NAS and Backup Philosophy

[ComplexCarb]

I'm setting up a NAS to sore my data on.

Right now I only have about 8TB of data... so I can keep a copy of it on my machine and on two USB externals that I store in a fire place safe and in a remote location.

I will soon not be able to use this method due to the total amount of data I have. (a. my pc will not have the storage to hold a copy, and my externals will not have the storage to hold copies... unless have 4 total externals to split the data into two total copies which seems like a nightmare)


.......

So I'm going to build a NAS to store one full copy of my data on Raidz2 TrueNAS CORE (as well as cloud access/plex/etc). How do yall recommend having a backup of this NAS?

Do I now have to build another NAS to backup my main NAS and keep it offsite? How do yall do this? Do you just create a large bank of HDDs for a beefy external and store this offsite?

.....

Bonus question... since I'm a NAS noob. What level of protection do I have if my NAS is physically stolen?


Cheers,
ComplexCarb

 

[NugentS]

Bonus answer - not much unless you have encrypted the pools

You can build another NAS, or use an online service - but that tends to be expensive. Or get together with a friend and put disks into each others NAS's and hope your home internet connectivity can survive the deltas (and the initial sync)

Remember the 3-2-1 backup principle. For each TB of source data you need (simplistically) 3 TB of disk (probably more)
"The 3-2-1 backup strategy simply states that you should have 3 copies of your data (your production data and 2 backup copies) on two different media (disk and tape) with one copy off-site for disaster recovery."

 

[Arwen]

Last question first. Lots of people that steal computer hardware want it for the hardware. So that if your NAS is stolen, it will likely to have the OS reloaded, wiping out any existing data. Or just sold for parts. Most thieves won't know about TrueNAS, ZFS, or even care about the data.

If you are truly concerned about confidential data being used, you can of course use ZFS native encryption for that data, and leave the rest unencrypted. Or just encrypt the whole NAS. However, if you loose the encryption keys or passphrase, your data is GONE. Their are no known back doors into ZFS encryption, (of course there should not be, it's supposed to be secure!). This is why some people has encrypted NASes, but unencrypted backups.

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Now on to backups. Lots of people here suggest another NAS. Preferably in a different site. However, if your NAS is the first level backup, then using single large disks to back the NAS up may make sense. For example, 20TB single drives are now available.

I wrote a resource here in the Forums on how to backup to a local disk. It's not intended to be a step by step process, since every single person will have their own specific needs. But, it's a starting point:
How to backup to local disks
Using single disks as backups have advantages. You can have as many as needed, (I now have 3 disks in my backup rotation, 2 full, and 1 everything except the media.)

 

[ChrisRJ]

@ComplexCarb , what amount of data are we talking about right now? What is the growth rate? And much are those data worth to you?

 

[ComplexCarb]

@ComplexCarb , what amount of data are we talking about right now? What is the growth rate? And much are those data worth to you?

About 8TB now. Around 1 TB a year growth. I run a YT channel and have a good deal of 4K footage produced.... The data is worth enough I don't want to lose it...

After sleeping on it I think I'll have 1.) the main NAS.... #homeServer1 2.) a HDD enclosure connectable by USB that will be physically connected, mirrored, disconnected, and stored off site #offSiteHDDs 3.) a backup NAS #remotebackupNAS running at a relatives house.... I think this will be pretty secure....

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On the NAS:
TBH, I'm trying to decide between TrueNAS core and Unraid... since I want it to be upgradable in the future. I'm not sure I like the idea of having to buy 4 disks at a time every time I want to increase storage (if running RAID-Z2).... With the plan above I may be able to get away with RAID-Z1 since I'll always have a live backup NAS running....

 

[ChrisRJ]

Well, that was basically the reason for asking about the data's value. Yes, extending a pool with a RAIDZ2 vdev is relatively expensive. But I guess is one of the cases where "you get what you pay for is true". But at the end of the day it is your call.

 

[ComplexCarb]

Well, that was basically the reason for asking about the data's value. Yes, extending a pool with a RAIDZ2 vdev is relatively expensive. But I guess is one of the cases where "you get what you pay for is true". But at the end of the day it is your call.

If you have a pool with one vdev RAID-Z2 - 5 disks @ 8TB each (24TB total capacity) and you want to upgrade with another identical vdev.... wouldn't that bring your parity-ed disk up to 4 and 48TB capacity?

At that point wouldn't you want to hard back up, wipe the NAS, and start a new vedev with 10 disk in RAID-Z2 to achieve 64GB?

 

[jgreco]

The 10 disk one-vdev RAIDZ2 will be slower than two-vdev RAIDZ2, plus, not everyone has the space to back up 24TB of data.

 

[ChrisRJ]

I have my third ZFS-based NAS now. It started with 5 drives of 1 TB in RAIDZ1. Then 6 drives of 4 TB in RAIDZ2. And now I am at 8 drives of 16 TB in RAIDZ2. Every time I had planned for about 6-8 years of usage, given the expected data growth. (Before that it was Linux, NetWare 4.11, and NetWare 3.12)

In other words, I have always planned without an expansion. A major deciding factor was power consumption. Running a single 7200 RPM drive costs me around 25 Euros per year.