Hello,

I’m looking for the most cost-effective solution to consolidate all my data and create an actual backup system. Everything is spread out across three WD external HDDs:

  • 1x 10TB MyBook
  • 2x 4TB Passport

Currently, I am at 99% capacity (16.2/16.35 TB available space) - I can no longer keep playing Tetris with the contents to make them all fit. There are no duplicates or unnecessary files - every week, I routinely trim the fat by deleting anything I don’t plan to keep, moving them into a specific folder. After a month, if they are still in that folder, they get moved to their permanent location.

I thought about buying two new 20TB MyBooks (one for backup, one for consolidation), but then I wouldn’t know what to do with all the old drives when I free up space.

I’ve been thinking about getting a NAS but have no experience hosting a home server. I haven’t really needed one since these drives are always just hooked to my machine.

If you were in my position, what approach would you take to find a solution to this?

Thanks for reading, happy hoarding.

  • WikiBox@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    What I did was to install two SSDs in my PC. One is only used for backups of the other, every boot. (Hardlinked rsync snapshots.)

    In addition I got two multibay usb DAS. I use one DAS for media storage and backups of the PC, and one DAS for backups of the other.

      • WikiBox@alien.topBEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Nope. I just didn’t mention it. Before I got double SSDs and double DAS, I already had a remote NAS, cloud, a laptop, various external drives and storage on my phone and tablet. It started with the laptop, when it was new. I installed a NVMe SSD and a SATA SSD in the laptop and setup automatic backup of the NVMe SSD to the SATA SSD. And that worked so well that I then I did the same with my PC. At one point I had two NAS. One Synology and one DIY RPi4 based with a RAID enclosure. I reused the drives in the 4 bay RPi4 based NAS for a DAS. Worked so well that I got a second DAS. Still have the Synology NAS, but at a remote location.

    • FruitsChinpoSamurai@alien.topOPBEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      While SSDs are awesome, there aren’t any cheap options for the amount of storage I need. I don’t mind the speed differential as long as I can store all of this

      What are the advantages/disadvantages between a DAS and a NAS? When do you choose one over the other?