Back up advice please

[Genesius10]

Hi all.  Im new to Unraid so I'm after some advice.

My old set up was Winders Server Essentials 2016, that was used for centralised back ups of machines, plex server, Blue Iris, etc.  It also had a storage space set up using lots of old random drives to create a sever back up.

 

With that, I had the original files on the computers, a copy in the client backups and then again in the server back up.  Media and CCTV that originated on the server (TV, Films, CCTV footage) was backed up to the server back up. 

 

Now i have built a second server as my needs have changed.  

 

i still have WHS2016 and it still does centralised backup of clients (12tb) and it still has a storage space set up for a server back up (12tb)

 

the new Unraid server will handle Blue iris via a VM, Plex and all the associated programs and also contain a centralised media share with folders for our Adobe files so we can used any computer to work on projects directly from the server.

 

So there's the back ground, now my question, how can i back up my unraid server?  Everything on it will be the only copy.  i have a 14tb parity disk so that's some redundancy but id like to be able to back up everything again.  Am i being over cautious?  Right now i have nearly 50tb of storage and one 14tb parity.

 

Thanks for the help

[trurl]

Parity is not a substitute for backups. 

 

I have external drives that I backup only the important and irreplaceable for storage off-site. 

 

I have a backup server from previous builds that I occasionally boot up to backup the less important stuff. 

 

Other people will have other backup plans, but parity really only helps with disk problems, and only give redundancy for one disk or 2 if you have dual parity. Plenty of more common ways to lose data that parity can't help with. 

[Genesius10]

maybe unraid isnt the way to go for me then.

 

is there a way to back up unraid to windows? or has anyone got another solution?

 

or should i build a second unraid box with bare minimum specs and have that back up the main unraid box?  That seems quite expensive because id need another 50tb of drives

Edited January 4, 2021 by Genesius10

[trurl]

3 hours ago, Genesius10 said:

maybe unraid isnt the way to go for me then.

Whether Unraid or some RAID system, parity isn't a substitute for backups. Even if you had something set up as a mirror that still wouldn't be a backup because any mistake made would be mirrored. If you accidentally delete a file you need to be able to get it from your backups for example.

 

Do you really need to backup 50TB? Is all of it really that important? For me, the important and irreplaceable from my 26TB server will fit on 2TB external disk. I have a few of these from previous use and rotate them for offsite storage. The rest of the things that I even bother to backup from my 26TB server fits easily on my 20TB backup server, and I only bother with that every few months.

 

Lots of ways to do backup. I just use rsync scripts to my externals with Unassigned Devices plugin, and rsync script to my backup server for the less important things. Unassigned Devices can also help your Unraid server access storage on other computers including Windows.

 

There are literally hundreds of Docker Apps for Unraid and some of those can be used for backup. See here:

 

https://unraid.net/community/apps

[Genesius10]

so you have a backup server?  ok, so i might just throw a system together and put all the old 1tb and 2tb drive i have laying about in it and use that for weekly back ups.  

 

the 47tb i have isnt full, maybe 30tb full and your right, not all of it is important.  i dont need to back up my plex server to anything special and i think the centralised media could be backed up to an external drive.

 

thank you