Data safety - advice needed

[Konrad162]

Hello, everyone.
I have a problem, maybe it is not big. But I need a piece of advice.

Short description of what I have:
E3-1240 v5
GA-X150-Plus WS
32 GB RAM
1 x SSD 512GB - Windows 10
1 x HDD 3TB - ST2000DM001-1ER164
2 x HDD 4TB - TOSHIBA HDWE140
soon 2 x HDD 4TB - ST4000VN008

I have many photos and other quite relevant data on this 3TB disks.
Right now what I'm doing - I have a script that is running every day and it is making a backup to this TOSHIBA HDWE140 (on even days to one, on odd days on other).
I'm a photographer and I would like to keep a two-day backup if something will go wrong with my edits.
After the backup (FreeFileSync) does 2 TOSHIBA HDWE140 are going offline thanks to DISKPART - offline disk command.
So does two Thosiba disks are used for a maximum of 1 hour per day.
Once a week I'm also doing a backup on two USB HDD drives (Thosiba 2TB)

So from a hardware failure point of view, I'm more or less secured.
But in the past, I have experienced data degradation. And I believe (tell me if I'm wrong) but I'm not protected from this catastrophe in any way.

So I was thinking about FreeNAS, this "new" file system and its Scrub and SMART test functions.
I tried to build FreeNAS on Hyper V but it was a failure - for example, no SMART data.
Yes, I know FreeNAS needs to have access to real hardware. But I don't have much money on a dedicated NAS machine. That is why I was looking for used parts / pc / servers whatever. And I have found Lenovo TS140. I would move there 2x TOSHIBA HDWE140 and 2x ST4000VN008.

But still, I'm not sure... do I need this and if this is the best way to deal with my problem. I hope the experts like you can give me some guidance on this completely new topic.

 

[garm]

Hi and welcome to the forum,

You’re correct that although you have backup, you have no protection for the data on those disks. I’m a “pro” hobby photographer and have accumulated about 2 TB of RAW photos over little more then a decade. I started down the ZFS route with FreeBSD back in the late 00’s after looking at OpenSolaris for a few years. I was using a gaming rig and various USB drives for storage and had lost photos and other documents due to disk degradation.
Sins I started with ZFS I have not a single file, my present home server has a main storage pool of four 4 TB drives of various age, but the data on those drives are much olde, some more then two decades.
A Xeon TS140 will probably be enough for basic storage and some light jails, I’m using a Dell T20 with the same processor and it’s managing a few web apps, Nextcloud and storage without much effort.

 

[artlessknave]

you can virtualize FreeNAS fine as long as you do it correctly. mainly what you need to do is use VT-D to feed a controller directly to the freenas VM, as well as ensure you have enough RAM in the VM.
windows does nothing for data integrity really, so zfs would be a huge upgrade there, as zfs is checksums all the way down (checksums of the data, checksums of the metadata, checksums of the checksums, checksums of the metadata of the checksums - basically zfs assumes your drives are incompetent and are going to return bad data every few reads). you need ECC to REALLY be sure though, and your parts list doesn't appear to specify if you have it.
It would be definitely recomended to get a 2nd system for dedicated freenas, and use a freenas VM to host a backup pool, but even a correctly built VM with 2 cloned pools would probably be way more reliable than what you currently have.
zfs snapshots lets you have virtually unlimted versions of files, and those snapshots can be used to replicate to a backup pool nearly instantly by sending only changed data - zfs is smart and knows every single block that changed since the snapshot timestamp, and so doesnt need to traverse the whole foldertree and read everyfile the way tools like rsync and freefilesync do, making for nigh instant backups

 

[Konrad162]

@garm @artlessknave
Hi,
thank you very much for your support.
I will buy this Lenovo TS140.
To have a proper VM on the current system I would need to have ECC - that will require to sell motherboard and RAM and buy new motherboard and RAM... I believe that operation will be much more expensive than buying this TS140 (it has E3-1226 V3 and 16GB ECC RAM and 1-year warranty).

@artlessknave what do you mean by "use a freenas VM to host a backup pool"? Can you explain this a little bit further?

 

[artlessknave]

oh, I read the specs of that board wrong. I thought it was ECC capable, but missed the part that it disables the ECC of any RAM.

use a freenas VM to host a backup pool"

I just mean that you could run your primary freenas on the TS140 (which seems to max out at 4 drives btw, so not much for expansion) and then run a hyperv VM on your existing windows server and host a freenas VM (if vt-d is available) for a backup server. you we get the full advantage of baremetal freenas while also having a backup server with only one new server purchase. you could use a single freenas to run both prod and backup pools but its generally recomended to have a separate server when possible, but with only 4 drives in that ts140 you would be severely limited in drive options.

 

[Konrad162]

but with only 4 drives in that ts140 you would be severely limited in drive options.

It seems that at one point this TS140 is limited to max 4-5 drives.
But on the other, I have just seen some youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHUYPRf75U4
and the guy is connecting and fitting in the same housing 8 drives. With the help of LSI 9260-8i controller.

I would even consider buying some SUPERMICRO motherboard and build some custom configuration - all I need is CPU, motherboard and ECC RAM.
But any SUPERMICRO motherboard cost as much as this whole TS140.

 

[artlessknave]

ya, i don't know the specs well, and the specifics aren't really important to me; as long as you know it's capabilities and it has what you need go nuts