User,Media & Backup share organization - best practices?

[joohn]

Hi Guys,

 

I am in progress of finishing my unraid build, data is already in the array, but I have some questions. My share structure looks like this:

 

Tower

* Media (common media)

  - Movies

  - Music

* User0 (private share only for User0)

  - Some private data

* User1 (private share only for User1)

  - Some private data

* User2 (private share only for User2)

  - Some private data

* Family (common family media)

  - Photos

  - Videos

 

I am in general happy with it, but I have concerns regarding backup data from users laptops/PCs. Backups are done by schedulled task (Robocopy,Windows 7 Backup,etc), and I see two options on UnRaid:

 

* Backup (as separate share accessed by everyone)

  - User0

  - User1

  - User2

 

OR

 

* User0

  - Backup

  - Some private data

etc.

 

The first approach is much cleaner and also backuping unraid itself will be easier, since I will only backup Media, UserX and Family folders, leaving backup share not backed up. But I see searious security flaw here - every user will have access to every backup! The second option is more secure as Backup is a part of User share, but I would have to exclude it during unraid backup, and the folder will be messing around private user files, which is not so "clean".

 

Do you have any better ideas for share organization? How do you handle "backup" share security in your setups?

 

[CHBMB]

I'm confused, you backing up the userX shares to a folder on the array called Backups?? 

[joohn]

I'm confused, you backing up the userX shares to a folder on the array called Backups?? 

 

No UserX Shares are on the array, they contains some user private data which from some reason they want to hold on NAS (UnRaid) and not on their PCs. Besides that, each user has some things on their PCs, Laptops, etc which they want to backup. And here comes the need for backup folder for them on an array.

 

My scenario as an "admin", will be to backup Unraid with all user shares to let's say external location. And ensure that all the PCs are backed up to an Unraid array. There is no need for another backup of backup folder from an array.

[CHBMB]

Surely the best way is to backup to an external location and not allow any users to access that and act as the sysadmin in terms of restoring any lost data?

 

In which case I would stick with your current folder setup.

[joohn]

OK, so:

1. Keep all backups (Backup of Unraid AND User PCs backups) in an external location.

2. UnRaid will store not redundant data: User files, media, etc - but not backups.

 

This is interesting and definitely cleanest way. It looks like I will have to think about it little more - external backup is OK for UnRaid. Since it is protected by parity, for me external backup could be done once per several weeks. But doing the same for local PCs would be harder from performance point.

 

Now I have also got in mind third idea of share organization:

 

* Media (common media)

* User0 (private data)

* User1 (private data)

* User2 (private data)

* Family (common family media)

* User0_Backup (backup of data from PC)

* User1_Backup (backup of data from PC)

* User2_Backup (backup of data from PC)

 

That way, UserX_Backup shares would have the same permission as UserX shares, but I could set Export to false, so they would be visible and used only by backup scripts on user PCs. When doing UnRaid backup to the external location, I would simply bypass UserX_Backup shares since third copy of data is unnecessary for me.

 

 

 

 

 

[Rebel]

Just an insight into how I do it in the house here, we use a common "backup" share but everyone uses crashplan (free for PC to PC use) and then everyone has different archive keys everything is encrypted in such a way only the data owner can see / recover their files.

 

It was simply choice for me though as I run crashplan on unraid anyhow as I carry a sub to backup the unraid servers to their cloud, 10 years+ DSLR photos, vids I've made and just plain work file backup as an offsite.