Ask Slashdot: Network Backup Solution Out of the Box?

First time accepted submitter file terminator writes "I want to buy a network drive for home usage, and am looking for something that would allow for secure and encrypted remote backups over the Internet to a second network drive, preferably advanced enough that all drive content does not have to be transmitted every time. The solution may come as a pair of network drives, and two-way synching would actually be a plus. The drives would be behind respective NATs and setup must allow connecting to any target port. The solution should be readily available (no obscure/local brands/solutions) and not unreasonably expensive. Does anyone have any recommendations for a full out of the box solution?"

Comments

I use SpiderOak

[Max Romantschuk]

I tried to roll my own for like forever, and eventually just gave up and went for SpiderOak:
https://spideroak.com/

It can be configured to do sync, backup, or something in between. Probably not exactly what you are looking for but perhaps worth a look none the less.

Re:I use SpiderOak

[Anonymous Coward]

I really don't get why people still "Ask Slashdot". Does anyone think they're going to get a useful answer? This response meets literally none of the OPs requirements and isn't even the same thing conceptually, yet it sits at +4 Informative and is the closest thing to an answer yet posted.

Re:I use SpiderOak

[subreality]

How does this fail anything? You set up a SpiderOak sync between the local machine and the remote one. Files are synced, old versions are backed up in the cloud. It works through any firewall, it does deltas, proper crypto, it's reasonably priced, and it works out of the box. It's exactly what was asked for.

Re:I use SpiderOak

[froggymana]

I really don't get why people still "Ask Slashdot".

Have you considered Asking Slashdot about that?

rsync?

[silas_moeckel]

Over ssh, did this with a couple linksys routers years ago.

Re:rsync?

[Iphtashu Fitz]

If you're going to use rsync then I'd recommend using rsnapshot, which is essentially a perl script that makes rsync even more powerful. It's basically a poor-mans version of Apple's Time Machine software. It'll keep hourly/daily/weekly/monthly snapshots in such a way that disk usage is optimized, and the number & timing of snapshots can be fully configured.

Re:rsync?

[bmo]

And every other product is just a rehash of this.

rsync
ssh
cron

This lets you back up your data to a drive on the other side of the planet. Because offsite copies at your house aren't enough, you must plan for a comet strike.

--
BMO

Re:rsync?

[chrb]

Indeed, any OpenWRT device with a USB port and external hard drive will do this job. Or even better: the Western Digital My Book Live NAS ships with Debian and you can enable ssh from a hidden admin menu.

Re:rsync?

[evilviper]

Rsnapshot is for people who don't know that rsync already has the --link-dest option built-in, or can't write a trivial shell script themselves.

If you want something automatic and user-friendly, just install BackupPC from the repo, navigate the web interface to setup a system to be backed up, make sure the ssh-key is in-place, and let it handle everything. I was impressed with how little setup there was on a vanilla centos5x system with a "yum install backuppc" (though that may have been from a 3rd party repo, I don't recall).

backblaze

[cjeze]

http://www.backblaze.com/

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/09/02/138209/Build-Your-Own-28M-Petabyte-Disk-Array-For-117k

CrashPlan

[aaaaaaargh!]

I've switched from Jungledisk and bought a 4 year subscription of CrashPlan and it works pretty well. It is very unobtrusive working in the background on Linux. The application updates itself automatically and is pretty well-designed.

Of course, if you have truly sensitive data such as trade secrets or patient records you should never rely on any claims such companies make about their proprietary encryption / security.

Re:Time Machine

[h4rr4r]

Except for when it does not. Then it is impossible to troubleshoot because it was expected to just work.

Easy!

[ALimoges]

~$ rsync -az --progress --size-only from_where_/* to_your_network_server:/your_backup_folder/

Synology

[laing]

Synology makes (IMHO) the best SOHO NAS products. Their latest management console (3.2) supports off-site encrypted backup. They are on the expensive side but their products and support are top notch.

Re:First mistake...

[ColdWetDog]

Why not? You just did.

Re:Time Machine

[Neil_Brown]

Plenty of results out there - but when I came to restore from my Time Machine backup recently, it failed. I could not find a solution - not for lack of trying - and so resorted to a fresh installation, and restoring documents from the document backup (regular Unison backup). Faster than Time Machine over Wi-Fi, even with the additional time for re-downloading programs, reconfiguring settings etc.

Re:Time Machine

[GameboyRMH]

And isn't Time Machine OSX-only?

We're using big boy computers here, everyone. That means whatever backup solution you specify has to make backups in a format that is fully usable by a range of free (and ideally open-source) tools.

For Linux PCs I use rsync (with ssh, I do all network backups because in Linux, it's even easier and more convenient than external drives). For Windows I use vshadow and robocopy (pretty much the closest Windows equivalent to rsync - makes plain file backups with NTFS permissions preserved, and those tools are on the Windows CD so restoration is easy - as long as the hard drive can be accessed without network drivers and isn't encrypted, hence no network backups, I just use a plain eSATA drive).

Ditto, CrashPlan

[Kamiza Ikioi]

I really like CrashPlan.com, runs in Java, compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux (I run it just fine in Ubuntu). It backs up from any computer to any computer or to cloud, or to a friend using CrashPlan (using a code). Best of all, it's free to use the program without a plan with CrashPlan. And, the plans themselves are pretty attractive.

It's the quickest way to create an entire web of backups, and has many advanced archival features, heavy duty encryption, compression, sync by changes to files just like rsync, deduplication, and keep dated copies of files by minute, hour, day, week, month and year, and a timed remove deleted files.

The interface is extremely simple, and every client acts as a master control. It's the best I've tried in its class, and I went with it even after getting approval to spend $4000 on backup software. Not that other packages can't do it, but the complexity went to 0 with this package, and does exactly what I needed. It also works great with NAS mounted drives as backup destinations.

Anti-NAS

[LoudMusic]

I realize I've posted already but I failed to mention a key aspect.

To this date, across more than a decade of Windows network administration, I have yet to discover a NAS device that I trust. The manufacturer's goal is typically to make it as cheap as possible to create the largest profit margin, with the expectation that the consumer will just buy a new one when it fails I also greatly dislike external hard drives for the same reason, though I own a pair of 'portable' hard drives which I find far less flaky (it's also nice they power from USB) because they're built to be moved around. I keep backups on one in a fire safe in the garage.

Best option is automated synchronization between PCs on your LAN and an internet host. DropBox does this. I believe SpiderOak will too, linked by another member here.

My strongest advice is to avoid cheap NASes and external hard drives, which is the first place people tend to look.

Small scale sync - try Synology

[billcopc]

I'm actually in the business of building and selling white-box NAS boxes that replicate over the wire, but it sounds like you don't need a $10k rack server with 40+ terabytes. However, at the desktop end of the spectrum, I highly recommend Synology DiskStation products. They support offsite backups and will happily converse with Win/Mac/Lin. The GUI is a bit overkill IMO, but it works and it's fairly easy to use, which is more than I can say about my own products :P

Under the hood, almost all of these boxes use rsync, so if you want to mess with different port numbers, you'll have to handle that mapping at your firewall/gateway.