Office NAS drive system

Associate
Joined
7 Oct 2003
Posts
2,447
Location
Liverpool
I own a small digital marketing agency and our current network setup is a wireless network with a WD my cloud home attached directly to the router wired via ethernet.

We use this drive for all storage while in the office and people can use it from home.

It just appears on their machines as another drive and works quite well.

We can give customers access to shared folders so they can download and upload images and video.

Sometimes it can be a little slow working on it from home but its not the end of the world.

This drive currently has zero backup which is madness!

I need another solution. Do you guys have any recommendations?

I know I could get some sort of traditional NAS enclosure and connect this to the router but I wouldn't be able to give customers access to the files in the same way, would I?

Also when the staff are working from home it wouldn't work as a drive on their computer in the same way, would it?

I know that WD do a bigger My cloud Pro product which might be the answer but I'm still not sure how to auto backup with this.

I also dont want to go the Dropbox\google drive etc route as its just not as quick as having the drive on site while in the office.

I feel like I am missing something really obvious with using a normal NAS for this....

Anyone have any pointers?
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
3,506
Location
UK
Yikes, madness indeed with that setup. What would happen if that drive fails?

What I would suggest is biased because it is what I run and you can do the same with lots of different and maybe better solutions.

I’d build a server running UnRiad. This gives you some tolerance to disk failure and lets you create SMB shares that can be seen as network drives on your computers in the office. I’d then use the built in WireGuard VPN server or an OpenVPN server container to provide office workers with a secure solution to access the shares remotely. I’d then use something like a NextCloud container on the UnRaid server for client access. Hook up RClone to an encrypted endpoint and schedule backups to your cloud drive if choice. I’d also use an external hard drive to take physically present backups periodically and store the drive off site in between.

If that all sounds too complicated then maybe Synology do something easier to introduce “off the shelf” or pay a specialist to put a “proper” Windows or Linux server infrastructure in place that does all you want.
 
Associate
Joined
22 Jun 2018
Posts
1,578
Location
Doon the watah ... Scotland
So basically your system works as you want it to, but you feel you need a backup of it ? The external access speeds will be limited to the Internet connections your office and home users have. You are unlikely to significantly improve them by just changing the device the data is stored on.

The myclouds normally have a usb port in the back you can attach an external drive to. From the Nas drive you can run backup to the usb drive.

So that would keep everything working as it is, and offer a simple plug in back ability.

Would also mean you could use multiple drives and run them in rotation storing a drive offsite safely.
 
Caporegime
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
26,053
I would suggest not managing this yourself unless you have a very good reason to. Google Workspace for Business gives you 2TB of storage per user, works from any location, has robust security and several layers of redundancy built in.

If your internet connection is too slow in the office for this type of service to work properly then you have an inadequate connection for the needs of your business, and really you should be addressing that rather than building a compromised setup to work around that issue.
 
Soldato
Joined
9 Mar 2003
Posts
14,059
If all you are looking for is backup, something like backblaze could work. Either way you need some offsite backup one way or another.

If you also need more performance locally then also getting a new NAS and a bunch of SSDs would probably do the job. Sounds like an off the shelf product like synology is probably a decent bet.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
7 Oct 2003
Posts
2,447
Location
Liverpool
It looks like I could buy one of the Synology systems. Put that in the office and move the WD my cloud to my house.

I need to work out a way to then get the my cloud to auto backup the Synology over the internet. Any ideas on this bit?

we have just had 600mb Virgin installed at the office and I’m getting 900mb Gigafast installed at home on Wednesday so we should be fine with network speeds for this at last!
 
Associate
OP
Joined
7 Oct 2003
Posts
2,447
Location
Liverpool
So basically your system works as you want it to, but you feel you need a backup of it ? The external access speeds will be limited to the Internet connections your office and home users have. You are unlikely to significantly improve them by just changing the device the data is stored on.

The myclouds normally have a usb port in the back you can attach an external drive to. From the Nas drive you can run backup to the usb drive.

So that would keep everything working as it is, and offer a simple plug in back ability.

Would also mean you could use multiple drives and run them in rotation storing a drive offsite safely.

I do have a WD my book plugged into my docking station at my desk so could use this to do the backup manually until I sort something that does it automatically.

The only other thing about this is that my office is in the same building so if there was something catastrophic like a fire they would both be goosed.
 
Associate
Joined
29 Jan 2006
Posts
830
Location
Wirral
Two Synology NAS's - One in your office which backs up to one at home. This would be the easiest NAS solution as Synology NAS's come with some great free packages, but this route would require some financial outlay.

As suggested by Caged, Google Workspace Business is £8.38 per user/month, so no big outlay
 
Associate
OP
Joined
7 Oct 2003
Posts
2,447
Location
Liverpool
We already use G Suite actually for email so the extra upgrade isn’t painful.

2 Synology Nas seems to be a good option although it’s going to cost about £700.

we currently use under 1TB of the My Cloud but that will just grow as we grow
 
Soldato
Joined
11 May 2007
Posts
8,906
Location
Surrey
Your setup scares me. Get that thing backed up pronto to another external drive before you do anything else. Or get it all uploaded to the cloud. Ideally both.

Personally I use a Synology NAS for my business. One of the best purchases I ever made. It has a mirror copy on the unit, and also backs up to Dropbox, meaning I can share links and request files from clients with ease. I believe you can also connect GDrive to it for backups etc.

Get a 4 bay Synology would be my advice.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
7 Oct 2003
Posts
2,447
Location
Liverpool
My current setup scares me too hence the Thread!

it looks like Synology is the way to go with either another one offsite at my house or Gsuite backup
 
Soldato
Joined
13 Jul 2005
Posts
19,208
Location
Norfolk, South Scotland
we have just had 600mb Virgin installed at the office and I’m getting 900mb Gigafast installed at home on Wednesday so we should be fine with network speeds for this at last!

Remember that for 600Mb download Virgin will only be provisioning 30-50Mb upload and that will constrict your ability to back up off site. You'll be able to pull data from offsite at up to 600Mbps but when you're actually backing up it wont be anything like that speed.
 
Soldato
Joined
3 Jun 2005
Posts
3,048
Location
The South
@BIGWEB, as others have mentioned the easiest option would be opt for QNap or Synology and replicate it off-site as you've mentioned as it's all fairly-straight forward to setup.
However, with the 'rule of three' for backups, I would suggest grabbing an external drive (equal to your total storage on the NAS) and doing periodic backups and storing that in a safe location (safe etc).

If your internet connection is too slow in the office for this type of service to work properly then you have an inadequate connection for the needs of your business, and really you should be addressing that rather than building a compromised setup to work around that issue.

Absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever with using on-site storage as long as you follow the usual rules, ie - backups.
 
Soldato
Joined
11 May 2007
Posts
8,906
Location
Surrey
Is a 4-bay adequate? For RAID10 you get half the capacity, for RAID5 you'll get 75% and for RAID6 (my preference) you're back at 50%. I generally put in an 8-bay for that reason.

Totally depends on budget and amount of data storage needed. I got the impression that budget wouldn't stretch to an 8 bay and a 2 bay would be a bad buy.
 
Associate
OP
Joined
7 Oct 2003
Posts
2,447
Location
Liverpool
8 bay would be overkill for what we need. We are currently using 1TB.

I would likely get a Synology 220j with 2 x 6TB drives.

I could set them replicating and then have 6TB usable. (Raid 5?)

I took a backup of the my cloud drive today with my Passport HD although the passport is still down the corridor from the main office.
 
Associate
Joined
31 Jan 2011
Posts
2,308
Location
Hampshire
Synology for overpriced hardware but play and play and super simple to setup. amazingly simple software

Unraid for performance and amazing priced hardware (you can use virtually anything)

Personally i have an unraid system and backup to Gdrive every night using a simple docker
 
Soldato
Joined
13 Jul 2005
Posts
19,208
Location
Norfolk, South Scotland
8 bay would be overkill for what we need. We are currently using 1TB.

I would likely get a Synology 220j with 2 x 6TB drives.

I could set them replicating and then have 6TB usable. (Raid 5?)

I took a backup of the my cloud drive today with my Passport HD although the passport is still down the corridor from the main office.

You need at least 3 drives for RAID5. You lose one drive for RAID5 and two for RAID6. Even if you only populate 3 of the 8 you’ll grow into it over time.

And personally, I’d rather have 6Tb from 8x1Tb drives in RAID6 than 6Tb from 2x6Tb drives in RAID1.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom