Back up Solution

[valkarian]

So I'm helping a friend plan a back up solution.

He previously used a 2TB Ext HDD for storing his data, and uses a laptop. When that crashed, He almost lost everything. How should I advice him so that he will always have 2 copies of his data?

I was thinking that he could use One HDD as a storage device, then another one as a dedicated back-up disk. Assuming that He will be going for a 4tb HDD, and his PC is about 1tb of storage, how large should the back up disk be and which brand would you recommend?

 

[DawnsTear]

Depending on budget and how big is the data?

Get a 2-bay NAS config to RAID1 as primary backup and an External HDD connected to the NAS as secondary backup.

 

[davidktw]

So I'm helping a friend plan a back up solution.

He previously used a 2TB Ext HDD for storing his data, and uses a laptop. When that crashed, He almost lost everything. How should I advice him so that he will always have 2 copies of his data?

I was thinking that he could use One HDD as a storage device, then another one as a dedicated back-up disk. Assuming that He will be going for a 4tb HDD, and his PC is about 1tb of storage, how large should the back up disk be and which brand would you recommend?

I will personally recommend that you get a 4-bays Synology NAS. This way you can setup RAID1 using 2 harddisks, occupying 2 bays, and one more hard disk using one more bay. A total of 3 bays will be used, which in the future you can expand from 2 bays (RAID1) to 3-bays (RAID5) with also 1 redundancy for at most 1 hard disk failure. This setup will be more robust without an external hard disk dangling outside of the machine

 

[valkarian]

Ahh....

While your point are very valid, I think he would love to keep it as low budget as possible. Storage space about 2.5TB at the moment. Also, he doesnt have constant internet. Dont ask me why, so the NAS would be hard to set up,.

 

[ZrE0_Cha0s]

Ahh....

While your point are very valid, I think he would love to keep it as low budget as possible. Storage space about 2.5TB at the moment. Also, he doesnt have constant internet. Dont ask me why, so the NAS would be hard to set up,.

wait so u mean that he wants it to be portable?

 

[wwenze]

RAID 1 still doesn't win dedicated backup btw

For example

Virus attack

Power supply explode

Human stupidity in deleting files

 

[valkarian]

No, not portable. But low budget haha. Any way I can connect one HDD, then use another HDD to back up both the laptop and the connected HDD?

Also how much storage would I need if the HDD was 4 TB and the PC was 1TB? Assuming loaded to capacity (although that doesnt make sense but it's ok)

 

[Neverland99]

Some external hdd like seagate and WD comes with backup software that let you backup the files with ease.

 

[valkarian]

Some external hdd like seagate and WD comes with backup software that let you backup the files with ease.

Thanks! haha, but I did do my simple research and well, yeah!

Doesn't answer my question though! Can said Software target External HDD, and how much storage should I get to cover about 5 tb worth of data?

 

[ZrE0_Cha0s]

No, not portable. But low budget haha. Any way I can connect one HDD, then use another HDD to back up both the laptop and the connected HDD?

If u are connected that way ur final destination HDD have to be at least double the storage of both the connected drive and laptop. And u mean to say a permanent connection for final drive or use it when needed?

Also how much storage would I need if the HDD was 4 TB and the PC was 1TB? Assuming loaded to capacity (although that doesnt make sense but it's ok)

I would say that u need at least 6TB or more.

 

[davidktw]

Ahh....

While your point are very valid, I think he would love to keep it as low budget as possible. Storage space about 2.5TB at the moment. Also, he doesnt have constant internet. Dont ask me why, so the NAS would be hard to set up,.

While your low budget could be adjusted, a NAS doesn't require constant Internet. All it requires is a home network, so it is not hard to setup the NAS. In fact, Synology is very easy to setup, put in the hard disk, and there is an in browser wizard to get things started

for 2.5TB worth of data, just get 3x 3TB(or 4TB) hard disks.

If really cost is of issue, get a 2-bay NAS and just setup 2 separate 1 hard disk with no redundancy, just backup from one disk to another, or take up the previous advice, RAID1 but with the 3rd hard disk hooked up externally via USB.

 

[kandinsky]

Any way I can connect one HDD, then use another HDD to back up both the laptop and the connected HDD?

Yes, should be able to as long as you have the software to do it. I do this with HGST 4TB ext HDDs using the bundled Touro backup software.

 

[valkarian]

So even with file compression, I still need 5TB of back up to back up 5TB of data?

Sorry, to clarify, the whole router goes down. NO idea why.