What is the CHEAPEST way to backup your NAS?

[@markmonroe7330]

Excellent presentation. Thank you. Another huge consideration is the speed of the uplink to the internet. Also the "daily" or "weekly" changed data. If you have 500gb of photos and they don't change, taking a few days to get them uploaded into the cloud isnt a big deal. If you are backing up VMs or things where huge blocks of data change daily, getting them to the cloud on a regular basis can be a challenge. Some cable option might have 400-500m downloads but the uplink might only be 10-20m. Sending up 400-500 megs of daily changed data with a 10m uplink is going to be a problem. It is different if you are at the office and have 1000down/1000up fiber but not many people are going to have that at home.

[@yensteel]

A lot of providers and salespeople fail to disclose their upload speeds upfront. One product information pamphlet I saw recently only mentioned download speeds without any mention of upload speeds. It offered 1gbps download/50mbps upload when I asked about it, which is ridiculously asymmetrical. They generally assume people don't care at all about upload speeds, which isn't really correct. A few really do care and they should always ask if the information isn't provided.

[@markmonroe7330]

@@yensteel The 1 gbps offering with Spectrum in my area has 35mbps upload speeds. Ugh.

[@PoeLemic]

Same with Xfinity in Houston, Texas. I am supposed to get 1200 down and 45 up. I am lucky to get 600+ down and 30+ up. It tests over 1200 (like 1350+) -- only with their CABLE TOOL, not with an online download tester ... because,, I never, never anywhere near that.

[@maellouis6598]

So lucky to be french.... 5000 down/ 2500 up. For only 50€ a month

[@maellouis6598]

Hope you will get that speed for that price soon

[@jasonsnyd3r]

Love your stuff man, All of it is valuable. I would love to see some videos on how you would restore your NAS or maybe a video on how to restore your PC from your NAS etc.

[@HDD-Housing-eu]

I started a service for europe, where you can house your HDDs. Like server housing, but for HDDs only. It costs per HDD per month, indepentend of storage size. Access is mainly handled via S3.

[@Stephen.Bingham]

I find it convenient to have a single hyperbackup task that saves data on two usb drives. If you give both usb drives to the same name - for example “usb-backup” - you can just swap the drives over every week or two without reconfiguring anything. I also use backblaze and snapshot replication to a second NAS on-site.

[@andresvaldevit3692]

I’m not even half way in but I don’t have time to watch it right now. I am going to put this jewel of a video aside for tonight maybe and watch it with popcorn. I swear, I’ve been waiting for such an analysis for many years, THANK YOU REX YOU’RE A PRO!

[@SpaceRexWill]

Thanks!

[@abraxolotl]

Excellent timing! I was just thinking of what to do for my backup. There's a lot of "I don't really NEED it, but man would it be annoying to have to rebuilt it from scratch".

[@JonatanCastro]

I have used Storj and Backblaze, and now I'm with Hetzner and its storage boxes. They're amazingly cheap!

[@Pascal1534]

I use backblaze Could you please explane advantages of hetzner in terms of speed space way of restoration ? Thks a lot

[@patrickkurmann]

I did not know those Hetzner boxes - wow. I'll check. Thanks

[@gianky073]

+1 for Hetzner , i pay 13€/month for 5 Tb

[@fuzzylon]

Thank you for a really useful video - a video where you I to pay attention and take notes. One thought I'd like to suggest is organising the live data so that the very important and active stuff is kept in separate folders to the not so important stuff. Then it is easier to figure out the size requirements for each of these categories and then choose separate backup schemes if appropriate.

[@alexpushnov]

I purchased my first Synology (DS423+) and I'm planning to use it as a backup for a new more expensive device in the future.

[@TLBJ24]

Good video, love the distinction by "size of data". I bought two UGreen Kickstarter NASs, a 6 and 4 bay unit to manage 52TB data. Mostly family footage and some work files. At current UGOS does not offer a good cloud option so I think I will go with Backblaze for my cloud option to support the 3-2-1 recommendation. Thanks for the guidance.

[@SLOTHBOI]

Hey mate, was wondering your thoughts about SHR on a backup NAS. Obviously it is ideal, however if using a 2 bay NAS it would cut the data storage by 50%... Been a difficult decision

[@Arctics04]

Exactly what I was looking for on point no bs

[@kojakdurham]

I use iDrive, which encrypts the data. I did use the 5TB option, but moved up to the 10TB level, which was cost-effective compared to using external hard drives. For the cost of a single external hard drive, I got 3 years worth of storage capacity.

[@argomedoreds]

I use Backblaze for my synology backup.

[@ZhiYin]

Mee too, use Backblaze personal, to backup 25TB. However it it needs to be connected to the computer by USB. Can someone recommend me a 2 or 4 bay DAS or a toaster ? I currently use 2 USB portable drives and it's a hassle. The toaster I found on Amazon doesn't support 10TB+ drives, and the 4-bay DAS I found are very old models and people complain about them for various problems.

[@wpattison]

@@ZhiYin Not via CloudSync - you can setup a B2 sync schedule no problem, and it's free until a certain amount of data is used.

[@sligit]

Yeah B2 is such great value.

[@JohnSmith-zl8rz]

@@sligit no, is more expensive than just pay $9 for unlimited.

[@JohnSmith-zl8rz]

@@ZhiYin you backup the 2 usb portable drives on backblaze, those are the backup of the NAS? so you don't backup directly from the NAS, right?

[@DaystromDataConcepts]

I have close to 12Tb of data backed up using two 14Tb external HDD's. One of them is at a neighbours house and I regularly swap them. My data set is static (media files) and so I only add to it infrequently. However, a second NAS in my scenario would be more expensive to have, require an Internet connection for remote backup and thus not viable. Cloud is convenient for smaller data sets but still requires Internet access. If that's down and you need to restore, you're in trouble. This is why I always prefer the external drive option.

[@colt5189]

You probably should have more than two backups. But two backups is better than none.

[@massimogiussani4493]

What about using LTO tapes? Tapes are cheap (25 US$ for a new LTO 6 tape, that hosts 2.5TB uncompressed data) and a used fiber channel LTO 6 tape unit costs less than US$300. LTO tapes are thought for conserving data for at least 30 years..

[@shubinternet]

AWS now has Glacier Instant where the first tier of data is still on disk and can be quickly restored. You then set up lifecycle rules for taking older data and pushing that down on lower tiers that are less frequently accessed and have lower long-term storage requirements. But I agree that doing a full restore off Glacier can be super expensive.

[@ChiefNonsense]

Will first off thanks so much for all the great content. Have you ever done a video on getting back up and running with a hyper backup setup? You convinced me so I now have a second synology “off site” in another building on the property. I could just walk over there to retrieve it in a few minutes. But what should I do both for immediate emergency needs and also to get my home office back up and running? Would love to watch a video walking through those steps. My personal setup has the one on my office doing everything right now then using hyper backup to save to the new one every night (just the once a day).

[@ClausWawrzinek]

What is the best way to layout your data? All on one volume in different folders or multiple volumes?

[@SpaceRexWill]

Almost always a single volume. Its pretty rare for me to make multiple volumes

[@jeffrey8859]

When you have a NAS with multiple drive bays you can also add one or two disks to a separate storage pool instead of going the external (USB) way

[@heller_nick]

Really happy with Hetzner storage boxes

[@leym12]

I have backblaze and i have just restored 16tb of data without problem. I paid 190$ for 2 years. It's just perfect if you have fiber internet. Took me 3 days for 16tb.

[@antonioaraujo8450]

Is it ok to use a 2.5" external drive like a 2 TB WD My Passport to backup my important files on the NAS? I only have around 400 GB of important data and it is not growing much.

[@jgagnier]

As Alec from Technology Connections would say, one can find the NAS backup solution from *the magic of buying two of them*!

[@patricksp71]

Water Panther had 22tb refurbished hard drives under $200, hooked it up as an external drive and backed it up and put the drive in my Fireproof safe.

[@MrPir84free]

Put some paper in your fireproof safe; lock it up, then pull it out after a week or two. Most fireproof safes are filled with very damp materials. If the paper comes out damp, well, your electronics are also being exposed to that same humidity. In short, you will end up with corroded connections/ corroded circuit boards in short order. This happens if it's a hard drive, or a thumb drive/SSD /etc. A workaround for doing it this way is to grab some GOOD heavy duty vacuum sealing bags, and evacuate as much air to a degree, but then seal up the bag ( not a full vacuum ) .. I know from experience. At work, we used such a safe for storing passwords ( for service accounts ) and thumb drives with copies of critical data. After a few months, when we needed to pull out the thumb drives, well, fully corroded. Paper copies were quite damp.

[@crawlingchaos2036]

Agreed. A typical fireproof safe will ruin your electronics and also some jewellery like pearls. You need an electronic media compatible fireproof safe which are much more expensive and often will only protect your media for a limited amount of time like 30 minutes, getting more expensive as you go up to 60 minutes and then 90 minutes.

[@IrateCitizen]

This, is why UniFi’s NAS offering will succeed :) Every NAS needs a backup and the cost of entry for the smaller market will have a new entry.

[@darius5066]

I'm looking to back up two Synology NASs: a 100 TB Storage/Plex NAS (RackStation RS3618XS) and a 30 TB Download/Plex NAS (DS1019+). It sounds like my best option is going to be to build a third NAS capable of holding the backups of both of them. Or should I build a new backup NAS for each of my existing ones?

[@SpaceRexWill]

I would probably build one large one that both can backup to!

[@darius5066]

@@SpaceRexWill Would that be safe? Then I'd have a single point of failure for both of them. It would be easier on my wallet though.

[@SpaceRexWill]

By far the most important thing is having a backup at all! Having them separated doesn't really do too much. Either way if the backup is destroyed, you would need to restart the backup

[@darius5066]

@@SpaceRexWill Would it be better to get something low-end just to create a backup server, or is this one of those perfect excuses to buy a new top-of-the-line NAS and then turn the oldest low-spec one into the backup server? This would be the perfect time to start experimenting with a hybrid HDD/SSD NAS setup.

[@HDD-Housing-eu]

​@@darius5066just make sure the remote ones can't delete the backup one in case of ransomware attack.

[@jonathanwright6482]

I was surprised you recommended using Cloud Sync for Google Drive instead of Hyper Backup. Doesn't that stop it from being a proper backup, with versions etc.? I always thought that sync was NOT a backup.

[@computersales]

I agree that oversizing is key. The biggest pain point I have found from doing NAS upgrades that are more than just adding more disks is moving the data and making sure everything went correctly. Also I would avoid cloud storage in general for anything sensitive. If they aren't already exploiting your data for their profit they will in the future.

[@wesc6755]

Have you done any research into onprem tape backup solutions? I rsync to another machine and then do backup from there, but it's not ideal. My dream solution is a tape device that just sits on the network as its own host, or maybe iscsi, that integrates with Hyperbackup. If you did a video on options for local archival backups, I promise I would watch it. :)

[@leosbyte]

Hi, I have been religiously following your videos..thanks a ton for the in depth videos. Is it possible for you to make a video on how to backup from a Synology NAS to WD NAS

[@Mikesco3]

iDrive (nothing to do with apple) is really good around 5tb for a solid $99/year and they do daily snapshots and even can mail you a drive with the data for the cost of the drive + shipping.

[@irokese4124]

I think you have to mention one aspect when backing up to external hard drive via hyper backup: there is a list of „supported“ hardware from Synology and the brands and amount of supported usb hard drives on it is very small (like it is with internal hard rives for use with Synology). I already use an external usb hard drive from Toshiba an do have periodical backup failures, Synology support said it is because this hard drive is not on their stupid list.

[@TheFPSChannel]

You mentioned using a JBOD format to create an additional backup. Currently I have a 20TB WD drive doing that. But I also have another 16tb WD drive I could add as well. I would love to have 36TB combined for storage as sometimes my shared folder can get quite large for a while. Hyperbackup doesn't seem to allow me to use/share two drives to backup a single folder of projects and media. I noticed in this video you said you could use JBOD. But I don't see that as an option when setting up external devices. Should I assume all the drives have to be in the same enclosure?

[@johnnycaps1]

Was that external drive a Western Digital external drive? As you know Seagate also makes external USB storage drives. Is WD off your $hit list? Great reminder that we ALL need a backup plan. Thanks.

[@mmcnama4]

Why JBOD over redundancy on the backup NAS? Is the recovery time if a drive fails negligible in this use case?

[@garrygeorge2811]

Once again, many thanks for a great video. I hope you don’t mind me asking a potentially dumb question. I’m new user of a Synology box and am now looking at cloud back up via Backblaze. My current set up is to just use my NAS on my home network. So my question is, and I know it might be a dumb one, do I need to enable NAS access to the internet to talk to Blackblaze, or will the fact my NAS is connected to my network and my network is accessing the internet be sufficient.

[@JamesPells-z9j]

why is cloud sync recommended over hyper backup for google drive?

[@BSpears]

I'm thinking about upgrading my unRAID nas to a synology but I need an 8-bay device. Any recommendations? I'm worried about the current Synology 8bays no longer being supported since it's been a while since a release. Thanks

[@CraigBartels]

I have close to 48TB right now in my 5 disk Synology NAS. Growing by 3-5TB /year. I assume I can use multiple external hard drives on a backup? Synology will just ask to swap drives when 1st gets filled during a backup?

[@SpaceRexWill]

It will not do that. What you would need to do would be to split your backups into different jobs.

[@CraigBartels]

@@SpaceRexWill k, sounds like I just need to get another NAS as you mentioned at the end of the video. I am currently on the 1522+ as my main NAS.

[@Uberragen21]

Video files really do take up a ton of space. I wouldn't back up any downloaded video files, as you can usually download them again. Only backup important data that you absolutely cannot risk losing (tax & financial docs, bills, medical docs, important receipts, family photos & videos, etc).

[@MrPir84free]

A few weeks back, I saw a deal on a 5 disk raid enclosure; about $100, and supported 100 TB worth of drives. And the enclosure supported RAID as well; or you could pass the individual drives to the attached server. Literally could put 5 x 20TB drives in it if you needed ; and it was a trayless design too.

[@bertnijhof5413]

From mid 2019 till begin 2024 I backed up my ~65 VMs and data to a 2002 Pentium 4 HT (3.0GHz) running FreeBSD 12.x up to FreeBSD 14.0 on OpenZFS, like my Ryzen desktop running Ubuntu on OpenZFS :). I used 4 spare HDDs: 2x IDE 3.5" (250+320GB) and 2x SATA 2.5" (320+320GB). It was my 2nd backup. The transfer speed on a 1 Gbps link was 30 MB/s due to a 95% load on one CPU thread :). The incremental backup of the changed ZFS records took from 50 to 100 minutes once per week. It was surely my cheapest and greatest backup solution ever! Begin 2024 the motherboard died :( :(.

[@Extension_Farmer]

It did its job for all that time. That's some good going

[@xanthosavraamides6187]

What are your thoughts on on Pcloud to backup the NAS and sync them?

[@yesmanhk]

may i ask how to back up the synology photo,i mean the entire photo storage include all users? could you make a video how to back up all, and how to schedule two USB HDD backup with different HDD size in local. Thanks

[@burkegospel]

Thanks for this important info. I have 2 16tb WD Red Pro drives on hand, would the DS716+ii support these for a remote raid back up?

[@codescholar7345]

There’s archive media that’s another good option too. I have free 900tb google drive that they are taking away soon so I’ve got a truenas to Synology then google drive and archive discs too. Might do a tiered cloud with faster storage for more important and glacial for media.

[@jeffweidemann927]

I bought a 2nd hand 418j from marketplace, I already had the disks. And even though it has a slow cpu, that’s irrelevant after the hyper back has completed the 1st time.

[@gigibuffon4422]

I noticed the "cheapest 2bay backup" link sends to a DS223 and i was wondering, isn't a DS223J good as well since it's cheaper and it seems to have only minor draw backs with 1gb ram less?

[@SpaceRexWill]

So I go back and forth on this one. I really worry about the J model from a longevity standpoint. It is cheaper, but I tend to think that its worth the upgrade in terms of long term support.

[@aklem001]

I bought the hard drive you suggested a while ago (via your affiliate link) however, any ideas on the best way to connect it (on it's own) to network (NAS). E.g. via a Raspberry Pi?

[@SpaceRexWill]

haha I did a video a really long time ago about exactly this! kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y5XLn56kmNN_jdU It worked for years, but I currently dont use it anymore

[@jenniferw8963]

Synology C2 Storage 1TB, $6.99 per month. I use US Bank Business Triple Cash Card to pay bill. After 11 months of this, US Bank gives me a $100 credit. So basically its free + extra 17 dollars or so cash. Of course I just backu the critical data not movies, tv shows & music etc.

[@pieromonteverde3169]

My problem is that I cannot get the off-prem Synology NAS to be seen as a drive by my on-prem primary NAS. Do I need to do some port forwarding to be able to make it work?

[@alistairtravels]

mesh vpn like tailscale

[@therus000]

Nice and thanx but what the best tool to backup all synology data to WD elements? and how to do that in easy way?

[@SpaceRexWill]

Got a tutorial here! kzbin.info/www/bejne/jWWWeGh6iL9gf80

[@therus000]

@@SpaceRexWill thank you so much

[@BenReese]

You missed (maybe on purpose?) Crashplan Pro. Approx $90/yr and unlimited storage. Not as cheap as a second NAS, but off-site and not relying on a friend's home/Internet.

[@Boglim]

What do you recommend with a backup for 140TB?

[@massimogiussani4493]

LTO 9 or LTO 10 tapes?

[@ufo741]

Lets say i keep my offsite backup (cheap external HDD ) at my parents house and i want to update the backup when i visit. Do I have to take the backup HDD home and update it ; then take it back? Is there better way I am not thinking of? This way the backup is not technically offsite for period between visits.

[@marek.lochki]

Get another cheap external HDD (2 in total), create an initial back up and drop to parents. Fill second backup drive at home and take to parents on next visit and bring the original one home to repeat the process

[@ufo741]

@@marek.lochkiThanks , will do

[@jeremyfmoses]

I don't have any friends or relatives that I would want to burden with an offsite backup - they all claim their data is worthless, and wouldn't want to swap drives with me. Any suggestions for an (internet connected or otherwise) off-site location? I currently have 400GB, growing at say 50GB per year.

[@SpaceRexWill]

In that case, just pick a cloud and go to it. You can encrypt your data before it ever leaves. and you will be paying ~$7/month for years. I personally pay for Synology C2

[@jeremyfmoses]

@@SpaceRexWill Thank you - that's what I'll do. I even looked into renting a post office box, but after looking up the rules, in my area you're not allowed to store things in a post office box.

[@MathewDryhurst]

Thankyou!

[@ufo741]

4:19 here in Czech Republic this exact drive costs 2x as much 😂

[@CSIG1001]

Tape backup if you have over 600TB?

[@SpaceRexWill]

Really depends on exactly the setup, and how the files will change. But 600TB it probably can make sense to talk and figure out the best way of doing that backup with tape, just would need a good software that could do change detection well enough

[@SambitBiswas]

Don’t recommend idrive?

[@johnbognot9548]

I use ISCSI so my PC recognizes my NAS as a drive. I then use backblaze to back it ALL up. UNLIMITED cloud backup for $99/yr.

[@DavidM2002]

I would never run JBOD; with 2 drives, you have twice the possibility of a drive failure and then you lose everything. The backup is supposed to be your last line of defence and therefore, the most conservative / safest. That's the same logic that Charles Lindbergh used when asked why he flew the Atlantic with just a single engine aircraft. He said that with a twin, there was twice the possibility of an engine failure and it could not fly on just one engine.

[@alexpushnov]

Don't worry) Synology will notify you if a drive fails. And you can replace your hdd and create a new backup from the original data.

[@MrPir84free]

@@alexpushnov My email at work routinely has between 10,000 and 25,000 unread emails. My personal email accounts are nearly as bad. It's easy to miss drive failure notifications if you are in a habit of ignoring emails, or if the emails happen at the same time as other "incidents" ( in life, $H!+ happens ) . Most of the time, I read my personal email, if I do, late at night or on the weekend. I had two unscheduled power outages during July; The NAS's shut down due to the power outage ( circuit breaker tripped ). Because there sometimes is a flurry of error messages that happen during startup, I actually missed such notification of the pending failure on the drives. One drive failed during the first trip; the second during a second trip of the same circuit breaker; the Window AC unit tripped the circuit breaker. Fortunately, the array was in a RAID 6.

[@kristopherleslie8343]

I would use Synology cloud and a 2nd Synology

[@Kalides]

is not the reason for raid 1, to protect your files? of course there could be something.

[@CoryTaylor904]

Easy. Buy two NASs send one to a buddy for him to keep ot his house. Setup rsync and done.

[@Housestationlive]

if there is a storm and you die, at least your backup will survive you 🥳🥳🥳🥳 think logic, if there is a natual disater, your data will be the least of your concerns.

[@Housestationlive]

the only think you truely need to backup is your wordpress database. because it's crashing sooooooo often.

[@shephusted2714]

you want dual nas - prevent downtime

[@seanzhang3873]

I mean, if you already have a bunch of old computers lying around, you could just build it as a NAS for backup instead of buying a new one.

[@210Artemka]

My NAS Costa like 500$. 200$ for external drive is not a "small fee", lol

[@MrPir84free]

My NAS cost about $3200 total when it was first built in 2017. $200 would be "small" relatively.. Starting out, you need a drive that is large enough for your actual data, plus a little bit of room for growth. So, if you have a 2 TB worth of data, then a 4TB drive should be plenty big starting out; and ideally, two such drives.. Most of people's data tends to be stagnant, that is, it does not change often. that sort of data can be backed up less often. It's important to back it up, but that data that hasn't changed - for a long time, well, you can back that up far less often than the stuff that is "current" ..

[@Sting_ray]

2:40, this is NOT what the 3-2-1 backup system is. It’s 3 copies, across at least 2 MEDIUMS (i.e. pick two: SSD, HHD, optical discs, LTO tape, etc.) not “methods”, and have 1 of those copies offsite. The difference in wording between “method” and “medium” matters significantly in a proper 3-2-1. Saying “method” implies the process of backing up needs to be different, while saying “medium” specifies that the physical storage device is what should be different.

[@SpaceRexWill]

I would say that the mediums made sense, back when hardware was newer and more finicky. Its not the 1990's anymore we are not really worried about hard drives just all stopping to work at the same time. So in general I recommend different methods, as thats something way more likely to stop working. You dont want a weird bug in hyperbackup to prevent you from being able to restore

[@paulm9400]

AWS Glacier is a perfect solution to backup. That is not true what you said about AWS Glacier. It is very durable storage. The S3 Glacier storage classes provide virtually unlimited scalability and are designed for 99.999999999% (11 nines) of data durability.

[@PODEPOM]

but why would I backup my NAS? I thought my NAS WAS the backup!

[@chillaman35]

The 2 in the "3,2,1" backup method is obsolete and I'll die on this hill. It obvisouoy doesn't have the same ring to it, but it really should be just "3,1" and all of the interpretations I've heard of the "2" are either outdated or is already implied. We used to have many different methods for storing data but now we really only have 2: SSD and HDD. It doesn't matter if all of your data is on SSDs or all or HDDs. The other interpretation is that "oh no, it means you don't want 2 of your copies on the same NAS". Yeah, no shit. At that point it's not a backup, its just the data copied twice

[@riley6723]

I will never ever buy a Western Digital external HDD again. I have 2 (My Cloud, and a My Passport). Neither are recognized by Windows 11. The Passport is discontinued and so is support. Going to pay someone (sure as heck not WD) to get everything off and put them on a new SeaGate.

[@andreyka64]

I went AWS Glacier as I’m looking for cheap cold storage that I don’t plan to pull from until a horrific failure happens. Only costs me like $2 / month

[@MrPir84free]

That's fine, if you ask me. Keep a local backup and keep that up to date.. Your offsite should be only if your onsite data is wiped away from the face of the earth. At that point, you probably won't have a lot of money, but you will have lots of time to pull that data back. The ONLY exception is if this is for a business; a business without their data, for a short period of time often means that the business won't be around much longer if their data is held up while trying to retrieve it from AWS or elsewhere. Personally, I like the idea of storing a copy in a safe deposit box over storing it in the cloud. You have more control, and if you rotate the disks routinely, it'll be up to date, for the most part.

[@kmatter]

I love most of your content but I feel like you spent way too much time at the start of this video on hard drive backups. You shouldn't need to explain this concept in depth to anyone that has a NAS. Off-site NAS, Hyper Backup to cloud, etc. are much more compelling options that we would benefit from your expertise.

[@paulm9400]

Sounds like advertising Synology backup NAS.

[@anwar.shamim]

its not a good idea for backup ---