"Network Attatched storage" (NAS) - whats that then?

[dealmaker]

Guys,

Digital cameras and HiDef Video cameras are great but they do hog a lot of data!

I am paranoid about losing all my files full of pictures and video of the kids etc (plus all my expensive downloaded iTunes stuff!)

At the minute I back evetyhing up (in a very poor jumbled and disorganised way) by copying folders form PC to PC so that if I have a hard drive fail I know i have copies elsewhere. It's abit slapdash and to be frank a bit of a pain to do (probably bcasue I didnt think it througfh and set things up properly)

I have seen one of these NetGear NAS systems being advertised - would that be a better and safer solution and be simpler for me to maintain??

[TurricanII]

I would not normaly recommend Iomega products but they do a NAS device with two hard drives that you can set to ben mirrored automatically (RAID 1). This protects you against a single disk failure. I think it was called an Iomega StorCentre

Edited to say that NAS is basically hard disk drives in a standalone box with a network port on it. I guess you have Internet at home via and ADSL modem or router? You plug the NAS into one of the network sockets on the modem. You can then connect to the hard drives, format them and copy your stuff there.

Edited by TurricanII on Friday 4th September 12:31

[rex]

Nave a look at the QNAP stuff. Very easy to use and good customer service.

[Munter]

Depends what you want to protect against? PC HDD failure? Then yes I think they are a reasonable solution. Fire/Flood then not that good.

I got a synology a bit like this one (mine is old now) http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Synology-DS209-Feat...

And 2 500GB disks although I could have gone bigger.

That way it acts as a central backup device for all my computers, plus it has the Printer plugged into it.

[DavidY]

dealmaker

If you use XP/Vista then just download and install Microsoft SyncToy 2.0 (it's free), this will handle the backups for you allowing you to synchronis or more importantly create contribution backups, where no files ever get deleted.

Then purchase a USB HDD or BAS drive of your choice.

davidy

[Road2Ruin]

I would reccommed a buffalo linkstation live. I have the 500GB version but they go up to 1.5TB I beleive. They also ship with Memeo Autobackup which will automatically back up any new or altered files from which ever destination folders you choose. Very good value too.

Pete

[bigdods]

I have a Western Digital 1TB my book nas for exactly the purpose you describe. Its only a single hard drive so only suitable as a backup to copy data you hold elsewhere. Its slow doing the initial copy (took a day to copy my 750Mb over) but then you just do incremental changes and its fine.

I use microsofts synctoy to backup my data and Norton Ghost for the boot drive.

Benefit is that its attached by ethernet to my wirelsss switch so all the PC's in the house can access Photos, videos and data now, a major bonus.

If you dont need the sharing aspect get a USB2 device instead they are much quicker.

To move to fully centralised resilient storage you'd need to go to a NAS that has RAID (mutlipel disks that back each other up). That was a bit too expensive for my needs.

£129 here http://www.ebuyer.com/product/158613

[annodomini2]

Or if you have an old PC lying around

http://www.freenas.org/

[Munter]

annodomini2 said:

Or if you have an old PC lying around

http://www.freenas.org/

I've had openfiler suggested as being a better option in that route.

http://www.openfiler.com/

[annodomini2]

Munter said:

annodomini2 said:

Or if you have an old PC lying around

http://www.freenas.org/

I've had openfiler suggested as being a better option in that route.

http://www.openfiler.com/

Reason being???

Not had any issues with Freenas and easy enough to setup

[Dupont666]

bigdods said:

I have a Western Digital 1TB my book nas for exactly the purpose you describe. Its only a single hard drive so only suitable as a backup to copy data you hold elsewhere. Its slow doing the initial copy (took a day to copy my 750Mb over) but then you just do incremental changes and its fine.

I use microsofts synctoy to backup my data and Norton Ghost for the boot drive.

Benefit is that its attached by ethernet to my wirelsss switch so all the PC's in the house can access Photos, videos and data now, a major bonus.

If you dont need the sharing aspect get a USB2 device instead they are much quicker.

To move to fully centralised resilient storage you'd need to go to a NAS that has RAID (mutlipel disks that back each other up). That was a bit too expensive for my needs.

£129 here http://www.ebuyer.com/product/158613

You sir are pushing your luck...

The MyBook is one of the most useless pieces of st that has ever come into existance, its prone to failure and then it cost mega bucks to get the data back.

I suggest you look on the net about it if you dont believe me and stop using it and get a proper backup system before you lose everything.

You have been warned.

[bigdods]

Dupont666 said:

bigdods said:

I have a Western Digital 1TB my book nas for exactly the purpose you describe. Its only a single hard drive so only suitable as a backup to copy data you hold elsewhere. Its slow doing the initial copy (took a day to copy my 750Mb over) but then you just do incremental changes and its fine.

I use microsofts synctoy to backup my data and Norton Ghost for the boot drive.

Benefit is that its attached by ethernet to my wirelsss switch so all the PC's in the house can access Photos, videos and data now, a major bonus.

If you dont need the sharing aspect get a USB2 device instead they are much quicker.

To move to fully centralised resilient storage you'd need to go to a NAS that has RAID (mutlipel disks that back each other up). That was a bit too expensive for my needs.

£129 here http://www.ebuyer.com/product/158613

You sir are pushing your luck...

The MyBook is one of the most useless pieces of st that has ever come into existance, its prone to failure and then it cost mega bucks to get the data back.

I suggest you look on the net about it if you dont believe me and stop using it and get a proper backup system before you lose everything.

You have been warned.

Had it a year now no problems so far. Not bothered if it fails its just a backup of the data on my other PCs. The really important stuff that cant be replaced is also duplicated between two of the PCs. Nothing on it I cant afford to lose.

Wasnt aware they had problems but then I've never looked as it just works.

[Munter]

annodomini2 said:

Munter said:

annodomini2 said:

Or if you have an old PC lying around

http://www.freenas.org/

I've had openfiler suggested as being a better option in that route.

http://www.openfiler.com/

Reason being???

Not had any issues with Freenas and easy enough to setup

I'm not sure. Just when I mentioned freenas the guy was very keen on openfiler and seemed to feel it was better. I suspect they are probably much the same.

[Dupont666]

bigdods said:

Dupont666 said:

bigdods said:

I have a Western Digital 1TB my book nas for exactly the purpose you describe. Its only a single hard drive so only suitable as a backup to copy data you hold elsewhere. Its slow doing the initial copy (took a day to copy my 750Mb over) but then you just do incremental changes and its fine.

I use microsofts synctoy to backup my data and Norton Ghost for the boot drive.

Benefit is that its attached by ethernet to my wirelsss switch so all the PC's in the house can access Photos, videos and data now, a major bonus.

If you dont need the sharing aspect get a USB2 device instead they are much quicker.

To move to fully centralised resilient storage you'd need to go to a NAS that has RAID (mutlipel disks that back each other up). That was a bit too expensive for my needs.

£129 here http://www.ebuyer.com/product/158613

You sir are pushing your luck...

The MyBook is one of the most useless pieces of st that has ever come into existance, its prone to failure and then it cost mega bucks to get the data back.

I suggest you look on the net about it if you dont believe me and stop using it and get a proper backup system before you lose everything.

You have been warned.

Had it a year now no problems so far. Not bothered if it fails its just a backup of the data on my other PCs. The really important stuff that cant be replaced is also duplicated between two of the PCs. Nothing on it I cant afford to lose.

Wasnt aware they had problems but then I've never looked as it just works.

Mine was minutes away from learning to fly after repeated issues with it... now it stays off whilst I get the cash together to build a NAS or an UnRaid system...

Should have enough now and just need to see if I can claim the tax back against it as a suitable storage device for the business

[dapprman]

If you are worried about data loss then you want a unit with 2 disks so that you can mirror them (RAID 1).

The two big players for home NAS (with decent support, large techie following, and all the streaming toys) are QNAP and Synology. Western Digital, Netgear, Buffalo and many of the other big storage companies also do 2 disk arrays, though none up to the standards of the aforementioned two. Having said that, if you're on a budget the Netgear RND2000 is great value and did have an offer of a claim back on a free 500 GB drive.

Personally, after a fair amount of research and some forwards looking (as I don't want to replace mine in just 3-5 years time) I recently went for a QNAP TS-219P with two Samsung 1TB drives.

[sgrimshaw]

Whatever you do AVOID the Netgear SC101 series.

Total ste!

[mattley]

Problem with all these solutions are that they don't protect against the three worst scenarios, critically destructive malware infecting whole network, fire and burglary.

If it's really important get it off site. A few mates and I just leave USB disks and burnt DVDs at each others houses, done it for years, never needed them but it's nice to know they're there.

[Deva Link]

Dupont666 said:

bigdods said:

Dupont666 said:

bigdods said:

I have a Western Digital 1TB my book nas for exactly the purpose you describe. Its only a single hard drive so only suitable as a backup to copy data you hold elsewhere. Its slow doing the initial copy (took a day to copy my 750Mb over) but then you just do incremental changes and its fine.

I use microsofts synctoy to backup my data and Norton Ghost for the boot drive.

Benefit is that its attached by ethernet to my wirelsss switch so all the PC's in the house can access Photos, videos and data now, a major bonus.

If you dont need the sharing aspect get a USB2 device instead they are much quicker.

To move to fully centralised resilient storage you'd need to go to a NAS that has RAID (mutlipel disks that back each other up). That was a bit too expensive for my needs.

£129 here http://www.ebuyer.com/product/158613

You sir are pushing your luck...

The MyBook is one of the most useless pieces of st that has ever come into existance, its prone to failure and then it cost mega bucks to get the data back.

I suggest you look on the net about it if you dont believe me and stop using it and get a proper backup system before you lose everything.

You have been warned.

Had it a year now no problems so far. Not bothered if it fails its just a backup of the data on my other PCs. The really important stuff that cant be replaced is also duplicated between two of the PCs. Nothing on it I cant afford to lose.

Wasnt aware they had problems but then I've never looked as it just works.

Mine was minutes away from learning to fly after repeated issues with it... now it stays off whilst I get the cash together to build a NAS or an UnRaid system...

Should have enough now and just need to see if I can claim the tax back against it as a suitable storage device for the business

I had an older version WD NetCenter and that went down after we had a power failure, then the power came back again for a few secs, then went off. The drive got corrupted and it uses an unusual file system so the data was unrecoverable by home means.

In research afterwards I gather that's not at all unusual with these failry cheap home NAS units.

As said, by all means use them for backup, but in my research I saw story after story of people who had dumped a lifetime of music or pictures onto one of these units and lost them.

[bigdods]

mattley said:

Problem with all these solutions are that they don't protect against the three worst scenarios, critically destructive malware infecting whole network, fire and burglary.

If it's really important get it off site. A few mates and I just leave USB disks and burnt DVDs at each others houses, done it for years, never needed them but it's nice to know they're there.

Good call that, my Mrs is briefed , if theres a fire grab the NAS on the way out !

[mattley]

Make sure the NAS device is next to the front door then.