Question DiskStation DS118 Good Choice For Offsite Backup?

[karpadiem]

Adding offsite backup to our setup (will sit in my office at home across town). Would using a DS118 with a single drive be ok? Am I shooting myself in the foot here? Plan to have one other onsite backup on an external drive hooked directly into our primary Synology.

Thanks!

 

[jeyare]

Any backup is better than zero backup. No doubt.
You need open your mind and prepare set of answer for you:
- how is value of the backup for you (mental, time save, cost)
- how much I can pay for save of the value?
- how I can handle trouble when my single disk with backup will passed away, specially when needed
- what limitations I have at backup site (data speed, warm environment, ...)
Then you have a foundation for your backup project. Don’t worry we can help you. But we need your point of view.

 

[karpadiem]

Thanks for your response Jeyare!
1) Biggest value would be peace of mind knowing that our data is safe in something like a fire.
2) I'm not really sure as the boss has not given me a clear budget yet. I'm basically coming to him with different options.
3) I suppose the hope here is that my single disk backup does not fail at the same time as my RAID and/or local external single disk backup
4) Rather sluggish connection speed between office and my house. Could probably only handle a daily backup.

I'm struggling between two thoughts. My default was to spend another $1000 on a DS218+ and 2x8tb drives. But then I started to think that might be overkill considering I'll have a local backup and the remote is for extreme emergencies.

I basically don't want to under spend or over spend... but want to make sure I'm abiding by good backup practices.

 

[karpadiem]

Thought it might be good to include the proposed set up. This is still hypothetical as we are preparing a move from our existing MacOS server to a new DS1618+.

Currently we are using just under 1TB of data in our current share.
New System:

• DS1618+
• 2x 4tb WD Red Pros
• 1 External 3tb Drive

Since we are only currently using 1tb and should take us easily another year before we approach a second TB. I'm assuming the 4tb off site and the 3tb local should be fine for now.

 

[Shadow]

I'd put a 2bay for offsite if I had the choice. Cuz in that case, if a HDD fails, then that doesnt automatically mean the entire backup is gone. With a DS118, if the HDD fails, all backups gone.

 

[jeyare]

there is still vali 3-2-1 approach

reduced up to your business.
Then if you will make first backup at primary site (different NAS) and second backup at second (different) site you need to take into consideration how to handle the backup scheme:
1. backup of data during their inactivity (traditionally during night time), if there is such kind of operation. then light two bay NAS with single ethernet is enough.
2. backup of data during their (data) activity, then you have count, that you will get two different backup (primary, secondary site) based on time between two of them performed. Then you need solution based on btrfs, that can help you minimize this risk. From two bay NAS it is only DS718.

Re: data grow plan. Not sure what kind of data you have in usage. I wrote here (in this forum)some helpful guide how to audit and calculate and plan future data space based on Win tool from Foldersizes.com, which is able make also automated snapshots during specific time to compare your expectations. But people are really surprised when they spend 1 hour with preparation of the calculation (over/under estimated). Definitely you can forget for wisdoms prediction (Gartner, ...), they change it every year without guarantees. Just your preparation can help you.
But if you need just max. 3TB for next 3years, it is good approach to purchase 4TB disk capacity (2x in RAID1), because in 2022 you will purchase 8TB for half of today’s price (maybe less). Then replace disks for new pair if needed.

Finally, any two bay NAS can help you. It is up to your backup scheme decision. Good luck.
PS: Seagate IronWolf is better than WD Red, but it is just my personal point of view.

 

[karpadiem]

Thanks for the feedback! I'll take all of this into consideration!

 

[jeyare]

you welcome

 

[WST16]

My suggestion, in addition to the above.

If the budget is limited, go for the 118. It has two USB 3 ports. You can connect two external drives to it, run Hyper Backup locally to the two drives. This way you’ll end up with 3 offsite copies (the one on the DS and two on the external drives, albeit all in the same place/house).

You can make one of the external drives as a single version backup. This way you’ll have the latest files in a readable format. Just make sure to initialize the drive on your PC or Mac before connecting it to the DS. You can just plug it to your PC/Mac and read the files if the need arises.

Or choose one or the other and connect a single external drive.

 

[fredbert]

I was just checking that HB can use a USB drive on a second NAS as the target destination. Yes, I can select the file share on the USB drive on my other NAS.

A thought: DS118 vs DS218play vs DS218play vs DS218+

DS218play is pretty much the DS118 with two bays, so cheaper than the DS218. But the DS218 supports Btrfs filesystem and snapshots, if that might be important later.

As a file server and HB server I'm not sure that the DS218+ isn't overkill. If you going to start Drive and sync services then may be and if you need to support other productivity packages, well ok, but for file services the j-series works sufficiently well.

The DS218play with two drives could be a better choice as it has some resilience, plus one or two USB drives:

• one for a single version HB task direct from main site: for when you need to rush loads of data back.
• second for backing up the local HB archive: you can take it to the office and leave the backup NAS in-situ.

Don't forget the UPS to protect from power outages and spikes.

 

[Lynx084]

I would say that “hope” is not a good plan.

A 2 bay at home gives protection. All drives fail someday. Murphy says failures will always happen at the worst time.

Buy all same size drives. A single smaller one will limit your choices.

Multiple drives of a smaller (and maybe less expensive) makes for good redundancy.
3 or 4 tb drives seem to be the sweet spot for price these days.

Make a plan (and schedule) to test backups. During a disaster is not a good time to discover you can’t restore your data.

Buy once, cry once.
The wrong product at the right price is still the wrong product.

 

[Telos]

With a DS118, if the HDD fails, all backups gone.

OTOH, it's just a backup and the source files still exist. My backup drives have no redundancy and I'm good with that.

 

[jeyare]

OTOH, it's just a backup and the source files still exist. My backup drives have no redundancy and I'm good with that.

Everyone of us has different attitude, expectations, experiences. Also in data handling/usage/store.
Then just future events (experiences) can prove our today’s attitude and expectations.
And it is ok, when someone (also Telos) has backup on single disk. No doubt.
We can’t blame such attitude, because we don’t have clear view to details driven by. And this is one and only attitude how we can provide good enough advice - deep dive understanding of the “give me a help” question.