Help needed on backup for my Mac - DAS, NAS and other solutions

[therock]

Friends I need some help:

I use a Mac, and I have about 5 TB of data from my research that I need to keep backed up

In addition, I keep about 3TB of  music, plus another 5-10TB of photos and this is expected to grow for reasons I've mentioned before, haha

I also keep two Time Machine backups, and each is about 8-10 TB

I run a standard 1 Gb starhub lan system using Google hubs.

I've been using standalone External Hard Disks as well as a Drobo Direct Access Drive system to do my backups. But Drobo seems to be out of business, and the single hard disks do die - one did recently..

I see a few people using qnap and synology

 

My Drobo has a feature where it just does it's thing... if any hard disks die, you pull it out, replace it and the Drobo will add the new hard disk to the entire backup system. I don't need to do anything.. I would like that. Plus I can take the discs and use them in another Drobo..

iCloud is too expensive and I think too slow for such large backups, plus I'm rather suspicious of keeping my precious data online only.. 

I'm a Macuser, aka computer idiot... 
My question is, which backup solution suits me best? 

- more single hard disks

- DAS

- NAS

- others 

Will appreciate brands, costs and also where to go get them, thanks very much 

[Ender]

For precious photos, I will use cloud like google photo.. Their data protection is much better than any NAS with redundancy and backup.

[therock]

Thanks I have about 40TB, so cloud options will be hard..

A simple Time Machine backup of 80Gb took me four days...

[Cheesey74]

3 minutes ago, therock said:

Thanks I have about 40TB, so cloud options will be hard..

A simple Time Machine backup of 80Gb took me four days...

40TBbbbbbbbb....... that's alot of jap educational material 🤣!

[therock]

DSRB rules..

You gotta keep your research data for many years.. 

Uncompressed music - 40 000 songs takes up a lot of space too..

[Etnt]

Your mac, still a local disk attached time machine. This will ease restoration pains when shit happens.

Your data back up into a NAS, mechanical disk are cheap per tb. Get a 8 or 12 bay from the get-go. will ease expansion pains later, and still offer you sufficient space with 2 disk redundacy.

And back up your NAS also, either with another NAS or expansion unit.

Synology wise, prices are pretty similar among the dealers (memory world, ACE, storage studio).

[Watwheels]

LoL 40TB. What is your budget?

56TB about $4K, NAS.

https://www.amazon.sg/QNAP-TVS-872XT-i5-16G-i5-8400T-Processor-Thunderbolt/dp/B07S5HYJH3/ref=asc_df_B07JXZ2PXJ/?tag=googleshoppin-22&linkCode=df0&hvadid=404367537353&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=11663428842275616079&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9062524&hvtargid=pla-628645912294&th=1

Edited October 18, 2022 by Watwheels

[therock]

22 minutes ago, Etnt said:

Your mac, still a local disk attached time machine. This will ease restoration pains when shit happens.

Your data back up into a NAS, mechanical disk are cheap per tb. Get a 8 or 12 bay from the get-go. will ease expansion pains later, and still offer you sufficient space with 2 disk redundacy.

And back up your NAS also, either with another NAS or expansion unit.

Synology wise, prices are pretty similar among the dealers (memory world, ACE, storage studio).

Thanks any difference between this and qnap?

Will synology be able to alert me on a drive failure and automatically manage the disc usage ?

 Thanks 

[therock]

How fast or slow will the data backup be on a basic 1 GB Lan network?

I use Cat6 cables 

so I connect it to my network switch and that’s it? 

[13177]

1 hour ago, Ender said:

For precious photos, I will use cloud like google photo.. Their data protection is much better than any NAS with redundancy and backup.

How much you pay for your cloud?

[Etnt]

35 minutes ago, therock said:

Thanks any difference between this and qnap?

Will synology be able to alert me on a drive failure and automatically manage the disc usage ?

 Thanks 

Hearsay qnap is more for power users. I'm fine with synology, but using it for years from 4bay J to 4bay + to 8bay +.

Support wise, taiwan side is responsive, and what local dealers cannot fix easily, your unit will be sent back. I had to utilise it once, turnaround is slow though.

Speed wise, you are usually bottlenecked by your drives. You can opt to use a write cache with M2 SSD, but if the cache volume fails, you primary volume fails too. Quite tedious.

I've heard of pple doing remote site backup by having another NAS at their parent/sibling/relative house.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Etnt

[Mustank]

I also got alot of research material

[therock]

1 hour ago, Etnt said:

Hearsay qnap is more for power users. I'm fine with synology, but using it for years from 4bay J to 4bay + to 8bay +.

Support wise, taiwan side is responsive, and what local dealers cannot fix easily, your unit will be sent back. I had to utilise it once, turnaround is slow though.

Speed wise, you are usually bottlenecked by your drives. You can opt to use a write cache with M2 SSD, but if the cache volume fails, you primary volume fails too. Quite tedious.

I've heard of pple doing remote site backup by having another NAS at their parent/sibling/relative house.

Thanks, is there any particular synology model you will recommend?

Knowing my needs, do I need a fancy one or can I make do with a 4-6 bay, but entry level model? What does the processor inside do?

[Mrmilktooth]

Print out the photos and keep in album. Delete the data… and still can flip through albums to relieve the special memories. 

[therock]

I had stacks of pictures from yore

too much space la..

electronic better haha

[Bencts]

for consumer nas the well known brands are synology, qnap and asustor; you won't go wrong with either of these vendors. all provide regular software update to address security vulnerabilities and my impression is synology is more on the ball.

next is to determine your fail safe buffer zone as it will determine the number of drive bay and disk size you need. some of these vendors have online raid calculator for you to estimate RAID Calculator | Synology Inc.

from your description you need a baseline of 38TB, which can be fulfilled by 4 bay nas of 16TB or 5 bay of 12TB with 1 hdd redundancy under RAID 5/SHR

upon detection of an imminent drive failure the front panel will blink alert, you can also configure it to send you an email or even sms. the nas should allow hot swapping of the failing hdd without powering down and will repair the raid volume automatically

the nas will connect to your router at 1GB speed so the first backup will take some time. subsequent incremental backup should be quicker though

 

 

Edited October 18, 2022 by Bencts

[Ender]

2 hours ago, 13177 said:

How much you pay for your cloud?

Just the price of my refurbished first gen Google Pixel XL. Think it was $120. Unlimited storage if I upload pictures via this handphone.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Ender

[Etnt]

1 hour ago, therock said:

Thanks, is there any particular synology model you will recommend?

Knowing my needs, do I need a fancy one or can I make do with a 4-6 bay, but entry level model? What does the processor inside do?

I would recommend 8 bay or 12 bay one, with expansion station also.

It's always good to have buffer, so long as within your budget.

myself I'm running a 1817+ with 517 expansion.