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Forum Discussion
Protecting backup data stored in garage
Hi, I'm looking for some advice on protecting backups.
Currently our family data is stored on a ReadyNAS Ultra 6 Plus located in our study in the house. The most critical data is backed up to the cloud but as our broadband is very poor, I have to be very selective about this. More routine backup is to portable hard drives that are stored offsite but this depends on me remembering to do it so not the most reliable approach.
We have just had a new detached garage built. It's far enough away that under most circumstances, backups there should be ok. I'm thinking of purchasing a second ReadyNAS (a 214) and using one of the NAS's as the main store and locating the other in our garage with some form of backup running to it from the main NAS (the garage is attached to our house LAN). While there is some physical security in the garage and the NAS will be hidden away, I am concerned that if it is stolen, the data could be accessed. I'm looking at backing up in such a way that if the NAS is stolen, the data would be protected.
I've looked at Rsync but that seems to be a non-starter. My fall back is to use Acronis with password protection but that would mean that I would need to have a PC control the backup process. My ideal would be that one of the two NAS's controls the process.
Any suggestions?
Thanks.
2 Replies
Of course there is a second threat, which is that someone can tap into your house lan from the garage, and get the NAS contents over the network.
You can encrypt the drives on the RN214, but you would need to remove the key and keep it in the house,
Another possibility is to install crashplan on both units, and use crashplan "friend" backup between the two NAS. Those backup files are encrypted. I'm not sure if crashplan will run on the RN214 though.
It's a good point regarding the vulnerability of the network points in the garage Stephen. I considered the risk when I wired them in. Like the position for the ReadyNAS, it is well hidden (may not be a good thing!). In the end, I thought the risk of someone sitting in my garage for an hour or so copying off data was worth it for the benefit of having a more reliable backup approach. The higher risk is someone lifting the ReadyNAS and taking it offsite to browse at their leisure.
Encrypting the ReadyNAS may be the way to go. The overhead of encryption is less of an issue for backups. I'll take a look at the implications. If my quick scan is correct, the USB key only needs to be present during initial setup and for rebooting which would be ok. I guess I could then use RSync or similar for the backups.
I'm not familiar with Crashplan. I've had a very quick look and see that it can be run headless on a ReadyNAS so another potential solution.
Thank you for your help. A couple of good ideas for me to look at.
Regards.
Joe
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