The three-2-1 backup rule has been round for over 20 years, and it states that you might want to retailer three copies of your information throughout two completely different sorts of media, and one at an offsite location. Whereas this technique made plenty of sense when it was launched, information utilization has modified significantly during the last 20 years; today, it is extremely straightforward to place your information on a public cloud service and have it accessible from anyplace.
Hardwired
In Hardwired, AC Senior Editor Harish Jonnalagadda delves into all issues {hardware}, together with telephones, storage servers, and routers.
The draw back to counting on public cloud suppliers is privateness — you do not have a lot say the place your information is saved. So once I was strategizing on the way to again up my information, I got here up with a modified model of the 3-2-1 rule that made essentially the most quantity of sense for my specific use case. I am going to begin by saying that I’ve outsized storage necessities which are positively not the norm — I presently use over 300TB of storage.
Out of that 300TB, simply over 100TB is the precise information; it consists of all of the images and movies that my spouse and I’ve taken over the previous decade, a sizeable music library, and our media assortment. The first storehouse of the info is a DiskStation DS1823xs+ with seven NAS HDDs, totaling 128TB of storage. I then again up the NAS to a DiskStation DS3622xs+, which has a dozen 12TB drives.
The third copy of this information is on an older DiskStation DS1019+; this was my main dwelling NAS till a couple of months in the past, till I made a decision to change to the DS1823xs+. As I used to be utilizing brand-new HDDs within the DS1823xs+, I simply left the DS1019+ and its information intact; I intend to maneuver it to my dad and mom home in a couple of weeks, and it’ll function the default offsite backup.
The lacking piece of the puzzle is a cloud backup answer; I used Google Workspace till the tip of final 12 months to again up all the info from the DS1019+ to the cloud, which was encrypted with Hyper Backup. This was doable as Google did not implement any information limits with Workspace accounts — making the $20 month-to-month price the very best deal on this planet of backups — however that is not the case now.
I nonetheless use Google Images to again up images taken from telephones, however apart from that and storing paperwork in Drive, I haven’t got a lot want of cloud storage. Even when I made a decision to again up all that information, it will be absurdly pricey to take action.
Utilities like Tailscale make it extraordinarily straightforward to entry a NAS from anyplace, and with the sheer quantity of information I’ve, it simply does not make sense to again as much as a cloud supplier. Additionally, each time I take into account storing information on a distant server, I am reminded of this quote from Dune: “The facility to destroy a factor is absolutely the management over it.”
Technically, the 3-2-1 rule mentions you might want to retailer information in two completely different media varieties, however that is pointless for my very own wants, so I exploit mechanical laborious drives all through. Flash storage remains to be too pricey, however I’m contemplating selecting up a quartet of 4TB WD Purple NVMe drives and seeing how they maintain up.
I do know it isn’t possible for everybody to retailer information in three completely different places, however it is smart to a minimum of again up information to an exterior medium. This is likely one of the greatest promoting factors of a NAS, and the very best dwelling NAS servers make it simpler than ever to retailer your information and media assortment in a centralized location.
However in case you do not need to go that route, I like to recommend an exterior SSD; the Essential X9 Professional is the one I exploit essentially the most, and the 4TB variant goes for as little as $259.