Budget NAS for a small school backup?

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Budget NAS for a small school backup?

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Got into a discussion with my mom about how the school she works at has zero backups at all. It is a small private elementary school on a tight budget. What's the least expensive Synology NAS that we "should" buy? Primary use would be for backup of about 7-10 computers. There would probably be very little need for off-LAN access at this point. Would basically be looking to backup teacher/staff computers once a day whenever they are in range of the school's LAN. I know what the value-series NAS are, but I don't know if they would be too cheap to backup potentially sensitive student and school info? What backup package would you recommend for such an environment?
 
Got into a discussion with my mom about how the school she works at has zero backups at all. It is a small private elementary school on a tight budget. What's the least expensive Synology NAS that we "should" buy? Primary use would be for backup of about 7-10 computers. There would probably be very little need for off-LAN access at this point. Would basically be looking to backup teacher/staff computers once a day whenever they are in range of the school's LAN. I know what the value-series NAS are, but I don't know if they would be too cheap to backup potentially sensitive student and school info? What backup package would you recommend for such an environment?
For this case I would recommend a + model nas with Active Backup support. You can backup computers that way and have them on a schedule or manual configuration for those tasks.

The size of the NAS and drives will depend on the overall need and yearly growth. Maybe a 720+ model with several 6 or 8TB drives would be enough?
 
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I agree w/ Rusty. Here's the datasheet to read about this model, which you may like for example. No pressing you here, we are suggesting.

May I recommend BRTFS instead of EXT4 file system also, if the model you're buying supports it, as it handles power failure better and all in all works more fast than EXT4 does, more efficient.
 
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To be sure:
- for the Active backup you need BTRFS mandatory, then use of Ext4 is out of scope by definition for such backup services.
- speed of BTRFS vs Ext4 is definitely dependent from data architecture or operation model. There is a definition for what use cases is Ext4 literally recommended also by Synology. More in Syno KB.
It’s like a “allround ski” for some good enough for some really bad choice.
 
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finally cost of the backup service must be in equilibrium with the value of data for such backup.
The expression "would be too cheap to backup potentially sensitive student and school info" is a nice example of road to hell.
There is a difference when you will backup tons of trash, or really useful info.
1. initial request was about:
Primary use would be for backup of about 7-10 computers
2. extended by:
Would basically be looking to backup teacher/staff computers once a day whenever they are in range of the school's LAN
3. and also by:
small private elementary school on a tight budget.

Think twice:
- when you will create single initial Bare-metal backup of 250GB disk you will eat 250x10= 2500GB= 2.5TB just for the initial session
- the you will create continuous (I hope) System (OS) only backup (I hope again) based on chosen scenarios, then you will eat additional space. Then you have to calculate also this space, before you will purchase disk drives.
- there is better (from any reason) use Drive for non system data operation, then backup them to external disk by Hyper backup service and System only backup by Active backup service.
This will be backup and data availability in lowcost level. Yeap, there is also backup of backup :).
Anyway for 50 children in really, really small school it’s about 14USD per parent. What isn’t much. When the number of children is higher, then ...

This idea can open another hidden dimension:
- why don’t purchase two NASes and operate containers for an education purposes. In these corona days - really useful step.
 
Upvote 0
finally cost of the backup service must be in equilibrium with the value of data for such backup.
The expression "would be too cheap to backup potentially sensitive student and school info" is a nice example of road to hell.
There is a difference when you will backup tons of trash, or really useful info.
1. initial request was about:

2. extended by:

3. and also by:


Think twice:
- when you will create single initial Bare-metal backup of 250GB disk you will eat 250x10= 2500GB= 2.5TB just for the initial session
- the you will create continuous (I hope) System (OS) only backup (I hope again) based on chosen scenarios, then you will eat additional space. Then you have to calculate also this space, before you will purchase disk drives.
- there is better (from any reason) use Drive for non system data operation, then backup them to external disk by Hyper backup service and System only backup by Active backup service.
This will be backup and data availability in lowcost level. Yeap, there is also backup of backup :).
Anyway for 50 children in really, really small school it’s about 14USD per parent. What isn’t much. When the number of children is higher, then ...

This idea can open another hidden dimension:
- why don’t purchase two NASes and operate containers for an education purposes. In these corona days - really useful step.
Just out of curiousity, what containers would you see useful for distance learning? The school just got Samsung tablets and is currently running Google classroom.
 
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Don’t forget the UPS too. And if you are the one who’ll put the idea and recommendations forward, count on yourself being the support person. You’ll be the first one they call when they have questions or problems. Good to help if you have the time. If not, you should make it clear upfront that they should know how to setup and fix things– tell them to join SynoForum :)
 
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The school just got Samsung tablets and is currently running Google classroom.
Google classroom is part of Gsuite Enterprise for Education
the 4$/user/month .... user is student or teacher, admin, ....
50 students + 10 teachers = 60 x 4 x 12 = 2880$/year or 11520 per 4y period

for:
Gmail
Drive
Meet
Calendar
Google office
Forms
Classroom and Assignments
Data Loss Prevention by cloud based operation

Just calculate the right number of the users.

Ofc - there is also free version of Google Education with limitations. What use just all already free Google products. Funny.
 
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Don’t forget the UPS too. And if you are the one who’ll put the idea and recommendations forward, count on yourself being the support person. You’ll be the first one they call when they have questions or problems. Good to help if you have the time. If not, you should make it clear upfront that they should know how to setup and fix things– tell them to join SynoForum :)
yeah... I'm already regretting bringing it up a bit, but they do need something better than what they have.
-- post merged: --

@jeyare, the NAS would be mostly for office/admin backup and not so much the educational side. I'd probably push them to find a cloud based backup too because I wouldn't want to get too complicated with the onsite NAS networking.
 
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@NAS Newbie
Re: your “this is for me a minefield” = good approach to stay in safe place in this case
Not quite sure what you are getting at here. If you mean that I might not want to get involved in setting up the school's backup system because I'm inexperienced at it, then you are probably correct.
 
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I'm not a friend of sarcasm = it's a form of hidden aggression
your consideration is correct.
I'm not sure if I've offended somehow with unintended sarcasm, but I haven't meant to be sarcastic anywhere here.
-- post merged: --

@NAS Newbie
Did you decide on what Synology you might be ordering, yet

It'd probably just be the 220+ if they did do anything. I'm hoping they find a different cheap option through their tech provider.
 
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