It's a little overwhelming, so I'll just ask here..
I'm looking at a 4-bay version to buy.. I want to be able to backup each computer (2 notebooks and a desktop), and make available all movies/audio/pictures, as well as archive my home movies.. Total computer storage is only about 3T..
I work in video, so I have many very large HD files (up to 20 and 30G).. Once these projects are finished, however, I back them up do disc.. I don't want them to be backed up if it eats up so much bandwidth that I can't get my other regular over-the-network work done..
I assume the backup system is like a cloud based backup, where once the total backup is made it is just incrimental based on changes?
It depends on whether your backup program is file-based or block-based. File-based backups which is more common, will copy the entire file regardless of whether one byte or the whole file changes. Block-based backup will need to determine which blocks changed and will copy just those blocks, however depending on the speed of your computer and how much memory it has, it may be faster copying the entire file rather than searching for the differences.
That said, even with file-based backups, it'll typically see if there's any difference in the file before copying, so it is incremental in that only the changed files will be copied. The ReadyNAS comes with licenses for Memeo Premium Backup which will do the file-based incremental backups to the ReadyNAS any time the file changes. It's also smart enough to back off if there's an intensive foreground task and will stay in the background waiting for a good window to continue. That, or if you have a backup program with scheduling, you can setup your backup jobs at off-hours.
1. Most backup programs allow for scheduled backups, so you can set them to run over night which will minimize the impact on the network. 2. In addition to standard network protocols like CIFS, AFP, NFS & FTP, the ReadyNAS also supports rsync, which is a block-based backup.
Can you also answer a few questions?
1. What kinds of computers do you use (Windows XP/Vista/7, Linux, Mac)? 2. Approximately how much data would be backed up each day (i.e. how many new files or modified files & approximate size)? 3. What sort of network infrastructure do you have (wired or wireless, 10/100 or gigabit, etc.)? 4. How are the computers connected to the network?
I bought one to use for a bunch of video editting and thought I'd point something out here. When I'm done with the video I move the whole project to the nas (along with the end product for the DLNA server) and delete everything on the PC. At that point I've only got one copy so I really need another system to backup to. For now I've got a 2TB USB attached drive that the NAS backs up to nightly. This is very easy using the supplied netgear software. If you have lots of desktop storage and keep everything forever on your PC then this won't matter to you, but I thought I'd mention it.
