What, if any, are the differences between + advantages of using a NAS/RAID setup vs just backing stuff up to external HDDs/SSDs?

[u/Either-End-8786]

In the title. I have approximately 20TB of data (and counting) that I'd like to A) back up as securely as possible and B) be able to access more or less immediately. As it stands now, I have it all backed up to an internal HDD that I've put into an external enclosure, essentially turning it into an external drive. I'm considering getting another 20TB drive and doing the same thing.

The thing is, I don't like to leave this drive running all the time because I don't want to increase the chance of mechanical failure. Maybe I'm already being overly cautious on that front. I know there are other storage options (NAS/RAID) but I have no idea how they work or whether they are significantly different from my current setup. This ended up being a bit ramble-y but hopefully someone gets what I'm trying to convey.

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[u/hyperactive2]

RAID will give you a gap of protection in the event of a drive failure. Some implementations can also protect against bitrot.

Additionally, an array of discs can provide larger volumes and performance than any single disc could.

[u/Clockwork385 → u/hyperactive2]

this is it, sums this up really well. You can saturate a 10gbe network card if you pull in enough drives, you can't do this with a singular mechanical drive yet spinning at 10k rpm.

[u/hypergoose94]

>  I don't like to leave this drive running all the time because I don't want to increase the chance of mechanical failure.

Starting up and stopping cause more mechanical wear than running. Also your current setup gives you no indication of data loss or corruption until one day you plug it in and a file is corrupted or the drive is dead and it's all gone.

You want your data copied across multiple drives so that any individual drive can fail and your data is okay, you probably also want some sort of checksum on your data so you can be sure it hasn't been corrupted. You could manually copy data around and manually check files, but ZFS or similar filesystems do both for you.

[u/cannonfire1000]

A NAS will also help you make your data more accessible. Storing it in one networked location you can point to is much easier than having to sort through and plug in a bunch of offline drives.

This'll depend on what your data is and what you want to do with it. Myself I have all my media on my NAS, I can just point my media server to it and it'll find everything I have.

[u/turbo5vz]

I like to have both. NAS as the real time access, although I do keep my drives spun down since it's a waste to always run them IMO. Then periodically I backup from NAS to the external HDD for cold storage. With a NAS you could always have some sort of power surge or something that knocks out the system. With an external HDD, it's kept cold with minimal mechanical wear. Also, if some sort of emergency event happens, I can easily grab the portable HDD and leave.

[u/Sudden_Welcome_1026]

NAS and RAID are two different things solving for different problems. NAS is for providing network accessibility to data. RAID is for, depending on RAID level, performance, availability, or both. Both are better than a bunch of external drives for specific needs.

[u/Mr-Brown-Is-A-Wonder]

I know there are other storage options (NAS/RAID) but I have no idea how they work

Then read a few Wikipedia articles, or watch a YouTube video, or have an LLM sing you a song about the subject.

[u/CanadianGenealogy → u/Mr-Brown-Is-A-Wonder]

Some people like to discuss topics like this in dedicated forums, such as reddit/datahoarder.

[u/Mr-Brown-Is-A-Wonder → u/CanadianGenealogy]

I help people who need help understanding, who seek clarification, not people who just say "I haven't tried to learn anything. Understand it for me so I don't have to think".

[u/NegativeKitchen4098]

A NAS is usually more convenient because it's plugged in and always on. So you can just run your backup program anytime (or schedule it). Usually just one power plug and not a slew of adapters. You don't have to remember to connect it.

However, it's a poor backup solution unless you have the NAS located in a different physical location. If it's at the same place as your work computer, you can lose both your working files and the backup in cases of theft, fire, flood, lightning strike, ransomware, etc. I.e. all of the top causes of data loss.

Using external is much better because you can leave it unpowered and unconnected. It's likely smaller than any NAS you would buy so it's easier to take offsite (if you have to evacuate or rotate with an offsite backup).

[u/accountingkoala19 → u/NegativeKitchen4098]

If it's at the same place as your work computer, you can lose both your working files and the backup in cases of theft, fire, flood, lightning strike, ransomware, etc. I.e. all of the top causes of data loss.

That's why things like Restic exist.

[u/NegativeKitchen4098 → u/accountingkoala19]

It looks like Restic is just a backup program. How would it help with theft or fire which would compromise everything at a single location?

[u/accountingkoala19 → u/NegativeKitchen4098]

Because you back up off-site. I'm a super beginner with my NAS and self-hosting but if my house burned down tomorrow I would not lose my data. Almost anyone who's self-hosting is at least aspiring to some variation of 3-2-1, and the 1 is very often still cloud-based, even if it's glacier storage.

[u/NegativeKitchen4098 → u/accountingkoala19]

Because you back up off-site

Agree. That's why I made the caveat of the NAS being at the same location.

The thing with a NAS is they are typically bulky and harder to put in an offsite rotation compared with an external drives.

[u/accountingkoala19 → u/NegativeKitchen4098]

You don't put the NAS offsite, dude. Your back-up of the NAS is off-site.

[u/NegativeKitchen4098 → u/accountingkoala19]

Except the op is talking about using it as a backup

[u/glhughes]

Absolutely set up a NAS and use it to back up data from your client devices / computers. The NAS should stay online and be configured with patrol scrubs of the drive(s) to check for errors / bitrot. You can also use it as a launching point to sync your backups to a cloud service automatically.

Using RAID on the NAS is a good idea. It will give you a chance to recover from a failed drive or bad sectors on a drive without restoring from a secondary backup. It will also be faster than a single drive (usually).

All that said, you should still have some kind of third backup, typically offsite (in case of flood, fire, etc.). RAID by itself isn't a backup, it's just a highly-resilient storage location.