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I just moved to a NAS with RAID. My data is in my own hands, Cloud Station makes it work just like Dropbox, and I don't have to worry about paying a subscriptio

I just moved to a NAS with RAID. My data is in my own hands, Cloud Station makes it work just like Dropbox, and I don't have to worry about paying a subscription or a company going south.

AdmiralAsshat 7y ago
I'm planning to do the same, but best practices on the 3-2-1 rule say that at least one of those backups should be off-site. I made a backup of all of my stuff onto a 4TB external and left it at my parent's house last Christmas, but that's probably not what they meant by off-site. :)
- dublinben 7y ago
  That's definitely a legitimate offsite backup strategy. If your data changes more often than you visit, you may want something more interactive like a Raspberry Pi connected to that external drive that you can send files to.
- sombremesa 7y ago
  If you use a Dropbox like solution, some of your data is already off-site in the form of the end user machines (e.g. laptops). It's not exactly a "backup" (in that it's not a timestamped snapshot), but it does mean your data is replicated.
  - Chris_Newton 7y ago
    But please be careful because if you use anything based on automatic synchronisation, such as RAID or a DropBox-like service, there is also a danger that anything you accidentally delete or corrupt will then propagate. If there’s no historical version saved as part of the system, or if there is but you don’t notice the problem before it disappears, you can end up damaging your “backup” copies of your data in exactly the same way as the original if something goes wrong.
- g8oz 7y ago
  Synology Diskstation products include Cloud Sync, software that lets you back up to Backblaze, S3 and many others. https://www.synology.com/en-global/knowledgebase/DSM/help/CloudSync/cloudsync https://www.synology.com/en-global/knowledgebase/DSM/help/Cl...
abc_lisper 7y ago
I would like more information on this please. What hardware do you use, and do you have to pay for the software?
- sombremesa 7y ago
  I use the Synology DS218+ along with two 4TB WD Red drives (which I got off craigslist for a steep discount -- the seller even let me run diagnostics on them for me and they were very lightly used). I don't have to pay for the software. If you stick with the Synology OS it comes with they have a package manager with things like various media servers, Cloud Station, a download client, etc. You can also just shell into it and install your own stuff. You can get NAS disk stations with more capacity (more drive bays), but this was all I needed.
  - eitland 7y ago
    You can even run docker on 218+. I'll maybe try to get one to replace my current Synology at some point :-)
- snuxoll 7y ago
  Not GP, but considering he said “Cloud Station” I assume he’s using a Synology NAS which is a ready-to-go product (just add drives). Personally I have a 2U Dell R520 I run FreeNAS on which cost me as much as one of synology’s systems with a lot more capability. But I also have a 24U rack in my office and use it to provide storage for my hypervisors in addition to Plex, general SMB shares, etc. so I have use cases that are a little more complicated than even the average HN user from their home network.
  - LilBytes 7y ago
    I ran FreeNas many moons ago, I ripped it out after the FreeNas 10 nightmare. Sounds like it's been pretty unstable ever since and now run ProxMox. How've you found FreeNas recently? Or are you still running the FreeNas 9?
    - deleted 7y ago

I just moved to a NAS with RAID. My data is in my own hands, Cloud Station makes it work just like Dropbox, and I don't have to worry about paying a subscription or a company going south.

AdmiralAsshat 7y ago

I'm planning to do the same, but best practices on the 3-2-1 rule say that at least one of those backups should be off-site. I made a backup of all of my stuff onto a 4TB external and left it at my parent's house last Christmas, but that's probably not what they meant by off-site. :)

dublinben 7y ago
That's definitely a legitimate offsite backup strategy. If your data changes more often than you visit, you may want something more interactive like a Raspberry Pi connected to that external drive that you can send files to.
sombremesa 7y ago
If you use a Dropbox like solution, some of your data is already off-site in the form of the end user machines (e.g. laptops). It's not exactly a "backup" (in that it's not a timestamped snapshot), but it does mean your data is replicated.
- Chris_Newton 7y ago
  But please be careful because if you use anything based on automatic synchronisation, such as RAID or a DropBox-like service, there is also a danger that anything you accidentally delete or corrupt will then propagate. If there’s no historical version saved as part of the system, or if there is but you don’t notice the problem before it disappears, you can end up damaging your “backup” copies of your data in exactly the same way as the original if something goes wrong.
g8oz 7y ago
Synology Diskstation products include Cloud Sync, software that lets you back up to Backblaze, S3 and many others. https://www.synology.com/en-global/knowledgebase/DSM/help/CloudSync/cloudsync https://www.synology.com/en-global/knowledgebase/DSM/help/Cl...

abc_lisper 7y ago

I would like more information on this please. What hardware do you use, and do you have to pay for the software?

sombremesa 7y ago
I use the Synology DS218+ along with two 4TB WD Red drives (which I got off craigslist for a steep discount -- the seller even let me run diagnostics on them for me and they were very lightly used). I don't have to pay for the software. If you stick with the Synology OS it comes with they have a package manager with things like various media servers, Cloud Station, a download client, etc. You can also just shell into it and install your own stuff. You can get NAS disk stations with more capacity (more drive bays), but this was all I needed.
- eitland 7y ago
  You can even run docker on 218+. I'll maybe try to get one to replace my current Synology at some point :-)
snuxoll 7y ago
Not GP, but considering he said “Cloud Station” I assume he’s using a Synology NAS which is a ready-to-go product (just add drives). Personally I have a 2U Dell R520 I run FreeNAS on which cost me as much as one of synology’s systems with a lot more capability. But I also have a 24U rack in my office and use it to provide storage for my hypervisors in addition to Plex, general SMB shares, etc. so I have use cases that are a little more complicated than even the average HN user from their home network.
- LilBytes 7y ago
  I ran FreeNas many moons ago, I ripped it out after the FreeNas 10 nightmare. Sounds like it's been pretty unstable ever since and now run ProxMox. How've you found FreeNas recently? Or are you still running the FreeNas 9?
  - deleted 7y ago