Tales from the NAS - Sync vs Backup and where to do it?!?

[DQ]

So in my continuing journey with my NAS I ended up getting a second large USB drive for backups. I have 2 of them now which can backup my NAS no problem.

But then it hit me. Why back it up? What I mean by that is, since this is all static media files there is ZERO reason for a true backup. All I need is a sync. Meaning move all the data once and from there just add what's been changed or added.

And then I really got to thinking. Why do this on my plex server which has to drag the data across the network just to shove it down USB to removeable drives. I could just put the USB drives on the NAS and use on of the QNAP sync apps.

The ONLY hitch I can come up with is there is but 1 USB 3 port on the NAS and I have 2 drives. But my solution there is to get a good USB 3 hub. It's not like it would ever be writing to more than 1 USB drive at a time anyway.

I am was curious what some of you NAS guys thought. Run the sync from the NAS directly or use my dedicated Plex server?

Thanks!
-DQ

 

[Ghildebr]

You are correct. It is all static data. Once you have a copy of it there is no reason to make a second copy. All you need is anything new. What I do is keep my primary copy on my Plex NAS. I then create a secondary copy, currently on 1 of 3 portable hard drives. I then store those hard drives off site in case of fire or whatever. When I put a new movie on my NAS I also at that time put the same movie on an external USB drive straight from my computer. If I am short on time I leave a local copy of the file on my PC until I can get it moved over to an external hard drive. I usually don't let more than 2 or 3 movies pile up before I get them copied to the external drive. I have had a personal NAS for more than a decade. The QNAP I am currently on is my 3rd NAS device. To be honest, I trust the NAS way more than the external hard drives. During a NAS migration I have always just set both NAS's up and do a robocopy between the two. In the more than 10 years I have only had 1 drive failure and was able to rebuild by swapping the drive in the NAS. So far, (knock on wood), I have never needed the backup, but its there just in case.

Gary

 

[DQ]

So here is what I ended up doing and it seems to be working well.

First I connected my external drives to my NAS directly but could not sync to it because I am using ISCSI with the NAS and Plex.

So I put the 2 USB drives back on Plex and bought Goodsync. Using Goodsync I am putting some files on one drive and some on the other.

And since it is a sync and not a backup, only changes/adds will be moved around.

Thanks to someone here who mentioned Goodsync (sorry I forgot your name).

 

[DQ]

OK so my plan changed a bit BUT I am in good shape now with backing up the NAS.

I ended up attaching both USB drives to my Plex server (I left the NAS alone). I bought GoodSync. I run 2 jobs daily. Some of my media folders go to 1 drive and some to the other. Neither is full so i have room for growth.

Using GoodSync I am sync'ing in 1 direction. So it checks for moves/adds/changes (MACs for you IT folks ) after I did an initial sync and it ONLY moves what has been added or changed.

I like this method much better than a full backup for this specific situation.

 

[Watcher0363]

They are skinny on the outside. But fat on the inside. In fact, they are metaphorically eating me out of house and home.

 

[DQ]

Reporting in for any following this or anyone who reads this later looking for a backup method. GoodSync lives up to it's name and it does seem REALLY good. It's auto running without much effort and sync'ing any changes I make each night to my external drives.

The only hitch is (and this is with ALL the sync products I tried) you have to manually select what syncs where and make sure there is adequate space. GoodSync makes this easy because you can easily select folders and hit "Analyze" and it will tell you how much space you need to sync what you picked and how much space would be left on the destination.

Thanks again to the forum user who mentioned GoodSync.

 

[cartman0208]

I used to do all that manually, but I'm getting lazy nowadays
I put my approach into a picture ... all the syncing and backuping is done by Synology build-in stuff

I only have to touch it, when there is a new share

Edit: maybe I have to explain a bit more...
All the documents are available to me/family from a share on the lower left device, but can be viewed/edited from the datacenter-device if away from home.
The videos are mainly played via Plex from the datacenter-device.
Initially they are put from my PC to the lower right device and then synced to the DC

So if one device is completely failing, I still can rebuild it from the other two.