Home storage back up advice?
Discussion
I’m looking for some simple home storage advice.
Currently paying Apple for their 200gb family sharing iCloud and we are nearly full, also pay insta for their storage.
So looking at 4TB drives but prices vary a lot.
Will 4TB suffice or should I go bigger, do I go NAS or just usb?
Budget not really thought about but expecting £100 ish.
Help.
Currently paying Apple for their 200gb family sharing iCloud and we are nearly full, also pay insta for their storage.
So looking at 4TB drives but prices vary a lot.
Will 4TB suffice or should I go bigger, do I go NAS or just usb?
Budget not really thought about but expecting £100 ish.
Help.
This depends on how diy you can be.
Easiest is to search google and youtube for cheap homemade NAS. You can use any old PC for this, and do a good job easily for not a lot of cash. Next is to just have a usb hard drive, but this will be of little use if you want to just save everything from everybody easily.
Next is buy a Nas but then that will exceed your budget by many multiples.
Easiest is to search google and youtube for cheap homemade NAS. You can use any old PC for this, and do a good job easily for not a lot of cash. Next is to just have a usb hard drive, but this will be of little use if you want to just save everything from everybody easily.
Next is buy a Nas but then that will exceed your budget by many multiples.
Bear in mind it's not a true backup if it's at home, if you want to ensure you don't lose stuff you need a copy somewhere it will still be fine if your house burns down.
I have a NAS at home that our computers back up to and then every so often I take a backup of the important stuff from that to a USB drive that I keep at work. Paying for online storage is a simpler way to achieve the same, Companies like Backblaze will charge you less than £100/year, some like Dropbox are free for smallish quantities, and if you have a Microsoft account you might already have some Onedrive space available.
£100 gets you a decent sized USB drive, but probably only a pretty small single drive NAS if you want to go that route. The advantage of a NAS though is you can also use it for other stuff, I have a shared drive on mine for access from multiple computers, stream media via Plex, and run Home Assistant on mine.
I have a NAS at home that our computers back up to and then every so often I take a backup of the important stuff from that to a USB drive that I keep at work. Paying for online storage is a simpler way to achieve the same, Companies like Backblaze will charge you less than £100/year, some like Dropbox are free for smallish quantities, and if you have a Microsoft account you might already have some Onedrive space available.
£100 gets you a decent sized USB drive, but probably only a pretty small single drive NAS if you want to go that route. The advantage of a NAS though is you can also use it for other stuff, I have a shared drive on mine for access from multiple computers, stream media via Plex, and run Home Assistant on mine.
b
hstewie said:
hstewie said: What's the data and what's the value of it?
i.e. you wake up tomorrow and it's no longer available - what will you do?
This is the biggest question to answer. i.e. you wake up tomorrow and it's no longer available - what will you do?
Then what is the backup plan. Hand copying data, some kind of back up software, some kind of sync software.
Then it s what kind of format, usb hdd, das, nas or offsite storage.
Sorry but it’s a bigger question to contemplate.
Get them to go through their data, the vast majority of it is useless now and let's face it, the last thing anyone is going to preserve for future generations is masses of pointless photos.
My daughter has 1000's, quite ridiculous and she needs to clear them all out.
It's crackers that we're becoming a slave to paying to keep pointless ste!
My daughter has 1000's, quite ridiculous and she needs to clear them all out.
It's crackers that we're becoming a slave to paying to keep pointless s
te!I make a lot of video and take a significant number of images. I went for a 45 min walk this morning while my wife was shopping. I took 1.63GB, after deleting those unsuitable, of images, both RAW and JPEG. Once I've processed the images, I'll delete the RAW subfolder. The parent folder now contains 298GB.
Video just eats storage. Once I've rendered the entire footage in the highest quality available, I create the edited video from the original footage. Unless it's special, or some bits are, I'll delete the original footage. Silly though it sounds, as I only use online streaming services, pressing the delete button is a bit of a test of character. I record in 6K MOV.
All data goes on my desktop. It has 28TB: 2 x 2TB SSDs, and three 8TB HDDs. I've just checked; I have less than 50% free space on my three HDDs. I had a winter cleanup before the summer/autumn season. I have 6 x external HDDs, 2 x 8TB, the rest 6, and a 4TB SSD. I use the 4 SSD for my 'essentials', the data that would hurt, and not only financially, if I lost it, and the essentials for my work. I will soon need another 4TB.
I have one online service where I keep my personal/essentials, less produced video. I use YouTube and also Vimeo for my videos. If my house is a catastrophic loss through fire, I doubt I will worry about the compression of YT and Vimeo.
I also have, just remembered, a paid for Google Drive extended online cache for my phone images, including video.
It takes a bit of work to keep the system 'tidy'. As soon as I take images/video, I save it to my SSD and online. Once I've edited/produced and posted video, it's removed from the SSD and online, then put onto one of the HDDs. Only takes a couple of minutes to start, and I can leave it.
I twice had failures of HDDs, this back a few years. 20 I've just worked out. Once was 'catastrophic', one of the arms went rogue and scratched one of the discs. I've been a bit paranoid since then and change my HDDs every 4 years. I then use it as a backup. I've got one coming next month, probably another 8TB as prices don't appear to have dropped since 2 years ago. I'll go from 34TB external HDD backup to 42 then. Plus the extra 4TB SSD. I always think that'll be ample, but it soon gets used up.
The trick, I think, is triage: what would be heartbreaking to lose, what would be expensive to lose, what would be irritating, and what might be inconvenient.
Plus a 2TB SSD clone of my OS SSD.
I could explain my method of storage on the HDDs, but you'd be bored.
The HDD external storage is 'free' in the sense they are used stock, not suitable for the desktop. I buy caddies for each replaced one. The oldest is recycled once they show any hint of failure of sectors. Checked annually.
Why haven't HDD prices dropped?
Video just eats storage. Once I've rendered the entire footage in the highest quality available, I create the edited video from the original footage. Unless it's special, or some bits are, I'll delete the original footage. Silly though it sounds, as I only use online streaming services, pressing the delete button is a bit of a test of character. I record in 6K MOV.
All data goes on my desktop. It has 28TB: 2 x 2TB SSDs, and three 8TB HDDs. I've just checked; I have less than 50% free space on my three HDDs. I had a winter cleanup before the summer/autumn season. I have 6 x external HDDs, 2 x 8TB, the rest 6, and a 4TB SSD. I use the 4 SSD for my 'essentials', the data that would hurt, and not only financially, if I lost it, and the essentials for my work. I will soon need another 4TB.
I have one online service where I keep my personal/essentials, less produced video. I use YouTube and also Vimeo for my videos. If my house is a catastrophic loss through fire, I doubt I will worry about the compression of YT and Vimeo.
I also have, just remembered, a paid for Google Drive extended online cache for my phone images, including video.
It takes a bit of work to keep the system 'tidy'. As soon as I take images/video, I save it to my SSD and online. Once I've edited/produced and posted video, it's removed from the SSD and online, then put onto one of the HDDs. Only takes a couple of minutes to start, and I can leave it.
I twice had failures of HDDs, this back a few years. 20 I've just worked out. Once was 'catastrophic', one of the arms went rogue and scratched one of the discs. I've been a bit paranoid since then and change my HDDs every 4 years. I then use it as a backup. I've got one coming next month, probably another 8TB as prices don't appear to have dropped since 2 years ago. I'll go from 34TB external HDD backup to 42 then. Plus the extra 4TB SSD. I always think that'll be ample, but it soon gets used up.
The trick, I think, is triage: what would be heartbreaking to lose, what would be expensive to lose, what would be irritating, and what might be inconvenient.
Plus a 2TB SSD clone of my OS SSD.
I could explain my method of storage on the HDDs, but you'd be bored.
The HDD external storage is 'free' in the sense they are used stock, not suitable for the desktop. I buy caddies for each replaced one. The oldest is recycled once they show any hint of failure of sectors. Checked annually.
Why haven't HDD prices dropped?
Thanks everyone and thanks Derek, that’s hilarious, can I just say my first real computer ran with 2 x 5 1/2” floppy’s with the o/s on one and my work on the other. My 2nd that cost around £1500 and ran dos 3, I took advice from a programmer friend, when specking the hard drive there was an upgrade option from 20mb to 40mb and I remember him saying “don’t bother, you’ll never fill a 40mb hard drive!
It’s only the arrival of a insta360 camera that suddenly I’m lacking storage. I’ll keep an eye on Amazon prime offerings and see what I can find.
It’s only the arrival of a insta360 camera that suddenly I’m lacking storage. I’ll keep an eye on Amazon prime offerings and see what I can find.
tight fart said:
Thanks everyone and thanks Derek, that s hilarious, can I just say my first real computer ran with 2 x 5 1/2 floppy s with the o/s on one and my work on the other. My 2nd that cost around £1500 and ran dos 3, I took advice from a programmer friend, when specking the hard drive there was an upgrade option from 20mb to 40mb and I remember him saying don t bother, you ll never fill a 40mb hard drive!
It s only the arrival of a insta360 camera that suddenly I m lacking storage. I ll keep an eye on Amazon prime offerings and see what I can find.
If you have Amazon Prime you can use Amazon Photos to upload unlimited photos.It s only the arrival of a insta360 camera that suddenly I m lacking storage. I ll keep an eye on Amazon prime offerings and see what I can find.
There's a lot to be said for "just works" and if iCloud just works I'd just upgrade your subscription.
Buy an external hard drive if you want a physical copy or get a Dropbox or Google Drive subscription and keep a copy of your data there if you want an additional copy.
For most people cloud is going to be the simplest and best option.
Buy an external hard drive if you want a physical copy or get a Dropbox or Google Drive subscription and keep a copy of your data there if you want an additional copy.
For most people cloud is going to be the simplest and best option.
I have a Synology NAS with 16TB of storage that the whole family back up to - phones, desktops & laptops.
The NAS then backs-up to the cloud in it's own time.
Following advice in another thread I have recently (last week) switched to using OpenDrive for my cloud backup as this is unlimited storage for 99USD/year. This replaces the additional O365 Family account I had set up for 6TB of storage - 6x1Tb accounts, where I had to create a number of dummy accounts and split the backup across a number of the accounts.
My initial backup replicating my O365 ones is syncing as I write this.
The NAS then backs-up to the cloud in it's own time.
Following advice in another thread I have recently (last week) switched to using OpenDrive for my cloud backup as this is unlimited storage for 99USD/year. This replaces the additional O365 Family account I had set up for 6TB of storage - 6x1Tb accounts, where I had to create a number of dummy accounts and split the backup across a number of the accounts.
My initial backup replicating my O365 ones is syncing as I write this.
nvubu said:
I have a Synology NAS with 16TB of storage that the whole family back up to - phones, desktops & laptops.
The NAS then backs-up to the cloud in it's own time.
Following advice in another thread I have recently (last week) switched to using OpenDrive for my cloud backup as this is unlimited storage for 99USD/year. This replaces the additional O365 Family account I had set up for 6TB of storage - 6x1Tb accounts, where I had to create a number of dummy accounts and split the backup across a number of the accounts.
My initial backup replicating my O365 ones is syncing as I write this.
Hello nvubu,The NAS then backs-up to the cloud in it's own time.
Following advice in another thread I have recently (last week) switched to using OpenDrive for my cloud backup as this is unlimited storage for 99USD/year. This replaces the additional O365 Family account I had set up for 6TB of storage - 6x1Tb accounts, where I had to create a number of dummy accounts and split the backup across a number of the accounts.
My initial backup replicating my O365 ones is syncing as I write this.
Could you elaborate on how you setup your system please.
A technology luddite needs to know.
Thank you.
On the NAS
I've been running a Synology NAS since 2011 (on my third one) and It is all quite straight forward setting one up.
My first one was a DS211J - which I replaced with a DS214-Play as the Photo App was really slow with the J model (so I'd avoid this). I added a DS918+ for the added redundancy that 4 disks gave over 2. The 211 is no longer in use, but I do backup the 918+ to the 214-Play, and then cloud sync from the 214.
I have also increased the disks in the DS918 - moving the old disks into the 214. If I needed to replace the 918, I'd probably go with the latest 9 series but I'd probably go with one of the expansion units.
Hope that helps.
- There is a feature called "Quick Connect" - enable this and set up your NAS name - i.e. Test1234
- Enable Synology Drive
- Separate Login for each member of the family, me & my wife plus 2 kids. This gives everyone a separate "Home" folder.
- Set up any shared folders - I have Photos, Videos, Music. I have the Synology Photos App running as well.
- Ensure Cloud Sync is Installed (Package Center)
- Open Cloud Sync, Create a link to your Cloud Provider (I am now using OpenDrive). Set the folders you want backed up and where they are going to. You can have more than one active task, so can create multiple backups.
- If you use OneDrive you can also download everything from OneDrive into your Home Folder. Use Cloud Sync again.
- Install the Synology Photos App
- Log in to the Quick Connect above (Test123) with the username/password for the user
- In the settings there is an option to Backup Photos - these go to your Home Folder as a Personal Photo Album.
- Download and Install the Synology Drive Client
- Login via the Quick Connect
- Select the folders to sync and away you go.
I've been running a Synology NAS since 2011 (on my third one) and It is all quite straight forward setting one up.
My first one was a DS211J - which I replaced with a DS214-Play as the Photo App was really slow with the J model (so I'd avoid this). I added a DS918+ for the added redundancy that 4 disks gave over 2. The 211 is no longer in use, but I do backup the 918+ to the 214-Play, and then cloud sync from the 214.
I have also increased the disks in the DS918 - moving the old disks into the 214. If I needed to replace the 918, I'd probably go with the latest 9 series but I'd probably go with one of the expansion units.
Hope that helps.
I have...
FIDECO Docking Station, USB 3.0 Hard Drive Docking Station for 2.5 and 3.5 inch SATA HDD or SSD, Support Offline Clone, TF & SD Card Reader, and 2x 18TB Hard Drives
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07D8S7RN7
No need to install disks into enclosures and I can just drop in any old bare drive and backup.
I don't use the built in clone button and just use a Robocopy script.
FIDECO Docking Station, USB 3.0 Hard Drive Docking Station for 2.5 and 3.5 inch SATA HDD or SSD, Support Offline Clone, TF & SD Card Reader, and 2x 18TB Hard Drives
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07D8S7RN7
No need to install disks into enclosures and I can just drop in any old bare drive and backup.
I don't use the built in clone button and just use a Robocopy script.
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