NAS box help

Hoping someone on here could help me. I currently have no system for backups and have been working from 2 different computers and 3 different laptops over the past 2 years (at home). I have also been using an external 1tb sata drive in a dock, 1tb western digital mybook and a 360gb transcend shock proof drive which travels with me to work. At work I don't have my own computer, so I use what ever is free at the time. Most of my work is stored in one network account which I can access from most locations at work although there are a few locations where my files are stored to c drive.

I am currently in the process of rounding up all my files, deleting duplicates and creating a master copy of all my stuff. I currently have over 1tb of data, however I know it to include about 30gb of duplicated data.

I need some sort of system to ensure I never end up in this situation ever again. My house is well networked, we have cat5 to most rooms and two wireless hot spots which cover the majority of the house.

My question is would a NAS box be the solution I need? Could I store all my data on the NAS box and connect to it from all my home computers/laptops and also externally over the internet. Also What would be the best for of back up for my NAS box? Another mirrored NAS box? Where would I locate the second NAS box? (I was considering my dads house connected to the internet in case my house burned down or something like that.)

Cheers

 

What is your budget? If you had the scratch, I'd go for something like a Drobo Pro. That will let you back everything up and also have room to grow for the future. It's also about as expensive as a new tv or computer, so there's always that... There are quite a few options based on how much you are willing to spend.

 

Yea normally I would be able to spend a few hundred pounds (UK) but I'm currently only working 2 days a week, and have a car that seems to be set on costing me a fortune! I have just googled Drobo Pro, first price I came up with is over a thousand pounds, which is a couple of times the price of my pc!! (and more then double my monthly income!) At the moment I can only afford about £100 ish for one NAS box and I would back it up onto my external drives until I could afford another box. I have also just halved my data as I found lots more duplicate photo and video archives. At the moment I have just under 500gb of data.

 

A two-bay NAS like the D-Link DNS-323 2-Bay enclosure will be more than enough for you then. They have a max 4 TB capacity (two-2TB drives) so you could have total backup with no worry, plus it will be available to every device on your network and has a slick little interface that you can use to set up an iTunes server, torrents, etc etc. The Drobo is definitely the Cadillac option, I was using it as an example of the upper-reach until I knew what your budget was.

 

I've been looking at NAS, as well. In terms of backup, I'd prefer a raid5 solution. Yes, raid5 isn't perfect and I would keep a second copy; but I want to create a single device to grab on the way out of the house in a fire. I'm looking at the Synology DS411j; but the price is a bit steep to justify it.

 

Thanks ace, that look about the right kinda of price and I supose I could start off with my spare 500gb drives and then increase space as needed. I am interested to hear if anyone has any thoughts on having a second NAS box at a relatives house connected to the internet as a back up. Both houses have unlimited internet access, I am guessing that there is no reason why it wouldn't work but I'm wondering if I have overlooked something? (I am also going travelling and want to be able to connect to my NAS box from abroad if I need any of my files and the internet.)

 

Here's a website you should become intimate with if you want to do cool things with your DNS-323: http://wiki.dns323.info/

 

I'm running a Synology Disk Station e107(?). It works well for my need, which is hosting pictures, music, movies and the occasional torrent download. I have attached an usb-drive for local backup, but it can also be set up to synchronize with an external Disk Station on a different location.

 

Innocentmiss, this is a hard and fast answer to your questions, that I will come back later and fill in more info.

You won't be able to connect to your NAS in the way you talk about remotely (ie. syncing your files outside your own home network) without adding extra networking hardware to your existing network (ie. a VPN/firewall router for VPN access). As for a second NAS, you have to get a NAS of similar firmware (NASes of the same type, two Netgear, Two qpec, two ect) to be able to use the rsync that is built into the internal software of the NAS. Depending on the NAS you get, this is bandwidth heavy service (ie. it will slow down internet connections on both sides). Offsite backups are possible, but requires more than just getting two similar NASes and hooking them up. You really need a site-to-site VPN tunnel to help with the stress you are going to put on these two connections. That means your parents will need a similar VPN router to make a site-to-site connection. A good NAS with replication will cost you around $300-$500 depending on size (Netgear NAS's do NOT have built in replication, you have to buy that extra) and what RAID it will allow. RAID 1 will most likely be used on a two drive NAS. You do not want to have a NAS without RAID as if one of the drives fail, you will lose all the data on the drive.

The NASes could be setup the way you want, it's just not going to be an easy setup. You have the right idea, but not the internal or external infrastructure to set it up correctly (that I know of, I could be wrong but I'm guessing you are running a regular home network with just a linksys/netgear router with no VPN support).

I ran into this problem a few times when I've been setting up offsite NAS backups and setting up the infrastructure to get everything to work. Nothing works right out of the box.

Like I said, I'll come back later and lay out everything you will need to do what you want to do. I'll try and do it tonight.

 

Ok, so my idea of having an offsite back-up is perhaps sounding a little bit like too much work and I suppose not really necessary. A raid backup would probably suffice perhaps with archived files stored on a spare external drive offsite.

As for my home network - its all set up using old/spare /unwanted equipment from various places, all second hand and I have a box of even older stuff(bits tend to die from time to time). I suspect it doesnt have vpn support and if its bandwidth heavy its probably not best as we have a few slow spots on our home network as we use wifi and slow network cards /hubs for a couple of the rooms. (Its a bit of a mish mash added to home network!)

SO once I have a NAS box where is best to plug it in to? We have the broadband wireless router where the internet comes into the house it also has one spare network port, the wireless router is connected to a switch which connects our x-box and stuff under the telly to the internet and also links upstairs to another broadband router which has the wifi on, we also have a usb hdd connected to it as a network share (too slow to stream!) also connected to the broadband router is another router which allows us to have a cable running to each bedroom for network and it also runs a cable to a netgear wireless router for the 3rd wifi network in the house. Its probably a bit over the top but its just kinda evolved as we have needed different areas of the house connected.

Also would I be able to connect to the NAS box from outside the house as this is quite an important aspect of the set up?

Thanks for all your help so far.

 

Innocentmiss I think an external drive would work just fine for that, bring it home every week or something to that effect to sync up with the changed files.

Reading your network description brought back flashbacks of walking into server room that has been rigged every which-a-way to work. Then being told you have half a day to straighten it out. *shudder*

You want the NAS plugged into the highest bandwidth spot on the network. I'd plug it in near the "beginning" of your network, but the way I'm making the map of your network in my head, it doesn't really matter. 4 routers? 3 Wifi connections? .... Wow. I mean... if it works, it works. It just makes my eye twitch thinking about it. HUBS? *eye-twitch* *blink* *blink* I'm ok now, just not going to think about it.

As for accessing it from the outside, you can't really do that without your setup. You would need to be able to connect to your network via a VPN connection, judging from your setup, you don't have that. You could setup a remote viewing connection to a computer on the network via Logmein, teamviewer, mikogo, ect but it's not what you want. You want to be able to sync and access your NAS via a remote connection. That requires a VPN. That requires a VPN/Firewall router that usually runs around $300-$600 (USA) depending on the type. Then you need someone to set it up and show you how to use it.

Setting up the NAS as a central base for files won't be that hard, but setting it up for outside access won't be cheap or easy.

 

Hmmm tha'ts kinda a snag I don't really want to pay a lot of money for VPN. Could I access my NAS box from the outside using the server? At the moment have a shortcut on my laptop n I can access it from outside. Does wake on lan work? I used to phone my computer phone line back in the days of dial up to scare my mum!!! I guess I'd need someone to put the computer on when I wanted it!