NAS is a way to create a Redundant Array of Individual Disks. WTF am I talking about?
Say you have 3, - 3 TB hard disk drives. We all know what redundant means. I have twin nieces. There’s a computer card that’s dedicated to doing some pretty cool math that makes it do that. The data is spread across the drives. If one drive fails, the array still functions and when the card tells you which drive failed you can pull the bad drive out, replace it and the card rebuilds the array. Unlike the old days, you don’t have to shut a machine down to replace a hard drive. Hot swap.
Note that you don’t get 9 TB out of the three drives. You get six, because 1/3 of the space contains the data that the card uses to figure out what data is needed to complete the files on the bad drive. Does that make sense? I don’t know how else to explain it without going deep into striping and parity and bits and 1’s and 0’s.
Bottom line is it’s great for backups. I come from the corporate enterprise world where backups are critical. Failed backup? Update your resume!
Of course a home owner that’s retired can’t afford several thousands for a backup system. The most important thing to (us) is a backup of a PC’s hard drive, lest the drive go bad. Replace the drive, restore the backup and you’re good as gold. Lose a few important files, extract them from the backup.
I do a lot of video editing for family members’ memories. My most important file is a text file called registrations.txt that contains registration keys for all the apps I’ve paid for. Like video editors, backup software…etc.
Can you guess WHEN a backup drive will fail? When you need it. That’s the time a backup fails. I used an external 5 TB USB drive to backup to. 4 computers, once a week, make the rounds. PITA!!! For a few years! Of course it failed after some files were corrupt.
Fine, I can’t afford a high highfalutin backup system, but I can afford a NAS drive. It plugs into the WiFi router. All 4 systems can access it. I scheduled the backups, full backup, 1st day of each month, a daily backup of whatever changed since the last backup and rotated once a month.
So, life is grand, then one day that RAID card failed. No big deal, right? Just get a new card, same make and model. Except the card was 10 years old and can’t be replaced. It’s no longer available and I can’t be sure the newest model will work. I mean, maybe, but what if not.
Besides, it’s time to get new equipment. Stay up to date on current technology. Now. The NAS I WAS using was actually a PC with a Raid card and the drives in a container designed to hold multiple drives. EXCEPT the PC is 8 years old. Not mission critical other that to be a home-made NAS. A Windows server because it doesn’t support apps prone to crashing. She’s VERY reliable. Just old.
Okay, get a box that is a dedicated NAS. Built in RAID controller that’s very smart with lots of features. Not a PC that will probably crash. Or so it’s said… Not Windowz! Supposedly stable. Had one 15 years ago. Was good for 10 years until I outgrew it. Never crashed. I call that reliable. It doesn’t understand Terabytes. 512 GB Max per drive. Between 4 PC’s I need some 4 TB of space for backups. Out of 6. COMPRESSED. You KNOW that’s gonna grow. My own primary PC has 174 GB out of 1 TB available.
Bought the same brand that did right by me for 10 years, tested it, kept losing connectivity to the network. I could exchange it, but… “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.” Homey don’t play that shit. Researched. Found one that supports 80 TB and has 32 GB RAM.
Plus it supports Virtual Machines! I have 3. One for testing programs a friend is writing and the others for playing/learning. VERY COOL! I setup the Virtual software, it asked me to create a username and password, asked me to verify the password, did so and created a Virtual Machine. (VM)
Windows updates. Hadda reboot my PC. “Tried” to login to the VM server and was told my user id or password were incorrect. WTF? I use the same credentials for everything on my Local Area Network. Fine! There’s a button you can press with a paper clip that’s supposed to set it back to factory original.
Except it didn’t work. It didn’t reinitialize and ask me to set the machine up again. it remembered everything! Still couldn’t login to the VM server. Called support. NO joy. Sent it back.
2 weeks now and I don’t have any backups. Experience tells me I’m gonna do something stupid and wish I had a backup. Ordered THREE NAS units thinking I have 30 days to test. Find the one that I like and send the other 2 back. GENIUS, right? They’re all junk. Totally unreliable, lose connectivity to the LAN or simply cannot connect to the device AT ALL!
FINE. Back to the home made NAS! Based on recent experience, I bought three RAID cards to test. Tired. Buy one, doesn’t work to my satisfaction, send it back, few days later I get the next one that’s worse than the first…
First card. Searched amazon for RAID cards. It’s described as raid and lists what versions of raid it supports. The manual says it’s an expansion card ONLY! NON RAID! 2nd card made by IBM. compatible with every thing. Nope. Only IBM Lenovo servers. 3rd card. MY BAD! Chip set say xxx2008. Didn’t think anything of it. Chip sets have all kinds of identification.
Came with a freaking DVD! Do they even sell PC’s that come with DVD’s anymore. Sure enough! Manufactured in 2008!
When you search Amazon for RAID cards, I bet 70% are expansion ONLY. Not raid. Raid cards are antiquated. EVEN ADAPTEC! SAS/SATA. SAS only but of course you can get a kit to adapt. For more money.
It’s driving me nervous! Okay, I haven’t made a backup now in 6 weeks. What are the chances something can go wrong in 6 weeks? Let me admit I’m a Classic Antique. Often times I do some really stupid shit. My memory is shit. Some how, some way, some time, I deleted EVERY WORD document in its folder. No backup!
MS Onedrive! No, when you delete a file it’s deleted from Onedrive. Do you thing I’m smart enough t enable the recycle bin? I have 1 TB of space on Onedrive. 4 PC’s, I’m pushing 900 GB of 1 TB! I don’t have room for a recycle bin.
Learn from me oh, ye mortal beings. What are YOU ALL doing for backups? PLEASE!!!
Seriously, what are YOU doing for backups?