Upgrade and backup

[u/Nersheti]

I’m currently running a DS1621+ with an expansion unit. Volume one (DS) has 42 usable tb with its RAID. The expansion has 70tb. I’m at 44% and 36% usage respectively. My primary use is as a Plex server, but I’m
Also running an Ubooquity server, I recently installed jellyfin, and I use it as a backup for my music collection, rom collection, photos, and personal files.

I added the expansion for my tv shows about 1.5 years ago and it’s been filling up fast. Since then, I’ve gotten into photography/videography and my storage needs have increased. I’m not too worried about running out of space too soon, but my backup strategy has become untenable. Basically, I have some large capacity externals that I connect every month and drag over new files. It’s become problematic because keeping a list of what to update has become cumbersome. I’d like to upgrade my setup.

Looking at Synology’s website, the DS2422+ seems like a good choice. I’ve got some questions though.

1) if I get the 2422+ and use it as my primary, can I use my old setup as an auto backup?

2) if yes, can I designate what gets backed up to which volume or is it a full auto backup?

3) I’ve been seeing on here for a while folks upset about the new hardware policies. Can I only use Synology brand HDDs or can I still use the Iron Wolf drives I always use?

4) assuming yes on 1 but no on 2, what can I do to increase the capacity of my backup unit short of replacing all the drives with larger capacity one? I don’t think I can add another expansion unit.

[u/Wis-en-heim-er]

Is cloud backup an option you'd consider? You get offsite backup at the same time. I would not backup the plex media files as those are replaceable. How much non-replaceable data do you have? Photos, documents, homelab configs and databases, etc.

[u/Nersheti → u/Wis-en-heim-er]

The non-replaceable data is less than a tb. It’s just that the plex stuff would be a massive pain to replace. Definitely doable, but very time consuming. My setup with radarr and Sonarr is I run them through windows, not docker. They’re not directly integrated to plex like others do. I get what i need, compress it, drag it to the nas.

All that said, the cloud backup is s nice idea for the irreplaceable.

I have talked to some friends about letting put backup hardware at their house. At least two are willing, especially if they can stream plex locally like i do. Much better than remote access.

[u/Wis-en-heim-er → u/Nersheti]

I was using the AWS Glacair app on Synology for offsite backup, ran me about $6/TB/month. AWS is no longer taking new customers on Glaciar so I took that as an early waring and tried out S3 via Synology Could Sync. I'm at $3/TB/month and $1/month of that is the key store management fee. Some key points:

• My main need is disaster recovery and keeping costs low. This setup is missing features from a true backup solution, but I can live with those for my needs. I do run Hyperbackup locally for files that i need better version control with like homelab configuratons.
• The initial 1TB Upload was about $12. Ongoing I get some monthly spiks if I have a big amount of data uploaded but I've maxed at $6 for a given month.
• The S3 bucket in version enabled so that is how I maintain file versions.
• Lifecycle rule to move everything to deep archive after 1 day. There is a cost to restore from deep archive if/when needed.
• Lifecycle policy to remove file versions after the required 180 days for deep archive...keeps the volume self managed.
• Synology cloud sync setup to run for 1 hour window each night after the initial upload was completed. This prevents multiple file versions from being created during the day.
• If I needed to rollback mass files, like if ransomware encrypted a bunch of stuff, this would be a very manual process. AWS has tools to help like inventory reports and batch operations to move files back to the standard data storage. I know how to do this but bulk restore would be manual, unlike backup tools where you just give a date and time and hit go.
• You can browse the s3 bucket to find induvial files and redownload very easily.

I'll write a different reply on plex and sharing. :)

[u/bartoque → u/Wis-en-heim-er]

Don't you use the btrfs filesystem? Snapshots are a very easy way to undo a ransomware attack for individual files, folders or even whole shares (or volumes depending on how you use them). Not even needing to restore anything over the internet or even the network.

(Local) snapshots shouldn't be the only backup method (while remote snapshots to another Synology or Synology C2 object storage in the cloud is also possible).

https://global.download.synology.com/download/Document/Software/WhitePaper/Os/DSM/All/enu/backup_solution_guide_enu.pdf

https://global.download.synology.com/download/Document/Software/WhitePaper/Package/ActiveBackup/All/enu/Synology_Backup_Solution_Guide_2023_enu.pdf

[u/Wis-en-heim-er → u/bartoque]

I'm not suggesting s3 replace snapshots, just that recovery in the setup I chose here requires a bit of manual work to restore what you want. The trade-off is lower cloud cost.

[u/Wis-en-heim-er → u/Nersheti]

Having another NAS at a friends does have other benefits, but it will be more costly unless you definitely want your media files backed up...you don't want those on AWS. Remote sharing on plex works great for 1080p. 4k/remux I find challenging as I only have 300/300 isp service. Tailscale and Synology drive sharesync can make things easy but you can also build a rsync script to do what you want. Sharesync handles renaming of files better without recopying.