Dear Fedoers,
I'm planning to buy a NAS to backup my Linux boxes. I've spent few days at
looking for it on the Internet but I've some hard time to find a NAS that fits
my needs.
I intend to use it both the backup my data but also to keep consistent the
data on several linux-boxes. That is, the data are changed on one machine
(incrementally) back-upped and then restored from another one and vice versa.
As an inexperienced user, the characteristics I've pointed out are:
- ethernet based NAS optionally with wake-on lan (ie., the capability of
being turned on by a signal over the internet)
- Linux compliant ie.,
- it should be formatted in ext3/4 or other *nix file system to maintain all
the linux file details such as access rights, attributes, links, name
lengths/characters, ...
- rsync should be a viable solution to update/restore the backup
- files should be accessible over the internet possibly via ssh, https, or
mount over the internet - possibility to create multiple partitions, possibly also with multiple
file systems.
- RAID 5 or better the supported replicated storage should be at least 5TB
- optionally I would also like to have some way to limit/control/monitor
the accesses from the external, eg., via firewall (it will be on a
intranet and I can put a firewall on the modem but it would be nice to
have some extra control over security and privacy)
I do not have a net preference between mechanical and optical storage even
if I suppose that given the same storage size mechanical solutions are cheaper
and optical ones are faster. Probably cheaper (especially when associated with
more reliable) is better than faster.
From your experience do you have some brand/model to suggest? Or something
that I should consider that I didn't list?
For years, Mac and Windows users have been able to use high-end exterrnal RAID
arrays. e.g. for professional video. There are external USB-3 cases that claim to
support RAID on linux. Linux supports Thunderbolt 3, but I hadn't encountered
external TB RAID arrays with Linux support before retiring in 2018.
A search today found:
T4-S12L.TB3 Thunderbolt 3 Four Tray-Less SAS (12Gb) /SATA III Support RAID with LCD Control For Mac, Windows And Linux
I assume there are other vendors selling external TB3 or USB3 RAID boxes.
I like external RAID arrays because you can plug them into a host configured for
your needs and running the same OS as your other boxes. If you could afford it,
you could get external RAID arrays with vendor supplied drives. The vendor
gets statistics on drive performance for all their drives and I've heard of replacement
drives arriving with a note telling you which drive it was meant to replace..
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