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Network Storage

peterb
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Registered: ‎13-04-2016

Network Storage

I use 2 WD Network Drives

One for continuous backup, one as a personal cloud.

I have some important files in Microsoft OneDrive.

like to make videos from footage I take and I keep the clips in one of the WD drives. 

I then edit in my PC, but the clips are always in a WD drive.  The edit programme draws them across via Wi-Fi as I edit and render into video. 

My files amount to less than 1TB.

All this works OK, but I wonder whether I would be more secure if I used on-line storage?

Maybe Microsoft Office 365?

 

Would be interested in what others do.

15 REPLIES 15
dvorak
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Re: Network Storage

Moderators Note.
Moved to Tech Help as it's not a PN issue per se.
Customer / Moderator
If it helped click the thumb
If it fixed it click 'This fixed my problem'
VileReynard
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Re: Network Storage

Sounds like you are beholden to what Microsoft choose to do in the future.

Why not buy some storage on-line and send your files, very slowly, as Plusnet's maximum upload speed is about 2MB/sec so 1TB will only take about 6 days (running flat-out) to transfer your data.

I have just bought myself a USB3.0 3TB external drive which claims actual transfer rates of 50MB/sec - and a couple of short tests back this up, at least for sequential writes.

Perhaps a backup procedure that includes a lot of incremental backups?

"In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Aardvark."

AarronkMc
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Registered: ‎14-07-2018

Re: Network Storage

You may be bottle necked by your Down/Upload speed if you are trying to render directly from a cloud solution like OneDrive.

 

If your worried about data loss, you could always look into a NAS drive thats set up in RAID1. This would create a constant mirror of all data on your drive so should one fail, you have a backup. This would also work well with internal data transfer rates as your not restricted by the upload/download of your Plusnet connection and instead have the freedom to use the gigabit LAN ports on most modern routers.

VileReynard
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Re: Network Storage

RAID protects against data loss - but its not a backup solution.

If you want to resurrect a file that you destroyed last week - you need a backup solution.

"In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Aardvark."

ReedRichards
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Re: Network Storage


@peterb wrote:

...I wonder whether I would be more secure if I used on-line storage?

 


What happens if your house burns down?

What happens if you get burgled and the burglar takes a fancy to your Network Storage devices?

I think that for preserving your data in the event of some local disaster then cloud storage is best.  But there may be other considerations that you wish to take into account.

VileReynard
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Re: Network Storage

You can do both, but don't forget to encrypt your online stuff.

You could even use multiple backup providers.

Anyway, if my house burns down I'm not going into a burning building to rescue computer bits.

"In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Aardvark."

AarronkMc
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Registered: ‎14-07-2018

Re: Network Storage

What happens if your house burns down?

What happens if you get burgled and the burglar takes a fancy to your Network Storage devices?

Using the same 'What if' sentiment.

What if you lose access to the internet for a period of time. Using predominantly a cloud based solution would mean you lose access to all of your data too.

 

While likely costly, a hybrid solution would probably be the most reliable way of keeping data safe. NAS taking incremental backups, coupled with some form of cloud solution.

Alex
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Re: Network Storage

Me personally, I have had bad experiences of on-line backup services.
One which deleted all my files after charging me £150 for another year.
Then they had the cheek of when I questioned it to say "We are not a data archiving company".

Me thinks: "Errm .. yes you are".

Rather like PlusNet turning round and saying "We are not an internet service provider" Tongue

So I asked for my money back, which luckily they did give it to me back.

I wouldn't trust a company to do something I can do myself, the smaller companies I would be wary of. What if they go bust and their servers are taken off-line? Ok - with the big boys such as Microsoft, Apple, Google et al that is highly unlikely and you can have more confidence in them I guess.

For the cost, do what I do and get a Blu Ray burner and do the backups yourself. Leave a disc at home and other locations such as a friend/family home, or work.

I don't think there is a 100% ideal solution to this problem, and yes burning discs isn't ideal as you have to manually do it and you don't have live backups and risk losing items since you burnt your last disc.

The only thing which are really important to me are photos, so it suits my requirements. 

shutter
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Re: Network Storage


@VileReynard wrote:

 

If you want to resurrect a file that you destroyed last week - you need a backup solution.


 

Or you could use a nice little FREE program called  RECUVA

 

https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva

Pretty good... but... will not recover files that have been "erased" by overwriting , as in "secure delete" or "secure erase".

VileReynard
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Re: Network Storage

If you are satisfied with something that sometimes works, then why bother with offline backups.

It will fail when you really need to recover a file - guaranteed!

"In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Aardvark."

Alex
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Re: Network Storage

If I am correct, when you delete a file it is just removed from the FAT of the disk.
So it appears to have gone, but the actual file is still there you just can't see it.

These programs work by scanning the whole disk, and rebuilding the FAT so you can see it again.

Trouble is, it is very risky - the area the deleted file was in is marked as free. So if you create or copy something else to the disk it may overwrite the deleted file, or it may not. If it does then it can't be recovered.

These secure utilities work by removing it from the FAT and overwriting the file area specifically so it can't be recovered. So if you've got confidential data or something on there you shouldn't have (such as hiding a list of your presents from your partner of course Tongue) then that is what you can use.

This kind of thing you'd only use as a last resort, and there is no guarantee it'll work.

VileReynard
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Re: Network Storage

But nobody uses a FAT filesystem on their disk drives. Or SSD drives.

It's OK for USB sticks & other small drives that you wouldn't want to trust with vital data.

"In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Aardvark."

Alex
Community Veteran
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Re: Network Storage

Yeah I guess NTFS is standard now on big drives.

Not sure if it works in a similar way to the old FAT, I would have thought so though.

VileReynard
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Re: Network Storage

Not on mine.

"In The Beginning Was The Word, And The Word Was Aardvark."