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Do you rely on RAID as your NAS backup?

It seems that using RAID architecture in your NAS is not the best backup strategy for various reasons.
Why even bother with RAID if that is the case?  Just use a single HD NAS and back it up periodically to another HD or the cloud.
Am I missing something?
albireo13
sufentanil's avatar
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sufentanil
782 posts
 
RAID is NOT a backup. RAID protects against hard drive failures. That's all.

RAID (except RAID 1) also allows ganging multiple drives together for extra storage space, so that's another potential benefit, and maybe faster read times.  Most consumer-grade NAS's, however, will be more limited by network speed than drive speed. But to protect the data, I recommend both local and cloud-based backup systems (preferably automated). 

Michael
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ozzy
7,490 posts
 

I just had a 3 Tb External Hardrive fail.

Luckily I had it backed up by another hardrive.

Now, I have a 3rd hardrive that is also a back up. Plus many 64-128 GB flash drives as back up.

When you down load HIRez tracks you need several backups in case of failure. Non hirez from Cd’s can always be copied to the hardrive again.

I keep wondering about adding a NAS but they seem to be quite expensive compared to external hardrives.

Not sure what a Raid is...

almarg's avatar
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almarg
9,670 posts
 
I agree with the comments above.  See the posts by me and by Kijanki in this thread regarding the shortcomings of RAID as a backup solution.  Also, regarding cloud backup, as I said in that thread...
... I would have to say it is not a desirable solution, at least as the primary backup solution for a large music collection. While incrementally uploading the files for backup purposes, over time, should be fine in most cases, consider what would happen if the entire library had to be downloaded due to failure of the local hard drive(s). Even making the optimistic assumptions that the user's interconnect connection is as fast as 100 mbps, and that the download speed is not limited by the responsiveness of the server at the other end or by any servers in the route through the Internet that is in between, downloading say 2 terabytes of music would require approximately 56 hours of non-stop downloading. And under less optimistic assumptions about the speed of the download process, that could conceivably stretch out to several weeks. 
Regards,
-- Al
 
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