Hello Twit Community

[G+_Alex Gomez]

Hello Twit Community,

 

Just had a very basic question ( not basic for me ) on the best way to keep a small office connected. I currently have 3 computers and a network drive.

I can't seem to find something to backup that network drive on a fixed regular basis. Any suggestions ?

[G+_Jared Twomey]

What brand of network drive?

[G+_Alex Gomez]

Jared Twomey WD MyBooklive and i'm working with windows 10 pcs

[G+_Paul Hutchinson]

I'm going to assume that in the first sentence by "connected" you actually meant "backed up" because they are completely different concepts and the question in the second sentence is about backing up.

 

By network drive I'm assuming you mean a NAS (Network Attached Storage). The best answer depends on the specific model of NAS you are using.

 

Backing up a companies data can be a very complicated topic and if you get it wrong you can go for years thinking you're safe only to find out when you need to restore that it wasn't working. So if the company budget allows I recommend hiring a local IT expert to help set it up and teach you the best practices (multiple copies at multiple locations and if valuable enough multiple backup media types).

[G+_Juscelino Acevedo]

Although I completely agree with Paul Hutchinson in regards to hiring an expert to do it the right way, I will make the assumption that "a small office connected" either cannot afford to hire a consultant or does not understand the importance of a properly configured network, including the overall savings when things just work. Anyway, depending on your network drive, at home I have a Synology that has a USB port on it. I am able to plug in an equally sized USB hard drive and set up a backup of the NAS to the USB hard drive.

[G+_Paul Hutchinson]

Alex Gomez Unfortunately, AFAICT, the now obsolete personal NAS line you've got does not have USB or eSATA so Juscelino Acevedo's suggestion won't work for you. You could upgrade to the current WD business/personal NAS line, My Cloud Expert Series EX2 Ultra 4TB which has USB ports. However, at the $350 price there are other NAS options that might be better for your particular situation.

 

I use a QNAP NAS with an eSATA dock in my home office and multiple bare hard drives to backup my work and home data in rotating sets. Other than swapping drives in the dock everything is automatic.

[G+_Ben Reese]

If you don't know a lot about it and can't afford to hire a local IT guy, just use one of the big-name "cloud" backup companies.

CrashPlan would have been my first recommendation, but they dumped all their home users (including myself) and that makes it hard to recommend them.

Carbonite is (or was) a TWiT sponsor. Not a terrible choice, but I'm not a fan for my own personal use.

Backblaze is probably your best option, maybe. Definitely worth looking into.

[G+_Ben Tyger]

Ben Reese This is for a small business so crashplan business makes sense. Last I checked it was 10$/pc/month. So it isn't the cheapest but it is one of the easier deal with.

 

Alex Gomez You also may want to take a look if that WD NAS has any integrations to cloud backup services. If the pricing scale is not insane, it may not be a bad idea to integrate with that. Disk rotations in small businesses are often forgotten. 'No interaction' back up plans are always the way to go.

[G+_Alex Gomez]

Thank you for all your suggestions, i am researching a few of them.

We are a very small office 3 people in total so our budget is not making it easy to find a solution.

The main thing i want to back up is the main network drive which is where all the main work is located.

Is there any obvious reasons why is should go with the Disk swap over the Cloud Storage? other than price

[G+_Paul Hutchinson]

Alex Gomez In addition to the cost savings from no monthly fee, the advantages of multiple disks for me are:

1. Faster backup & restore

2. No dependence on a 3rd party who could disappear or go offline temporarily or permanently. (of course it would happen at the worst possible moment)

3. Less risk of data being stolen

 

However as Ben Tyger points out it is very common for disk rotation to be forgotten in a small business. So a cloud based solution can avoid a major human error source.

 

To alleviate concern for problems 1 & 2 in my list a good way to do it is have a cloud service doing daily/continuous backup but also periodically do a disk based backup (monthly or weekly).

 

You probably already know this important point but just in case. Many file syncing services are NOT a substitute for a backup (e.g. Google Drive). Accidental deletions or bad file changes can be propagated to the cloud so quickly there is no way to recover like you can from a true backup.

[G+_Marcus Hall]

How much data on the network drive?

Do you have any extra room on one of your three computers?

Where i am going, for a small office you can backup you data on one of your computers.

[G+_Ben Tyger]

Marcus Hall I would highly discourage that. Considering that most desktop have much bigger security and stability issues, It would be a much better to store the data on a NAS. If the one desktop gets a bad Windows Tuesday update it could make the whole company not to be able to work.

[G+_Bill Barley]

In addition to the NAS, one could set up your own off-site backup drive and have the backup done overnight. The off-site drive could be at someone's home if the inbound pipe is big enough. You could set up a site to site vpn and have data synced over that as well. Main limitations here are the skillset needed for initial setup and then how to handle recovery if needed.