I wanted to get some input from members here on backup strategy for important data. I have about 20TB on my single unraid server, which is mostly tv, movies and music. For now, this data is outside the scope of what I want to backup because it is not that important and so large that it would kill my upload and take forever.

 

I have a few machines that I would like to backup in full:

Win7 desktop, win7 laptop, and a family member's off site Win7 laptop, and selected folders from unraid (data/docs only)

ESXi Host1 that runs unraid, madsonic, plex server, web servers, virtual HTPCs (x2), Win7, and some others.

ESXi Host2 that runs openvpn, unifi controller, and win server 2012.

 

I started implementing the free version of crashplan installed on the win server 2012 to easily backup my desktop and the remote laptop. But this falls apart if my house burns down (seems unlikely, but when was the last time someone wasn't suprised when their house burned down?)

 

Then I thought about backing up machines to my local crashplan, and then signing just that one computer up for crashplan cloud backup (thereby backing up my other backups). The 4 year price for 1 pc is $190 and the 4 year price for family is $430.

 

Also in consideration here are my virtual machines. I'm thinking of using Veeam here and including these in the crashplan backup. I've heard good things about Veeam.

 

So just interested to see what you guys do for backups!

 

Thanks!

Here is what I do and it doesn't involve any recurring costs like a cloud subscription.

 

I have incremental monthly images of my other computers going to my unRAID. I have nightly backups of important folders from my other computers to my unRAID. Once a month I copy the important folders that I have backed up to unRAID to an external drive, and then store that drive at my office.

 

The monthly images have saved me from a complete rebuild a couple of times, and if I do have to reinstall an OS I still have all my important data on unRAID. If some catastrophe happens I still have my monthly offsite backup.

 

For external offsite storage I am just re-using drives that I don't use anymore in my other systems and putting them in an external enclosure. I actually have a couple in rotation at any given time so there is one at home waiting to be used and one at the office away from any local catastrophe.

 

Here is what I do and it doesn't involve any recurring costs like a cloud subscription.

 

I have incremental monthly images of my other computers going to my unRAID. I have nightly backups of important folders from my other computers to my unRAID. Once a month I copy the important folders that I have backed up to unRAID to an external drive, and then store that drive at my office.

 

The monthly images have saved me from a complete rebuild a couple of times, and if I do have to reinstall an OS I still have all my important data on unRAID. If some catastrophe happens I still have my monthly offsite backup.

 

For external offsite storage I am just re-using drives that I don't use anymore in my other systems and putting them in an external enclosure. I actually have a couple in rotation at any given time so there is one at home waiting to be used and one at the office away from any local catastrophe.

 

Thanks for the reply, sounds like you are more diligent in creating backups and moving drives than I could hope to be! I would like a more maintenance-free approach - I would not do well keeping up to date.

 

I'm OK with a fee for cloud backup, but $500 is out of the budget.

 

Another option I am considering is a small box at a relatives house that we would both crashplan backup to, and also crashplan backup to each other's. This would at least eliminate having to bring drives back and forth.

The only part of my approach that is manual is swapping out the external drives. Everything else is scheduled and/or scripted.

I'm coming around more and more to the Crashplan plan... I am looking for a small form factor device that I could plug in at a relative's house (or houses) and use as a target for Crashplan. So three of us could all have local backups, plus two off site backups.

 

It doesn't look like raspberry pi will be powerful enough, so I am looking into Intel NUCs now. Kinda $$ for what I need them for, paying for hdmi graphics that won't be needed if the boxes and usb drives are just going to sit in a closet.

NUCs are too expensive for what I need them to do. Now looking at this (Asus net top):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ASUS-EeeBox-PC-B202-All-In-One-Desktop-Intel-Atom-N270-1-6GHz-1GB-RAM-160GB-HDD/201027740187?_trksid=p2045573.c100033.m2042&_trkparms=aid%3D111000%26algo%3DREC.RVI%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20131017132637%26meid%3D4489397385633583503%26pid%3D100033%26prg%3D20131017132637%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D4%26sd%3D251438876925

 

Plus one of these (2TB external usb powered):

http://www.staples.com/WD-My-Passport-2TB-Portable-USB-30-External-Hard-Drive-Black/product_373055

 

so under $200 for low power usage setup that can sit beside the modem/router at a relative's house and serve as a local crashplan target for them and a remote target for me. Anybody have other ideas for a cheaper setup?

The solution that I have come up with for now is just to order a 2TB external hard drive and place it at a relatives house. They will do local backups from their laptop and I will do remote backups to it as well.

 

On my end, I made a Debian VM with the crashplan engine installed, using an unraid share (backups) as the target. So I will have backups on unraid and the remote usb drive. Only disadvantage at the moment is that my remote backups depend on their laptop being on and with the usb drive plugged in. I wasn't able to find a cheap enough alternative for an always on box, but I could easily add that down the road.

 

I will also be inviting some other family to backup to my unraid... makes it a bit easier to justify the electric bill for this setup!

 

Moving on to look at Veeam for VM backups now...

A friend and I both run unRaid so Crashplan makes it fairly convenient to remote back-up each other.  If you have a family member you could just allow them to back-up to you, but then just stick in a large drive in their PC and you would be set. Nice thing about Crashplan is it is all encrypted from prying eyes (remember you can do an initial sync locally and then move the drive and import it there to save a lot of bandwidth).

 

BtSync is an interesting option. It's still not quite ready for prime time though.

 

I've tried both of the above on the Raspberry Pi and Crashplan kills it due to java and BtSync dies when you have to hash a lot of files.  Those little Atom boxes sound promising. Interested to hear how they work out if you try them.

 

A centralized back-up server app/VM for unRaid would be neat concept.

Yea, I'm just starting with a very simple setup for now... I'm not going to buy one of the atom machines yet - worried that it would be a waste of money if it doesn't run crashplan nicely. I really just want an excuse to order a NUC.

 

The ESXi machines have changed the way I setup systems. Instead of adding a service to an existing machine, I always opt to have dedicated VMs for everything. "I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail."

 

Local backups have completed, but the remote laptop has not started backing up yet (it probably went to sleep).