Home Backup Suggestions

[techguy817]

Hi all,

With more computers and data now I think I need to redo my backp strategy and am seeking some advice. I have one main Win7 PC, a Win7 laptop, a Win XP test system, a new Mac Mini, and some other test Linux systems. I currently only backup data from the main Win7 PC to my external 1TB hard drive over USB using GFI backup home edition once a month. I have many photos and documents on the main PC and will be adding more files to the other systems.

I'm thinking of getting a NAS device like a Synology 211 or 212 or ReadyNAS (raid 1 should be fine for me). Or I may take one of my old P4 systems and put some sata drives in there with a controller and Ubuntu (I read that Ubuntu is faster and more capable than open filer or free nas). For offsite backup I'm thinking to use the 1tb drive and give it to my parents once a month (encrypt it some way). I currently use mozy online backup with their free 2gb but Im not set on the speed of cloud backup. With a Ubuntu NAS I could at least do cloud backup at some point where a synology or ready nas wouldn't let me (I know only some cloud services support Linux).

So in short would a true nas device or Ubuntu system be better? Any additional tips or suggestions based on my setup is greatly appreciated.

 

[pitz]

You savvy with Linux/unix or not?

I personally built myself a nice i7-2600 machine for Linux. Most of my 'tinkering' machines are actually virtual machines these days. And the Linux box serves as an iSCSI server, Samba/CIFS fileserver, email server, multi-radio wireless access point, and a half dozen other things.

I used to have a half dozen PC's around here to tinker with stuff too, but now I just create and fire up VMs, as necessary, to do everything. Or I will PXE/SANBOOT (through iPXE) my laptops with different operating systems as necessary through the gig-E. Just downloading the Windows 8 preview right now, and going to install it to an iSCSI mount!

My preference would be to avoid the cheap NAS devices, but I know Linux pretty much in and out, have no problem building my own kernels, etc. For what an old P4 might cost in electricity compared to a nice new Sandy Bridge unit, over the next few years, you could save a decent chunk of change. Plus not having PCI-E is rather limiting speed-wise (from the Gig-E interfaces and the HDDs!).

 

[pitz]

BTW, if you go the same route as I did, I'd suggest going with a Q67 motherboard. I went with the H67 board (Asus P8H67-m-Evo), but am personally looking to go with with a Q77 motherboard (Ivy Bridge) for the remote VNC console feature (which means I can have my machine completely headless!).

 

[techguy817]

Thanks for the quick reply pitz! I know enough about Linux to get around and have xenserver experience. Do you think one of my spare p4 systems with 1gb ram would be enough so I don't need to buy a full rig aside from a Sara controller and the drives.

 

[pitz]

Thanks for the quick reply pitz! I know enough about Linux to get around and have xenserver experience. Do you think one of my spare p4 systems with 1gb ram would be enough so I don't need to buy a full rig aside from a Sara controller and the drives.

Of course, shouldn't be a problem... Heck, I did exactly what you're proposing to do with a Pentium-66 back in the 1990s, with software RAID-1. The amount of hardware you need really isn't a lot with Linux.

One thing I find though is that you're really going to be limited on software RAID-1 rebuilding speeds if you're not running something that's PCI-E. When you're rebuilding a mirror at 60mb/sec on a 3Tb drive -- that becomes very annoying. And you're not going to be able to saturate even a single Gig-E segment on an old PCI-E platform.

But if you want to keep the costs down or just build this out of junk bin parts, by all means....

 

[techguy817]

Yeah my P4 system is PCI only. I'm not too concerned about rebuilding speeds. Can you make a recommendation on a sata raid card for Linux? Hard drives are kind of pricey now so I may wait or that.

 

[pitz]

Yeah my P4 system is PCI only. I'm not too concerned about rebuilding speeds. Can you make a recommendation on a sata raid card for Linux? Hard drives are kind of pricey now so I may wait or that.

http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10407&cs_id=1040702&p_id=2667&seq=1&format=2

I had one of those in my PCI Linux machine before I upgraded it to Sandy Bridge.

Under Linux, generally speaking, you would be using the md driver/kernel code, and not the "RAID" on the card itself.

 

[techguy817]

Thanks again. I'll check it out...