grahamc Posted August 14, 2008 Share Posted August 14, 2008 What does everyone else do for redundancy or backups at home? I have a lot of pictures and documents that I dont want to lose, but dont really want to use DVDs, etc. So would prefer some sort of machine that has an raid based redundancy. Wheres the best place to get it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustGav Posted August 14, 2008 Share Posted August 14, 2008 Just a cheapy pc would do the job.... However, there is something called Windows Home Server which isn't too bad, and abstracts everything away... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pixelfill Posted August 14, 2008 Share Posted August 14, 2008 I'm expecting a demo licence of Windows Home Server through the post, It looks pretty impressive to me, from what I've seen of it. Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grahamc Posted August 14, 2008 Author Share Posted August 14, 2008 Just a cheapy pc would do the job.... However, there is something called Windows Home Server which isn't too bad, and abstracts everything away... Is it available on MSDN License? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pixelfill Posted August 14, 2008 Share Posted August 14, 2008 don't know, but a 120 day eval is free, you just have to ask for it Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tDR Posted August 14, 2008 Share Posted August 14, 2008 CommVault Backup to disk onto a 1TB USB2.0 External, then auxilliary copy to another. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grahamc Posted August 15, 2008 Author Share Posted August 15, 2008 don't know, but a 120 day eval is free, you just have to ask for it Mike CommVault Backup to disk onto a 1TB USB2.0 External, then auxilliary copy to another. Thanks Will give both a go and see which I prefer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorin Posted August 15, 2008 Share Posted August 15, 2008 Depends what your budget is, if you want RAID it's gonna cost you. http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=93 http://www.synology.com/enu/products/DS207/index.php http://www.thecus.com/products_over.php?cid=10&pid=28 Building a crappy old PC with a few discs in it would probably be the cheaper option. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted August 15, 2008 Share Posted August 15, 2008 I use a Raid 5 array in the main machine - this means I can lose a drive and still retain my data. I currently have 4 500gb HDD's and so have 1.5TB of space Each Samsung Spinpoint F1 drive was £66 I think.... If I was to get a NAS to backup to though - so other things can access my data when the PC isn't on - I'd be looking at the Netgear ReadyNAS Duo. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monkey3 Posted August 15, 2008 Share Posted August 15, 2008 Depends on your budget and how much automation you want. Cheapest way would be to get a couple of network drives or even usb drives and setup a schedule to backup your important stuff to both of them. If you really want RAID on a separate machine, I would say your best bet is Buy any newish motherboard with onboard graphics supporting RAID 1 A cheap processor A couple of fair sized hard drives A gig of RAM And a case to put it all in It shouldn't come to more than a couple of hundred £s. Then download Ubuntu for free. And there you have a cheap pc. Then you can schedule a backup to it and blah blah blah. http://www.scan.co.uk are pretty cheap OR dabs.co.uk if you can find what you're looking for Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorin Posted August 15, 2008 Share Posted August 15, 2008 http://www.freenas.org/ is worth a look if going down the old PC route. Pete would love it, it's based on BSD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grahamc Posted August 15, 2008 Author Share Posted August 15, 2008 I think I need to "borrow" a retired server from work... Seems like it might be the best plan. Dont have too much data and I dont want to spend silly money, but have had a 2 drives fail at the same time in the past and lost a lot! Netgear ReadyNAS Duo -> now that looks good!!! http://www.netgear.com/Products/Storage/ReadyNASDuo/RND2150.aspx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorin Posted August 15, 2008 Share Posted August 15, 2008 Netgear ReadyNAS Duo -> now that looks good!!! http://www.netgear.com/Products/Storage/ReadyNASDuo/RND2150.aspx Take a look at the QNAP products, better than the Netgear IMO. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustGav Posted August 15, 2008 Share Posted August 15, 2008 http://www.freenas.org/ is worth a look if going down the old PC route. Pete would love it, it's based on BSD. That would be my choice as well for someone who is willing to fiddle bit and isn't scared of a little CLI, it is definitely the better option. Windows Home Server is nice abstracted version of it, complete with the following features 1. Automatic client backup of pc's and laptops 2. Can be intergrated with anti-virus 3. Can also become the media centre tv core with something like SageTV 4. Downside is it is based on Win2k Small business edition and has a lot turned off and very restrictive (which isn't a bad thing for home users) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustGav Posted August 15, 2008 Share Posted August 15, 2008 Heard good things about this as well http://www.techstore.co.uk/browse.php?a=p&prodLineID=126723 However, my choice is always to "roll my own".. A mini-itx motherboard with 4gb of ram and a shed load of SATA connections, running something like freenas or a variation like that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grahamc Posted August 15, 2008 Author Share Posted August 15, 2008 That would be my choice as well for someone who is willing to fiddle bit and isn't scared of a little CLI, it is definitely the better option. Windows Home Server is nice abstracted version of it, complete with the following features 1. Automatic client backup of pc's and laptops 2. Can be intergrated with anti-virus 3. Can also become the media centre tv core with something like SageTV 4. Downside is it is based on Win2k Small business edition and has a lot turned off and very restrictive (which isn't a bad thing for home users) Should have mentioned that I have full access to MSDN, thanks to my work. So if the Home Server is so restrictive, I would use the full version. Heard good things about this as well http://www.techstore.co.uk/browse.php?a=p&prodLineID=126723 However, my choice is always to "roll my own".. A mini-itx motherboard with 4gb of ram and a shed load of SATA connections, running something like freenas or a variation like that thats not a bad idea actually... But I do like the look of the QNAP kit, very simple to use. Must admit I do like the idea of creating a media centre tv core out of it.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted August 15, 2008 Share Posted August 15, 2008 I hadn't heard of QNAP...but this does look good. http://www.qnap.com/pro_detail_feature.asp?p_id=93 http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=824583 I'm not really sure HOW I missed this brand?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustGav Posted August 15, 2008 Share Posted August 15, 2008 Should have mentioned that I have full access to MSDN, thanks to my work. So if the Home Server is so restrictive, I would use the full version. thats not a bad idea actually... But I do like the look of the QNAP kit, very simple to use. Must admit I do like the idea of creating a media centre tv core out of it.... Here is the catch, there isn't a full version of WHS as such, it is a single version, it was based on SBS and then modified. I've often wondered if it is possible to extract the WHS bits and install directly onto a full copy of 2k3, which MAY be possible... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OhGod Posted August 15, 2008 Share Posted August 15, 2008 Something like Windows Home Server would be a simple choice, as already mentioned. Last I checked it wasn't on MSDN - which is a shame 'cos I wanted to play with it. Seems a very flexible system with the anti-virus and PC backup as previously mentioned. Though the bit that caught my eye is the way it handles it's 'storage pool'. Unlike most RAID setups where each disk needs to be the same size, it supports adding any size disks (JBOD like) and you can also just add disks at a later stage, tell Windows to add it to the pool and it'll start shuffling things onto the new disk in the background. Each disk is also standalone so that you can take a single disk out, plug it into another machine and still access all the files. This last point is handy as I've recently had a mainboard - with RAID controller - die and when I plugged my HDDs into another board the RAID controller wouldn't detect/read the striped set - thankfully I had backed up the more important stuff to a external drive. Further to that you can also mark folders as important (or something) and Windows will make sure that it's contents are mirrored or 2 or more physical disks. (No, I don't work for Microsoft!) Other options are BluRay disks - burners are down to £120 or so - which would give you ~50GB per disk. Though at this price you may be better with a USB external drive - you can get ~300GB for £70 these days. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeordieSteve Posted August 15, 2008 Share Posted August 15, 2008 A separate server and raid array seems overkill to me for backing up a few documents? A USB HDD with a local copy of the documents and an xcopy set on shutdown to the USB device should do the job? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkR Posted August 15, 2008 Share Posted August 15, 2008 I'd go for this if I had the cash for it. Once I've gone single it'll be next on my list. http://www.synology.com/enu/products/DS508/index.php Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grahamc Posted August 15, 2008 Author Share Posted August 15, 2008 A separate server and raid array seems overkill to me for backing up a few documents? A USB HDD with a local copy of the documents and an xcopy set on shutdown to the USB device should do the job? I must admit it is over kill, howeverI do not trust usb drives, since my last one failed in 3 weeks. I like the idea of having something like one of these "home" nas servers for all storage, backup, media centre, etc. Anyone done something like this before? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tDR Posted August 15, 2008 Share Posted August 15, 2008 Buffalo Linkstation NAS's are the best 'home' ones performance wise from the reading I done on them. The Netgear's really sucked from a throughput point of view. Cheers, Brian. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guru Posted August 15, 2008 Share Posted August 15, 2008 I cannot reccomend these servers enough....http://www.tranquilpc.co.uk/ I have the T7 and it is silent, reliable and tiny! Makes backups easy as it wakes up PC's, backs them up and then switches them off again. Also allows easy expansions via a USB hardrive that is instantly added to the 'pool' of space. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grahamc Posted August 15, 2008 Author Share Posted August 15, 2008 I'd go for this if I had the cash for it. Once I've gone single it'll be next on my list. http://www.synology.com/enu/products/DS508/index.php thats very nice... prices?? Buffalo Linkstation NAS's are the best 'home' ones performance wise from the reading I done on them. The Netgear's really sucked from a throughput point of view. Cheers, Brian. will look them up, thanks!! I cannot reccomend these servers enough....http://www.tranquilpc.co.uk/ I have the T7 and it is silent, reliable and tiny! Makes backups easy as it wakes up PC's, backs them up and then switches them off again. Also allows easy expansions via a USB hardrive that is instantly added to the 'pool' of space. looks good lots of reading to do Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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