Question about adding 3 more drives

[jon_2112]

can you please share your backup strategy?

I'm gonna have a total of 40TB available storage after RADIZ2. I'm wondering what's the best backup option. I seen online backup, but does that get expensive for 40TB?

It's nothing really special, but it works well for my use case (in home, used for shared storage of miscellaneous stuff like documents and pictures [we take a lot of pictures], audiobooks, movies, software, etc). The desktop computers also back up to FreeNAS daily. Most of it is archival, other than the media, and most of our day to day documents are on cloud storage, which is also backed up as part of the client backups.

Anyway, I have a 12 TB encrypted external drive, which fits everything at the moment, that lives in my locker at work. I take it home periodically and run a robocopy to it. I have a scheduled task that runs every few days to upload any new items (other than movies, software, and client backups) to Amazon S3. If the server spontaneously combusted, it wouldn't really be a very big deal. Everything really important is in at least two other places (S3, cloud, USB drive) and everything replaceable is in at least one (USB drive).

As for expense, it depends on your use. If you have frequently-changed data or need to access it often, then it's a little more expensive. Most of my stuff doesn't change, so I upload into Glacier storage on Amazon S3 which is dirt cheap. I think there are some services that have essentially unlimited online storage.

 

[Scharbag]

can you please share your backup strategy?

I'm gonna have a total of 40TB available storage after RADIZ2. I'm wondering what's the best backup option. I seen online backup, but does that get expensive for 40TB?

You could use Backblaze as a backup service for all of your data online. It is unlimited for Windows and Mac systems at $6/month. FreeNAS can sync directly to Backblaze but it uses a different tier of pricing IIRC. That said, you should take a look at how much of your data is actually irreplaceable. In my case, I have about 100GB of absolutely irreplaceable data over my 42 years on this mud ball. That is cheap to backup online.

If it were me, I would make a the 9 drive RaidZ2 single vDev pool and then make sure that all of the irreplaceable data is backed up in the cloud (Dropbox/Tresorit/Backblaze etc.).

Cheers,

 

[jon_2112]

You could use Backblaze as a backup service for all of your data online. It is unlimited for Windows and Mac systems at $6/month. FreeNAS can sync directly to Backblaze but it uses a different tier of pricing IIRC. That said, you should take a look at how much of your data is actually irreplaceable. In my case, I have about 100GB of absolutely irreplaceable data over my 42 years on this mud ball. That is cheap to backup online.

If it were me, I would make a the 9 drive RaidZ2 single vDev pool and then make sure that all of the irreplaceable data is backed up in the cloud (Dropbox/Tresorit/Backblaze etc.).

Cheers,

Last time I checked, the $6/month Backblaze tier doesn't allow you to sync a network drive, only locally from Windows. It's more expensive to be able to sync from a network drive or from FreeNAS.

 

[Scharbag]

Last time I checked, the $6/month Backblaze tier doesn't allow you to sync a network drive, only locally from Windows. It's more expensive to be able to sync from a network drive or from FreeNAS.

That I did not know. Good info!

The B2 option that is supported in FreeNAS is not terribly expensive. But it would still cost me $170/month to store my shiza online... :)

Cheers,

 

[Heracles]

Hi,

My backup strategy is in my signature : 3 Freenas servers, one offsite and one offline. The 3-copies rule is important for data that you really care about....

 

[ruzifan]

You could use Backblaze as a backup service for all of your data online. It is unlimited for Windows and Mac systems at $6/month. FreeNAS can sync directly to Backblaze but it uses a different tier of pricing IIRC. That said, you should take a look at how much of your data is actually irreplaceable. In my case, I have about 100GB of absolutely irreplaceable data over my 42 years on this mud ball. That is cheap to backup online.

If it were me, I would make a the 9 drive RaidZ2 single vDev pool and then make sure that all of the irreplaceable data is backed up in the cloud (Dropbox/Tresorit/Backblaze etc.).

Cheers,

i think i've made my decision. Once my SAS card comes in,

I'm going to make a large 9 drive RADIZ2 pool. I'll have about 56TB (7X8TB) of usable SPACE with 2 Drives that can fail. Or i can do 46TB usable space (6X8TB) one drive as Hot spare and 2 drive that can fail.

most of my data will be movies and tv shows. I think MAX 4TB will be irreplaceable data (this can grow overtime) Pictures, videos, drone footage, vacation pics. Basically all family stuff. Those stuff i will have to find an online backup solution for. If i lose my movies and stuff, i can live without it. Not a big deal as it can be reacquired.

Now, i just have to find a good online backup at a decent cost for my personal irreplaceable data. I guess Backblaze is not an option.

 

[Scharbag]

can you please share your backup strategy?

I'm gonna have a total of 40TB available storage after RADIZ2. I'm wondering what's the best backup option. I seen online backup, but does that get expensive for 40TB?

This is what I do:

Production pool is made up of 2 vDevs - each has 6 drives RaidZ2 - ~35TiB
Fast pool is made up of 2 vDevs - each has 2 drives mirrored - ~1 TiB
Backup pool is made up of 2 vDevs - each has 9 drives Raid Z2 - ~43 TiB

I use ZFS snapshots, replication and Rsync to backup my data. Every day at midnight, my backup pool snapshots and then my production pool Rsyncs to my backup pool. Periodically, my fast pool replicates to my backup pool replication targets. I also use several different snapshot schedules on my production pool to ensure I can always recover data if needed. This includes snapshotting my datasets that I use to store my ESXi VMs. Unfortunately ESXi 6.5 made the API call that allows FreeNAS to properly snapshot VMware was turned off for the free version... But it still works OK.

Lots of stuff going on but once it is set, it just runs. I have not adjusted it in years.

Cheers,