Portable backup box

[rwslippey]

I'm in the process of upgrading my current home freenas box. I should mention that my previous posts have said that my data isn't critical but my photography business has grown and it has now become critical, loosing a wedding is not an option.

My current box isn't an issue, it's just getting some ram, a new case, and rebuilt for a larger pool (10 drives instead of the 6 I have now). I'm also going to 4TB drives where I started with 2TB and I'll be going RAIDz3 now for the added protection.

My backup is the really important thing that concerns me. Currently my workflow looks like this:

Import to desktop or laptop computer, copy all files to NAS, Keep all RAW images on cards until delivery is complete. So I have a copy on my Laptop or Desktop (if I copied the wedding to the desktop I copy it to my laptop anyway as an added backup) I have the original camera cards (which is a real pain to leave them all full until I'm done editing) and the NAS. Backups everywhere and full SSDs on basically all of my machines. Not ideal. I'll note I have an added backup of my offsite crashplan but that has it's own issues I'm sure you're all aware of.

I've toyed with backing up to rotating hard drives, which is my highly preferred method. Problem is it's a real PITA. I don't have the budget or want to put hot swap drives in my NAS and the process with attaching backup drives and then removing them is a little bit of a headache to be honest. USB is unreliable. Finally, the data sets I need to backup are huge now, so a single drive isn't going to cut it. My photo library drive alone is over 3 TB and that only includes half of my work, none of the software backups or any of my other business document which if I were to look might be double that.

So I have two routes I'm thinking here. 8 TB SMR (archive drives I think they're advertised as). The plan then would be to insert one, have it copy the pool all the time. Take it out once a month or week or whatever (depending on how new the data is here I would probably change the times I swap it) Swap it with another, and put the new one back in for update and keep rolling. Again, not ideal and kind of a pain from my experience.

The second idea was something similar to this. https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/portable-freenas-server.49800/
I'll have a bunch of 2TB drives when I'm done here and I don't need RAIDz3 for my backup pool. (I'd like to have 2 though...) The cost of what he has here is a little much, but I don't really need that much speed or the encrpytion. Anything that is sensitive gets encrypted on the client machines.

With this option, I think I'd bring this home once in a while, when I knew I had to new data to copy to it. You're probably wondering why I don't just put a new NAS at a friend's house. Honestly, I don't trust that they'll keep it running all the time, it won't get knocked around or beaten up. I prefer to maintain complete control of my data, so I'd be taking either of these options to work and leaving them there for the storage end of it. I also like fast write times.... which even with my fios just isn't gonna happen. Don't get me wrong I like my friends and my family, but I really like my clients to be happy, and there is always the legal issues as far as loosing documents goes!

So I guess this is a what would you do situation? How likely is it to be safe to keep either option "off" for the majority of the time? Being fair I could probably run the portable NAS box at work but network is a no go. I'll never be able to get network for it here.

Another option might be rotating 2TB's with changes back to another box here. Pop the drive in and ZFS send it in? Not really sure how that would work though. Backing up freenas has always felt a little weird to me where everything else is awesome, but it's something I need to deal with here soon because I don't really like trusting the cloud all on it's own.

Thanks for any insight.

 

[Dice]

...how about dropbox/backblaze type of off-site?
You could also segment your backups, so that for example, a dropbox account would handle the initial WIP, while another solution is 'ice-aged' somewhere else.

I'd personally prefer a super low-spec freenas compatible pile, with minimum if any redundancy, to function as the hub for the 'rotating drive'.
That is, pile together drives of similar size and run them as raidz1, or even striped.
Such a machine could be a recycled server gear that is decently cheap, but - loud and power hungry. As it would not be of constant use, I'd accept those trade-offs, especially when thinking again on the work of circulating drives and all ...that comes along with that.

 

[rwslippey]

...how about dropbox/backblaze type of off-site?
You could also segment your backups, so that for example, a dropbox account would handle the initial WIP, while another solution is 'ice-aged' somewhere else.

I'd personally prefer a super low-spec freenas compatible pile, with minimum if any redundancy, to function as the hub for the 'rotating drive'.
That is, pile together drives of similar size and run them as raidz1, or even striped.
Such a machine could be a recycled server gear that is decently cheap, but - loud and power hungry. As it would not be of constant use, I'd accept those trade-offs, especially when thinking again on the work of circulating drives and all ...that comes along with that.

I do like the idea of segmenting backups... hadn’t thought of that. I’ll I’d be willing and able to dump my work in progress folder to its own dataset and back it up to google drive as I already pay for it... I actually really like that idea.

As far as the rotating drive back. I’d be willing to accept the trade offs like you said. How would this work though? Put a drive in the primary system and ZFS send to it as it’s own pool? Then import it to another pool on the backup system? That seems like a workable solution just not sure of the details to be honest.


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[Stux]

My experience with backups is anything that requires manual intervention will eventually not get done.

The solution is to auto replicate to a second cheaper/crappier FreeNAS. Often when you upgrade one, just make the old one the backup.

Whether you offsite it is the next question. I would. I know you mentioned the friend problem, but it really is a good idea to just find a suitable host, plug it in, leave it on (office, home, parents, friends etc)

Or pay for backblaze etc.

 

[rwslippey]

My experience with backups is anything that requires manual intervention will eventually not get done.

The solution is to auto replicate to a second cheaper/crappier FreeNAS. Often when you upgrade one, just make the old one the backup.

Whether you offsite it is the next question. I would. I know you mentioned the friend problem, but it really is a good idea to just find a suitable host, plug it in, leave it on (office, home, parents, friends etc)

Or pay for backblaze etc.

All good points. I’m also scared of ransomware propagating but I do see your point. I will probably do this to some extent to my dads NAS (also freenas) But would still rather have an offline solution just in case


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[Stux]

Snapshots will take care of ransomware. If a connected device encrypts the share, just rollback to a precious snapshot.

 

[rwslippey]

Snapshots will take care of ransomware. If a connected device encrypts the share, just rollback to a precious snapshot.

Iv thought of this too but my concern had always been how long do I really have between the time it starts working on the files to roll back. I mean if it started today a week? Two? If I understand correctly it would depend on how long the snapshots are stored for but that would be one a limitation. Am I correct in that being limited by how long the snapshots are stored for?

I’m sure at some point these people would get smart and infect a system but not tell anyone for a long time till everything has been propagated and there would then be no way to roll back as those snapshots would be gone. I’ll be honest that I haven’t experienced this myself but Iv repaired a few system that this has happened to so it is a huge fear. I also sometimes travel for periods of time unexpectedly and I would have no control over when I’m told to go or where. ( I serve in the national guard) so I thought the best case would be to have something offline that I can know I don’t need to constantly be checking on.

I may be flawed in my think long so your thoughts are very welcome


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[Stux]

Snapshots only store differences, thus if you only add content they don’t really use any more space and you can have long retention

 

[rwslippey]

Snapshots only store differences, thus if you only add content they don’t really use any more space and you can have long retention

Ok I guess that might solve the problem there then...

I know they only store the differences but for some reason thought there was a limit on how long they could be stored or that it could eat space storing them too long. Gonna go reread up on snapshots because my thinking might be flawed.

It seems like it just might be easier go with snapshots and offsite replication this way then transporting hard drives. Now to hook a friend on taking a second NAS for me [emoji41]


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