aren't pirated, even if there's considerable doubt as to the legality of ripping CDs even for backup and/or personal use.

The burden of proof of legitimacy is an interesting one, and no doubt heavily biased against the honest member of the public. The law is supposed to place the burden of proof of guiltbon the precesution, not proof of innocence on the accused, and it seems that is the copyright world it is the other way round. And I wonder also about the insurance industry, who seem to be adept at wriggling out of paying up if they see any opportunity.

Rhetorical questions: what if your CDs were burnt in a fire as well as the NAS, where's your proof to the insurance company? Do you keep receipts for Downloaded music? What about receipts for your CDs to verify that you bought them not stole them? Indeed, do you keep receipts of everything you've bought that you still posess? And in the remarkable event that you do, are they in a fireproof safe? Etc etc

I would also agree with the suggestion above to use a USB 3 hard drive.  They are cheap, fast and reliable and can be removed and stored at a remote location.  I have three copies of all my music; one on my NAS, one on a PC and one on a USB hard drive.  I also have all of the CDs although I can't recall the last time I used one.  When I copy a new file I do it three times to each back up - I've never trusted auto backup for a raft of reasons.  I do the same thing with all my photos although I also store those online.