Network Attached Storage recommendations

[pete376403]

xcopy is a whore. Robocopy sounds third party.

It is and I've not had much success with Robocopy even though its supposed to be good.
Teracopy works for me every time and is free. There is a paid, pro version but so far I haven't found the need (windows of course, not Linux)

[Akzle]

It is and I've not had much success with Robocopy even though its supposed to be good.
Teracopy works for me every time and is free. There is a paid, pro version but so far I haven't found the need (windows of course, not Linux)

linux is free all day long.

[Gremlin]

One thing to watch out for in replication or backups is silent corruption. You're diligently backing up everything... except some of it is useless... seen it before. It's a bitch

[Big Dog]

One thing to watch out for in replication or backups is silent corruption. You're diligently backing up everything... except some of it is useless... seen it before. It's a bitch

Nothing makes your anus quite as water tight as restoring an 80gb db from backup and the restore finishes with an error that the tail was not properly closed.

Depth of iteration on redundant but indépendant disks is your friend.

Raid might be faster but involves constantly manipulating the data.

If you really have to be sure you need to regularly sample your data.

Boring. But less so than trying to explain why the data is gone

Sent via tapatalk.

[Skiwi]

I'm very happy with my Synology DS114. I use it to serve media to various tablets, laptops, desktops and phones on the family network, back up our devices and store our photos, videos, music etc.

Downloading once and share to all has cut down our downloads to the point our data limits are no longer relevant.

Having the right software to meet your needs is key. Figure out what you want then it will become clearer.
Cheers
Skiwi

[ledaero]

For a home-cloud I have two - a Mac Mini with 4x 3TB WDD USB 3.0 drives in 2x mirrored pairs for 6GB of storage - it serves media.

I also have an Airport Time Capsule with 3TB that does nothing but back up our laptops, phones and tablets. But it's not NAS and you shouldn't try and use it like one.

For the more important stuff I have a wee PC running Linux and FreeNAS. The case is a 8-bay Coolermaster tower with 6x SATA interfaces and 4x IDE (one of which runs the OS). It's rock solid. It also does double-duty being the engine for torrents, endpoint for VPN, etc.

Ignoring the Mini and WD drives, the FreeNAS cost peanuts - the PC was an old Asus board with 4GB and a Q6600 (best value processor EVA!!!), the drives are 1TB 7200 RPM Seagates with decent caches (I forget the model and am away from the beast) which I bought as refurbs for under a hundred each and are running as 2x3 Raid 1.

I'm a big fan of mirrored drives - if the raid breaks, you still have a perfectly functional drive... disks are cheap - the shit on them quite often isn't.

[eldog]

Save what you want to do to a text file.
Change the extension to CMD
Schedule it as a task, add any desired triggers.
IF that works you add a date to the file name.

I tried something similar to what you suggested - nothing so far has proved to be 100% reliable, I found I was having endless strange problems and although they seemed to work - there is a nagging feeling that a few things weren't right.
Today, I had errors that suggested that my filenames were longer than 256 char, as well as the backup stalling. I ran a little cmd line and saved the directory names and used Excel to determine the length of each one only took a few mins, only one was 256 all the rest were under. That was using File Explorer - there were fixes suggested by MS but none ran - wrong version.

went back and used ROBOCOPY - wasn't aware I needed to exit from File Explorer and any other programs that had files open as ROBOCOPY doesn't copy open files. Once I realised that then things improved somewhat.
Seemed to copy OK - still no definite feeling of I nailed the problem. Vague feedback.

I know its not RSYNC, or Linux based. I don't have time or energy to run around fixing these important things as my own job suffers. Its best for me to 'buy' the tech and set it up so someone else (non tech person) can activate it and do the same job if I am not present.

Downloaded Acronius True Image 2016 Trial - yeah I gave in, I just wanted a secure backup solution that gave me feedback as to IF it has backed up, and I can try to restore the computer without too much hassle as some later stage.

I will try and make a few comments on what I find in the future

[Gremlin]

Acronis, StorageCraft ShadowProtect, Macrium Reflect. When backing up, if you're using two drives and rotating, I think all the software will have issues tracking backups. I prefer to have a repository of backups, then transfer those to drives that rotate.

Absolutely keep file path <256 char (this starts from drive letter). Any backup software will start having problems with files beyond that. It might back it up, but you'll struggle to restore etc.

Yes, Robocopy et al do not copy open files.

Check your backups periodically. All hard drives corrupt eventually... don't want to find out too late. Plus, the backup drive is under most strain when you're restoring the big backups... not a good time to fail, so any hint of issues and replace it... it's your last line of defence.

[eldog]

When backing up, if you're using two drives and rotating, I think all the software will have issues tracking backups. I prefer to have a repository of backups, then transfer those to drives that rotate.

Absolutely keep file path <256 char.

I suppose I wanted to know if I had made the right decision, re backup method. I am the default tech person.
its been a few years since I really did anything PC tech wise apart from standard stuff and 'upgrading' from Vista to Windows 8.1 - because program requirements-so much fun that was.....
<256 I had forgotten about that but all are under.

I know its your job but can you elabourate on the repository/rotation.
At present set with 2 rotating drives and a File History drive as well.(File History is vague as well)

This is sorting out a big part of stuff i have been ignoring so I can move onto video editing which is the next project on the roundtoit list.

The NAS drive is really helpful I can set it up and it connects to multiple computers backing them up without much supervision, so will have to figure out the rotation/storage of the drives like you say.

[Akzle]

I tried something similar to what you suggested - nothing so far has proved to be 100% reliable, I found I was having endless strange problems and although they seemed to work - there is a nagging feeling that a few things weren't right.
Today, I had errors that suggested that my filenames were longer than 256 char, as well as the backup stalling. I ran a little cmd line and saved the directory names and used Excel to determine the length of each one only took a few mins, only one was 256 all the rest were under. That was using File Explorer - there were fixes suggested by MS but none ran - wrong version.

went back and used ROBOCOPY - wasn't aware I needed to exit from File Explorer and any other programs that had files open as ROBOCOPY doesn't copy open files. Once I realised that then things improved somewhat.
Seemed to copy OK - still no definite feeling of I nailed the problem. Vague feedback.

I know its not RSYNC, or Linux based. I don't have time or energy to run around fixing these important things as my own job suffers. Its best for me to 'buy' the tech and set it up so someone else (non tech person) can activate it and do the same job if I am not present.

Downloaded Acronius True Image 2016 Trial - yeah I gave in, I just wanted a secure backup solution that gave me feedback as to IF it has backed up, and I can try to restore the computer without too much hassle as some later stage.

I will try and make a few comments on what I find in the future

nix. rsync. cron.

it's not 100% reliable, but it's close enough for fucken science.

super computers. atms and the computers that track jew gold shit, the large hadron collider....
but hey, who needs accuracy and reliability when you have microsoft?

Acronis, StorageCraft ShadowProtect, Macrium Reflect. When backing up, if you're using two drives and rotating, I think all the software will have issues tracking backups. I prefer to have a repository of backups, then transfer those to drives that rotate.

Absolutely keep file path <256 char (this starts from drive letter). Any backup software will start having problems with files beyond that. It might back it up, but you'll struggle to restore etc.

*255 you plebian. the joys of suffering a basically redundant (certainly retarded) file system (NTFS).

nix? 4096 all day long.

[eldog]

nix. rsync. cron.

it's not 100% reliable

super computers. atms and the the large hadron collider....
but hey, who needs accuracy and reliability when you have microsoft?
*255 you plebian. the joys of suffering a basically redundant (certainly retarded) file system (NTFS). nix? 4096 all day long.

Unfortunately I am stuck with a MS based program, whose roots are firmly planted in the MS world and is a memory hog.
You may be right about the Linux stuff but I just dont have the time at the moment.
1 file was 256, 1 was 255, all the rest under 250, so I will sort it next week.

[Akzle]

*255 you plebian. the joys of suffering a basically redundant (certainly retarded) file system (NTFS).

nix? 4096 all day long.

well, i'll just eat my hat right now. it's winblows horseshittery, not NTFS.

not to excuse anyone using NTFS. but apparently it supports up to 32 000 char paths.

[Gremlin]

I know its your job but can you elabourate on the repository/rotation.
At present set with 2 rotating drives and a File History drive as well.(File History is vague as well)

Ideally, the core live data. Then a repository for backups. Then 2 drives you're rotating (you can certainly rotate more) but ideally not less than 2. Every week the 2 drive is rotated for each other, and while one is connected, the other is off site.

That way you have a repository for fast access of history, then other drive with possibly more history on it, and if the location goes kah-blewy (technical term) you have another off site for recovery...

[Akzle]

Unfortunately I am stuck with a MS based program, whose roots are firmly planted in the MS world and is a memory hog.
You may be right about the Linux stuff but I just dont have the time at the moment.
1 file was 256, 1 was 255, all the rest under 250, so I will sort it next week.

apparently (since now you've got me interested and i'm relearning/reading/discovering this shyt) windows 8 generates it's longest path as 273, however you can sneak one out to 291 before the OS craps it's daks and cries to mum.

just because you run your crap on crap, doesn't mean you can't install nix on a quiet little box in the corner and have it save the world for you, frequently, and without fuckup nor headache. which, since you seem to be worried about time, will give you more to bang your wife. or ride your bike. whichever.

[eldog]

Ideally, the core live data. Then a repository for backups. Then 2 drives you're rotating (you can certainly rotate more) but ideally not less than 2. Every week the 2 drive is rotated for each other, and while one is connected, the other is off site.

That way you have a repository for fast access of history, then other drive with possibly more history on it, and if the location goes kah-blewy (technical term) you have another off site for recovery...

Core is a raid 10 drive setup, its saved me a few times in the past. I havent bothered to upgrade the drivers for that (Original Intel ones) as I think 'if it works dont muck it around'
speed is reasonably good, its robust and doesnt drop out and rebuild itself, like other companies gear seems to do. It still keeps up with most other peoples brand new gear.

the second part above was how i envisioned it at the start.

I will have a look at the Acronis help files and google what I can about drive repsoitory etc
thanks Gremlin