Hey folks.

Posting here so's the question is open to Mac and PC gurus alike. Could do with a bit of advise as I'm not sure which way to jump next; it's mostly Mac-related but also with networky/NAS questions, and my head hurst so any opinions gratefully received.

So the situation at the mo is that we have a mostly Mac household with a couple of PCs knocking around as well. The home network is a mix of wired Gigabit and WiFi N, and a while ago I picked up a Time Capsule to handle general backups using Time Machine (an apple app that comes with OSX) and also used it to store some music and movies so that everyone in the house could access them. Then we ended up with a spare iMac (dicky screen) so this was ethernetted to the Time Capsule (iTunes folder is on the TC) where it became the default DVD-ripping and music handling machine for the house. These days music and movies are accessed through the iMacs iTunes 'Home Sharing' feature or AppleTV/Apple Remote, and it all works pretty smoothly.

The problem is that a/. the Time Capsule's starting to fill up (and we haven't even started ripping the boxed-set TV shows yet…) and b/. there's no automated backup of this stuff in place - I do a manual copy to an external HD more-or-less weekly, but I'd rather have something that just happens without any intervention.

So what I'd like is to have is an iTunes folder on a large (e.g. 2TB) separate HD connected to the iMac somehow, and some way to automatically back this up - it's just for home use, so there's no remote access, print serving, torrent clients, etc.. etc.. needed. I'm not looking to replace the Time Capsule - that stays as a general backup device - I just need some way of storing & backing up movies and music. There's no budget as such, though the cheaper the better as it's for home; I like the idea of something like a basic Drobo, and could probably just about convince myself to shell out for if it didn't have such mixed reviews on t'interwebs…

So as far as I can tell, the options are…

1/. String a couple of big external drives direct to the iMac - keep the iTunes folder on one and backup to the other with Time Machine - easy option, but messy what with two external drives, cables, PSUs and general clutter… Also the drives would need to be quiet (the iMac's in the kitchen) and decent looking - aesthetics count.

2/. String a couple of big external drives off the Time Capsule (it'll need a USB hub) - otherwise as above... I guess an alternative to these may be a basic two-drive external enclosure without any NAS pretentions, provided they work OK with large drives?

3/. Put a 2-bay NAS on the network (I assume it's possible to have two drives as separate entities, rather than part of a RAID, with a NAS?) and keep the iTunes folder on one and use the other to back it up, assuming there's an easy way to do this. It would have to be a NAS that'll play nicely with a Time Capsule, though as the TC is elsewhere in the house noise would be less of an issue.

So, anyone done anything similar, or can see anything obvious I'm missing? As always, all thoughts much appreciated.

Cheers, Pete.

Can I suggest soemthing - having a 2 bay NAS with data on one drive and a backup of that data on the other is effectively exactly the same as having the NAS use it's built in drive mirroring (i.e. RAID 0), except you're doing all the work by hand rather than letting the NAS hardware do it for you - your failure chances are identical, your survivability is the same, just that it's much less hassle to let the NAS do the copying and if one drive does go, instead of you having to 'fail over' to the backup, things just keep on working. I don't see the advantage of doing it manually.

As for the NAS itself, have a look at Synology's stuff. You can get a 2 bay NAS from them for much less than a Drobo, plus the software they run is fantastic. I did a review of one of their posher NAS servers here and I'm in the middle of getting a more 'long term test' document together to post as an X404 article.

Jon

We got one of THESE as a VPN-connected mirror for when I was in Oz for out-of-hours sync'ing with London - I have to say I was fairly impressed by it - and toyed with the idea of getting one for our house so we don't all have to leave our computers on when we're all in the lounge wanting to get at our shared-all-over-the-shop media.

RAID 1 is mirroring.

RAID 0 is striping.

Do not use RAID 0 for backups

For nice cheap offsite backups, you can always look at http://mozy.co.uk/

OOps . Fair enough. Just shows you how long ago it is since I dealt with anything that was just two drives....

Jon

I use a 3.5" 1TB drive for on-site backups and Carbonite for offsite backup.

3-2-1 : No file is backed up until:

3 copies exist
2 different mediums are used
1 copy is offsite

At work we mirror the servers, sync to a NAS, which is then dumped to a tape and the tape is kept in a bank safe.

Thanks for that; I thought that a RAID 1 setup was frowned upon for backups as the mirroring happens pretty much in real time so e.g. if someone was to accidentally delete a file then it's pretty much instantly gone from the mirrored 'backup' drive as well - or have I got the wrong end of that? My thinking was that if the backups were being handled by e.g. Time Machine, then at least I have an hour to put things straight.

I'd read your review of the 'Slim' NAS and wasn't sure about using 2.5" drives so hadn't investigated any further - will take a look, cheers!

RAID1 itself isn't a backup. However you can use a RAID1 NAS box to house your backups (so your backups have some redundancy), there's nothing worse than needing a backup only to find out that drive is dead

I think that might be a bit over the top for home back up
Though to be fair our wedding and honeymoon photos do conform to this. Well I do want to live in the unlikely case of losing a set of pics

I don't know about other NAS boxes, but the synology stuff definitely allows that. You can plug in a USB drive and make a backup to that, then leave that offsite. That's what I've done. Buying a USB drive adds something to the cost but USB drives tend to be a lot cheaper than NAS per GB, because they have a lot less functionality and they're not resilient.

Look at this way - a 2 bay NAS drive with 2 1TB drives in it will cost you say £250 all in. That will give you 1TB of resilient, network accessible storage. A 1TB USB disk will cost you, what, 60 quid now? Run a backup to that overnight, then drop it off at the house of someone you trust. Redo every so often. IMO, that's as good a backup regime as any home really needs. It'll survive everything short of a tsunami. If one disk fails, you're fine. If both disks fail or if you have a major emergency like a house fire or burglary, you'll get back most of your data. I'm afraid I think the grandfather/father/son is too much for the home - the risk to expense/effort ratio just isn't viable. If your backup regime is too much work, you simply won't keep it up. That's just human nature. You do as many levels of backup as you can manage, rather than having as many as you're supposed to have and not managing to do half of them often enough.

Aside from the above, the point of RAID is not to make your data easier to recover, it's to make sure you never have to recover it in the first place. Spending money on RAID storage is, IMO, better than spending it on another level of backup. I'd also suggest DropBox as a free point of backup for critical data (and IMO 500GB of photos are not critical data).

Jon

I was looking at Carbonite http://www.carbonite.com/en/online-back ... e/flat-fee

Carbonite is very good, now that it is working. They fell out with their German service partner and my backup stopped for a while, as all German IPs were blocked. They eventually sorted it out and I got a second years subscription as compensation. (That it took a while to get it working again was partly my fault, I changed jobs and was working all hours, so it took me a couple of months to get back in touch with support, once they had made initial suggestions, so very generous of them to offer the extra year.)