Network Attached Storage

Update - both my dad and my brother are interested. We may try to do three backup machines, one at each of our locations. I would essentially back up my HDD to the network attached storage at my parent's house as well as my brother's house - but not my own... they would do the same.

I believe that they only need to know my IP address and then router/firewall passwords and then have credentials to get into the NAS box... but I could be totally wrong on that one... I also know that Comcast and others royally suck when it comes to upload/download over a certain size limit so we may have issues in the beginning.

Would love to make some changes to my current system and go from RAID1 with two 1TB drives to a much better quality HDD (server grade, etc.) in the 300-500gb range and run a be able to run a 5-6TB NAS box (RAID5/6) in my apartment for local network drive access and my families' backup as well.

only drawback is this is starting to sound expensive - a few good HDD's, three NAS boxes, software, etc. starting to get into the few thousand dollar range for all three to setup.
 
Quote from winstontj:

only drawback is this is starting to sound expensive - a few good HDD's, three NAS boxes, software, etc. starting to get into the few thousand dollar range for all three to setup.
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you can save a bunch if you just use old comps for the nas boxes. old mobos with decent nic's will destroy most of the aftermarket boxes..
 
I have an old Win 95 computer I can update. How modern do I need to make it to use it for back up storage? An old Pentium 4 chip and applicable MB, or should I go up to a Core 2 Duo and MB? Also I'm guessing I hook it up through the router the other computers are connected or is there another way to link them together? I'll need a router with more ports if I hook it up. Do I need virus protection on the drives on the storage computer, and/or Windows of some form, or does it work off the software on the other computers? Can I backup different versions of Windows on the same storage device? I have a Win 2000 pro, a couple XP machines, and I assume a Vista or next version of Windows in my near future? It sounds like I could backup my Dad's computer to it over the internet also is that correct?
Thanks for your help, and before I get slammed with "do a Google search", I am doing that also, but we seem to have a fair computer group here, so that is why I ask here also.
Thank you
R
 
Generally, having a single point of failure for your business...
Like an proprietary NAS that goes down...
Is not a good idea, especially for a trading business.

Just go to a place like NewEgg...
And start reading the horror stories.
 
Quote from caementarius:

I like offsite backup of important stuff as well as local backup of everything.

I like JungleDisk which runs on Amazon's S3 service. You pay $20 for the software, then Amazon charges $.15/GB per month. So, the 10GB of important stuff that I back up costs roughly $1.50/mo. It keeps archive copies of changed files and I can install the software on as many computers as I want.

It's pretty seamless in operation and has saved my butt a couple of times already.

For easy synchronization of files to USB disk or network drive, I like Allway-Synch. It's free.
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Some good dialogue here. I particularly like what I saw in Amazon S3 and AllwaySynch. I can't figure out if the statement on the JungleDisc home page "Multiple datacenters to ensure high availability" means there is geo-redundancy or not, so I submitted the question. They seem to have competitive rates. If the company I'm testing today does not pan out, S3 just may get my business.

Does anyone know if AllwaySynch will synch (whether hot synch or otherwise) Outlook PST files? (PST files always seem to have a lock on them).
 
I've had the same issues with .pst files. I've tried about 5 or 6 different services. All claimed to have the ability to back up .pst files but all have frozen my pc.

Quote from mgookin:

Some good dialogue here. I particularly like what I saw in Amazon S3 and AllwaySynch. I can't figure out if the statement on the JungleDisc home page "Multiple datacenters to ensure high availability" means there is geo-redundancy or not, so I submitted the question. They seem to have competitive rates. If the company I'm testing today does not pan out, S3 just may get my business.

Does anyone know if AllwaySynch will synch (whether hot synch or otherwise) Outlook PST files? (PST files always seem to have a lock on them).
More...
 
I heard back from JungleDisc (S3/ Amazon). Yes there is multiple location redundancy in their system which means less chance of loosing entire backup from a system failure on their end.

They have very competitive prices.

I also checked with the Microsoft Knowledge base on the pst file issue. They say PST files never were meant to be enterprise/ server/ etc file types (only intended for local machines) and hence backing them up to another location as they change is not recommended with PST files and one should use OST files (which are offline files for serving the same function). BUT, then I found a Microsoft PST file backup utility. It's called pfbackup and you can get it here -> http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...3A-B7D0-4B16-B8AF-5A6322F4FD01&displaylang=en

If you backup your PST files to a file that you then backup, you'll have a backed up PST file.

I'll be backing up all the PST files on the network to a server that has mirrors as well as gets backed up offsite each night. Between that and the fact that all e-mail sits on the NetworkSolutions server for x qty days before being deleted, I'm confident we will have a good enough system.

This means I don't have to run MSExchange Server to back up the e-mail. I would rather have a mail server so the mail can be accessed from anywhere, but for now I'm not going to spend the time and money. I'm running MSWindows Server 2008 x64 and it's a great server OS.

Hope some of this helps someone. It's helping me. Thanks for the great dialogue to all.
 
Mgookin,

Good stuff! I'll check it out. This would save me a ton of headaches/time if it works. The manual process takes too long.

Quote from mgookin:

I heard back from JungleDisc (S3/ Amazon). Yes there is multiple location redundancy in their system which means less chance of loosing entire backup from a system failure on their end.

They have very competitive prices.

I also checked with the Microsoft Knowledge base on the pst file issue. They say PST files never were meant to be enterprise/ server/ etc file types (only intended for local machines) and hence backing them up to another location as they change is not recommended with PST files and one should use OST files (which are offline files for serving the same function). BUT, then I found a Microsoft PST file backup utility. It's called pfbackup and you can get it here -> http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...3A-B7D0-4B16-B8AF-5A6322F4FD01&displaylang=en

If you backup your PST files to a file that you then backup, you'll have a backed up PST file.

I'll be backing up all the PST files on the network to a server that has mirrors as well as gets backed up offsite each night. Between that and the fact that all e-mail sits on the NetworkSolutions server for x qty days before being deleted, I'm confident we will have a good enough system.

This means I don't have to run MSExchange Server to back up the e-mail. I would rather have a mail server so the mail can be accessed from anywhere, but for now I'm not going to spend the time and money. I'm running MSWindows Server 2008 x64 and it's a great server OS.

Hope some of this helps someone. It's helping me. Thanks for the great dialogue to all.
More...
 
Quote from Pepsi Worker:

Can this be done at home on the cheap? I'll build my own NAS setup if it's easy, etc. Looking at something I can tuck away seperate from the main PC just for peace of mind. I need about 1TB - 2TB would be better though.

I know nothing about this other than looking at $700 systems on Newegg.com. Any links or sites where I can learn about this stuff or does anyone have experience with this?
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If you've got spare hardware you can roll your own with:

http://www.freenas.org/
http://www.openfiler.com/
 
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