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Forum Discussion
How Swapping for Offsite storage
I love the idea of having a NAS on my network. It is perfect for storing files and provides excellent protection from drive failure and more. When I use NAS normally RAID 1 has been sufficient.
Though, now I'm adding a bit of complexity to my backup method. I am required now to also have an offsite backup. However, I am not allowed to have my NAS access the WAN. So, that means I will need manual offsite backups. Obviously I want to keep my time spent doing this to a minimum. My idea is to utilize my Netgear NAS in being able to take advantage of it's hot-swap capabilities. If I have 3-4 HDs in my NAS...I am wondering if at times I may remove 1 of the drives (it containing the mirrored data of the other drives) and swap it out for another. Later after X-amount of time, I would again perform the same routine. However, eventually, to conserve hard drives, I would bring back one of these drives that was earlier swapped out of the NAS (it still having the mirrored data on the drive from X-amount of time earlier) and put it BACK into the NAS. So I'm really just wondering if this would be fine and if the NAS is smart enough the know that and in turn either incrementally update the drive or at the least format the drive and re-add it to the RAID.
Though, now I'm adding a bit of complexity to my backup method. I am required now to also have an offsite backup. However, I am not allowed to have my NAS access the WAN. So, that means I will need manual offsite backups. Obviously I want to keep my time spent doing this to a minimum. My idea is to utilize my Netgear NAS in being able to take advantage of it's hot-swap capabilities. If I have 3-4 HDs in my NAS...I am wondering if at times I may remove 1 of the drives (it containing the mirrored data of the other drives) and swap it out for another. Later after X-amount of time, I would again perform the same routine. However, eventually, to conserve hard drives, I would bring back one of these drives that was earlier swapped out of the NAS (it still having the mirrored data on the drive from X-amount of time earlier) and put it BACK into the NAS. So I'm really just wondering if this would be fine and if the NAS is smart enough the know that and in turn either incrementally update the drive or at the least format the drive and re-add it to the RAID.
3 Replies
- nope. this a bad idea, raid is not designed for using hotswaps for backups and every time you swap disks, both disks will go into full rebuild mode putting even more wear and tear on them.
your best bet is to use a usb external drive. - SATA drives in addition are not designed to take the wear and tear of being directly handled in that manner. There is a critical small plastic protrusion that covers the small contacts, and this can break off if struck accidentally. (I have two that were in a stack that fell over and damaged in that manner) Without that small protrusion, the SATA cable will not maintain contact.
It is far better to utilize dedicated external drives. I would recommend one that connects to your PC either via USB3 or eSATA and then copy the files over using drag and drop. (Windows Explorer if you are on a Windows machine). You can connect a USB2 drive (USB3 if you have an Ultra 2) and back up directly from the Ultra (you did not specify 2 or 4) but the USB2 is notoriously slow.
I use this method to back up my critical files to a WD Passport to store in my SD box, alternating Passports. (Home environment). - Thanks for responses. I agree, the external drive solutions sound far better.
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