Question for the computer geeks out there

[mercury14]

Our collection of photos, videos, media, and other life stuff has exceeded the capacity of our computers. And I'm afraid I'm just a lightning strike away from losing our whole lives. I signed up for the Carbonite service for offsite storage but turns out it sucks horribly and I wasted my money.

- It takes ages for backups to work. We've got close to 500 gigs of stuff and it's taken a couple days to get just 20 gigs backed up. Carbonite slows down the more you add to it, so bleh...

- Carbonite doesn't back up external hard drives unless you pay an extra $40, which I did.

- Turns out they don't back up external network hard drives like our Western Digital One Book Live, so I paid $100 for nothing useful. I wish I could get my money back. To think I once owned stock in this crap service. Even the stock sucked.


So I think the time has come to build or buy a home server with all kinds of redundant backups. I have experience building desktop PCs but I'm not a pro at it. What would I need for a server, hardware and software-wise? Is this a task I could do on my own?

Thanks.

 

[IndieSnob]

All depends on what functionality you want besides just backing up.

If you want that much redundancy to your backups, then you're looking at doing a Raid 1 setup. This means you have to have two matching harddrives of the same size. So in other words if you had two 1 terabyte drives, it would treat it as one drive as it mirrors it.

As far as software goes, it depends on what you want to spend. There are all sorts of linux flavors that are free, but as far as being user friendly for everything you want to do, it's not that. Most specialized distros are limited to one functionality (i.e. just fileserving, and basic backup). You could go with a server distro, but then again it depends on how comfortable you feel with using Linux.


To me you have two choices:

#1: Build a backup server. It doesn't have to be high end as far as CPU or the like. You'd want a motherboard with a PCI-Express slot for a RAID controller card, or a board that has good raid support built in. You could then throw on a Linux server distro, Windows Server 2008, Windows Home Server, etc. etc.

#2: This is what I'd go with. Just buy a NAS that has the ability to do raid 1. You'll pay a price for it, but it's the easiest to maintain. There are network NAS'es that handle anywhere from 2 to 10 drives. If you went with a four drive setup and did Raid 1 on both sets, you would have two sets of backups.

 

[mercury14]

RAID 1 isn't a backup solution. It's a solution for when you don't want your server to go offline. I don't want to have a mirror backup of my viruses or broken system files

 

[IndieSnob]

OK, then all the years I ran servers with Raid 1 I guess I didn't know what I was doing.

 

[warrior queen]

Our collection of photos, videos, media, and other life stuff has exceeded the capacity of our computers. And I'm afraid I'm just a lightning strike away from losing our whole lives. I signed up for the Carbonite service for offsite storage but turns out it sucks horribly and I wasted my money.

- It takes ages for backups to work. We've got close to 500 gigs of stuff and it's taken a couple days to get just 20 gigs backed up. Carbonite slows down the more you add to it, so bleh...

- Carbonite doesn't back up external hard drives unless you pay an extra $40, which I did.

- Turns out they don't back up external network hard drives like our Western Digital One Book Live, so I paid $100 for nothing useful. I wish I could get my money back. To think I once owned stock in this crap service. Even the stock sucked.


So I think the time has come to build or buy a home server with all kinds of redundant backups. I have experience building desktop PCs but I'm not a pro at it. What would I need for a server, hardware and software-wise? Is this a task I could do on my own?

Thanks.

Why would you need to build another computer, when you can buy 1T external hard drives so cheaply?
Simply set up the computer to copy to the external drive while you're asleep. So, it might take a couple of nights to do it all. Doesn't matter if you're not using the computer anyway.
And that way, you have a portable copy of everything.

 

[mercury14]

OK, then all the years I ran servers with Raid 1 I guess I didn't know what I was doing.

All RAID 1 does it mirror your drive. So if your drive gets whacked by disk corruption or viruses you're still extremely screwed because your healthy hard drive becomes unhealthy.

RAID 1 is for when you don't want your server to go down if your hard drive dies.

 

[Mike_Yates]

Our collection of photos, videos, media, and other life stuff has exceeded the capacity of our computers. And I'm afraid I'm just a lightning strike away from losing our whole lives. I signed up for the Carbonite service for offsite storage but turns out it sucks horribly and I wasted my money.

- It takes ages for backups to work. We've got close to 500 gigs of stuff and it's taken a couple days to get just 20 gigs backed up. Carbonite slows down the more you add to it, so bleh...

- Carbonite doesn't back up external hard drives unless you pay an extra $40, which I did.

- Turns out they don't back up external network hard drives like our Western Digital One Book Live, so I paid $100 for nothing useful. I wish I could get my money back. To think I once owned stock in this crap service. Even the stock sucked.


So I think the time has come to build or buy a home server with all kinds of redundant backups. I have experience building desktop PCs but I'm not a pro at it. What would I need for a server, hardware and software-wise? Is this a task I could do on my own?

Thanks.

Get an external hard drive and use it as data backup.

Most of them cost under $100.

Carbonite is a bullshit scam.

 

[mercury14]

Get an external hard drive and use it as data backup.

Most of them cost under $100.

Carbonite is a bullshit scam.

External hard drives aren't very secure though. They're just as prone to failure as any old hard drive, moreso since they're more easily jostled around.

 

[warrior queen]

External hard drives aren't very secure though. They're just as prone to failure as any old hard drive, moreso since they're more easily jostled around.

Look, I am not an expert by any means.... But I do know that you can buy solid state external hard drives.

 

[mercury14]

Look, I am not an expert by any means.... But I do know that you can buy solid state external hard drives.

That would cost.... a lot.

 

[warrior queen]

That would cost.... a lot.

No, not really.
I can buy a standard drive for around $120, and a solid state of equal size for $160.

 

[mercury14]

No, not really.
I can buy a standard drive for around $120, and a solid state of equal size for $160.

Yeah but I'd need to buy ten of them.

Wait, what? A $120 standard drive is going to be about 2 terabytes. A$120 SSD is like 80 gigs.

 

[Paul_Chance]

LaCie NAS and A Fireproof Safe

Yes, it is relatively easy to do, but, price wise, take a look at the LaCie line of NAS Servers - even with build your own you're going to end up in the same ball-park, and if you buy instead of build, you get the warranty.

One piece of advice though, once every couple of months back up your photo's and data to an external drive - and store that drive at another location or in a fireproof safe. May you never, ever need to restore from that back-up, but if you do, you will be glad you did.

 

[warrior queen]

Yeah but I'd need to buy ten of them.

Wait, what? A $120 standard drive is going to be about 2 terabytes. A$120 SSD is like 80 gigs.

I buy most of our computer stuff direct online. Shop around, you might be surprised.
My son just bought a 500G solid state hd online for $160.

 

[Mike_Yates]

Let me guess, you have 500GB of porn saved onto your computer?

 

[pointless]

just burn your porn to disc, you weirdo.

 

[mercury14]

I buy most of our computer stuff direct online. Shop around, you might be surprised.
My son just bought a 500G solid state hd online for $160.

Those run $650 on Newegg and a little more on Tiger Direct and Mwave. And I'd need two.

Are you sure he got one for $160? Because if he did then you should buy 100 of them and sell them on ebay for a $400 profit each and bank $40,000.

 

[mercury14]

Let me guess, you have 500GB of porn saved onto your computer?

We probably have 80-100 GB of porn. But it's a lot less content than you'd think. It's all 1080p dreamy stuff that Misses Merc is fond of. Those files are huge...

I don't really care about that though. We have like half a terabyte of moves from our travels, a zillion photos, etc.

 

[warrior queen]

Those run $650 on Newegg and a little more on Tiger Direct and Mwave. And I'd need two.

Are you sure he got one for $160? Because if he did then you should buy 100 of them and sell them on ebay for a $400 profit each and bank $40,000.

He's at work now, but I'll confirm with him when he gets home in about 6 hrs.
But I'm certain that's what he paid. It's not very big... maybe the size of two stacked iphones. And I know it's ss, because he was crowing about how much better they are.

 

[warrior queen]

Yes, it is relatively easy to do, but, price wise, take a look at the LaCie line of NAS Servers - even with build your own you're going to end up in the same ball-park, and if you buy instead of build, you get the warranty.

One piece of advice though, once every couple of months back up your photo's and data to an external drive - and store that drive at another location or in a fireproof safe. May you never, ever need to restore from that back-up, but if you do, you will be glad you did.

Second the backup off-site. In my last place we had major water damage and lost all the computers. Thank goodness for my hd stored at a friends place!

 

[mercury14]

He's at work now, but I'll confirm with him when he gets home in about 6 hrs.
But I'm certain that's what he paid. It's not very big... maybe the size of two stacked iphones. And I know it's ss, because he was crowing about how much better they are.

Something's not right. Maybe there was a miscommunication about the capacity? Nobody sells those things anywhere near $160.

 

[BoyNextDoor]

Home NAS

$300

Back up to it from your main system (I don't know if you are a Windows, 'Nix or Apple to suggest the best method)

 

[mercury14]

Home NAS

$300

Back up to it from your main system (I don't know if you are a Windows, 'Nix or Apple to suggest the best method)

I have no idea how to network Linux and Windows together.

 

[Sean]

I have no idea how to network Linux and Windows together.

Use Linux for the server and let it worry about parsing the POS that is Windoze.

 

[BoyNextDoor]

I have no idea how to network Linux and Windows together.

This is plug and play. It has its own OS and the tools for your backup needs are built in. I am telling you that for $300 you are not going to get a better solution.