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Which RAID should I select for BEST backup?
Hello all, I just got my ReadyNAS 316, installed two 6 TB WD Red drives, and (with the help of the awesome support techs) got everything up and running. Now I need to figure out which RAID level/ty...
I back up shares (to backup NAS, not external USB drives, but the idea is the same). I've had a NAS for some years, and currently have ~20 shares (a couple less). The main issue with backup is that you can't let a share get bigger than the backup drive. I've had to reorganize my backups occasionally but in general it hasn't been much of a problem. Organization on the NAS takes a little thought, but with volumes of the size you are planning you will need some folder structure anyway.
When you back up the full volume, of course you need a destination drive that can hold the full volume. Once you overflow your initlal 6 TB volume size, that won't work (since there are no 12 TB USB drives). So you'll end up share-by-share anyway.
Yet one more question. I just don't get the X-RAID idea. If I have 5.5 TB of data on Drive A, 5.5 TB on Drive C, X-RAID only has 5.5 TB of "protection" on Drive B. If Drive A completely flatlines, can I get all the data back using Drive B? If Drive C completely flatlines, can I get all the data back using Drive B. If both Drive A and Drive C flatline, will I get all of my data back from Drive B?
With three or more disks X-RAID single-redundancy uses RAID-5. With three disks you could withstand the failure of any one disk.
There are of course other possible problemy you may run into including multiple disk failures. If the NAS will be used for primary storage then backups to USB disks, another NAS or some place else are vital.
Okay. So three of you have chimed in and I super appreciate it.
Summary: Do X-RAID. It will allow you to get back your data if any one drive fails. Don't use the RN 316 as a sole backup. Backup each disk to an external HD via USB. Store that external offsite.
MathemAddicts wrote:Backup each disk to an external HD via USB. Store that external offsite.
u backup folders containing data to external hd. or backup all folders to another nas. etc
if you have raid u dont backup each disk to external hd because you cannot create parity
Got it. Thank you all!
MathemAddicts wrote:
...Backup each disk to an external HD via USB. Store that external offsite.
Though I think you have it, just be sure... You are backing up the data volume (which spans all disks with XRAID) to one or more USB drives. As was mentioned earlier, you can't back up individual drives, because RAID is assembling them into a single virtual drive.
Well, it's one of two choices for the external backups.
- Create shares (which I am guessing are similar to folders) right now and backup each share. That is, have a "share" folder called Pictures 2015 that I will backup, and so on. This allows for smaller logical chunks to be backed up. Although I am guessing this is the messiest as far as organizing goes.
- Do what you suggest and make a multi-drive backup once every-so-often. How challenging would this be?
Thanks again for all the help!
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