Seeking recommendations re home storage

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Keljian

Active Member
Sep 9, 2015
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Hi All,

I currently have a 7 disk mdraid lvm raid6 array using an ext4 filesystem.

I am wondering how I can better secure my data from hardware failure.

In a nutshell, I have a whole lot of files which rarely change, are relatively large, and I wouldn’t really lose sleep over if I lost.

I also have about 200gb(and growing) worth of data I would really prefer not to lose. (backed up elsewhere, but painful to recover)

Current total storage use is 5.5tb/10tb

I don’t want zfs. What is my best option for managing the situation using existing hardware?

Notes:
-must be extensible, more drives to be added easily.
- high speed access is a bonus, (200-400Mb/s)
- once written, files are rarely change
 
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EffrafaxOfWug

Radioactive Member
Feb 12, 2015
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I'd say going with something like a multi-disc mdraid RAID6 would be a good place to start... ;)

Given that you say "painful to recover", personally I'd spend money on more/better backups before I started fixing what isn't yet broken... what's your current backup strategy?
 

Keljian

Active Member
Sep 9, 2015
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Melbourne Australia
Backups are Cloud based backups (1.5mbit cable is slow to upload.. ), plus regular disk swapping with relatives

I was thinking something like snapraid 5 disk for bulk storage, and maybe btrfs raid 1 or something for the crucial stuff
 

rubylaser

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Jan 4, 2013
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Backups are Cloud based backups (1.5mbit cable is slow to upload.. ), plus regular disk swapping with relatives

I was thinking something like snapraid 5 disk for bulk storage, and maybe btrfs raid 1 or something for the crucial stuff
This is exactly what I would do (except I use ZFS for critical data that need to go faster than gigabit speeds).

OP, I have a complete SnapRAID tutorial on my site if you are interested. Also, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.
 
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EffrafaxOfWug

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Feb 12, 2015
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Sounds like a similar system to mine; I have a local backup server that backs up the main server, plus offsite ("cloud" by way of server-in-someone-else's-house) and disc-swapping, so I've got fast local backup/restore and slow disaster recovery options - sounds like you're wanting to do the same sort of thing. SnapRAID I guess'd be a good choice for the local backup server. Given your stated workload you should be able to get away with using slow-ass SMR drives in it.

I've had some trials using btrfs on the backup server; currently its sitting on top of mdadm and LVM since I don't fully trust its parity RAID handling yet. It works well for its intended purpose and the compression gets some good space savings on things like client backups. Dedupe I've not really tried since my backup script is the old tried and tested rsync+hardlinks so already quite space-efficient for datasets that don't change much but it certainly would be handy for keeping versioned copies of disc images...

1.5Mb/s cable? Urgh... didn't even know they made it that slow. I hope you mean it's at least 1.5Mb/s upstream rather than downstream?
 
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BLinux

cat lover server enthusiast
Jul 7, 2016
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I don't understand your "maybe btrfs" but "no ZFS" stance? if anything, i think ZFS is a lot more mature than btrfs?

I've been considering cloud based backups too, but my data set would take 6 months to upload/download if all was lost at once. But I would also strongly consider having your own local backup system. I have a set of USB3 drives on a USB3 hub plugged into my computer connected to a managed power outlet. I have a script i wrote that powers on everything, does an rsync of all my ZFS datasets to the set of external drives, and then powers off the drives. It is at least a backup of my data set that I can recover pretty quickly (100MBytes/sec).

If you have concerns about bit rot, but don't want ZFS, recent versions of XFS have implemented CRC checks i believe; though you will need latest xfsprogs and kernel I think. That might be a step up from ext4.

Your RAID-6 already protects you from drive failures (somewhat)... I did have Linux software RAID-6 set with 8x 3TB drives completely fail on me once due to bug in LVM I think... drives would randomly fall out of the array, and at one point 3 drives went offline. It prompted me to try out ZFS and that's where I am now.

Do you have everything important on UPS?
 
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Keljian

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I don't like ZFS because of political reasons. Specifically that it owned(developed) by Oracle and development hinges on the corporate entity.

I suppose I am a bit contradictory in that I use windows extensively, and ESXi when I want to virtualise.

BTRFS is mature and considered stable since kernel 3.10 (and it's been around for about 7 years, which is long enough imo), but Raid 5/6 support in it is not.

One option is that I have a 500gig enterprise spinner with relatively low power on hours which I could use as a secondary backup (power on only as necessary/rsync).
 

PigLover

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ZFS on Linux (ZoL) and on FreeBSD are pretty independent of Oracle these days. These releases do not currently depend on any corporate entity for development or support

Sent from my SM-G925V using Tapatalk
 
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wildchild

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Feb 4, 2014
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Openzfs isnt connected to oracle at all.
That gives zfs to bsd, but also to solaris , with smartos,openindiana and omnios... all of which arent dependend on oracle
 

unwind-protect

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Mar 7, 2016
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I have a similar primary setup and I push to a ZFS in a different room. Backup has snapshots (to protect against data corruption), primary does not.

Any cheap machine will do. Should have a good PSU and I always use ECC RAM.

If recovery time is important you could make the filesystem in the backup machine "compatible" with the primary. If primary fails you just move the drives over to the primary machine. Or make the entire backup machine the primary machine.
 

unwind-protect

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Another form of backup I like is that I have older/cheaper laptops that I put very large drives is. They get pushed a selected backup.

Depending on what catastrophe hits your machines or your home you have a good chance that a laptop in a bag survived that lightning strike, or that you have it with you, that sort of thing.
 

fractal

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Jun 7, 2016
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You sound very, very similar to me. Less than 1TB of stuff I really care about and way too much entertainment that can be replaced or forgotten.

My main file server is linux mdadm raid5 of 6 x 4tb drives. It will max out at 8 x 4tb drives in raid 6. I love mdadm since I can add drives as I need them and switch from raid 5 to raid 6 just about now. Actually, I should have switched when I went from 4 to 6 drives but I didn't.

My secondary file server is a hp microserver running NAS4Free from a USB stick with 4 x 6TB drives on the other side of the room on a separate UPS from the main file server. I rsync the two every so often. I should probably set up a cron job. I should probably put it in a different room. Oh well.

My real backup are a pair of 2TB external USB drives that live in the fire safe along with the deed to the house and stuff like that. I take one out every so often and make a rsync of the "important stuff."

A couple of low power drives in a raid-1 under the bed would be a great idea for the important stuff. Could probably do it with a raspberry pi.
 

T_Minus

Build. Break. Fix. Repeat
Feb 15, 2015
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Since the size of data you don't want to lose is soo small relative to modern HDD and SSD sizes why not run a 3x mirror of that data separate from your media / written once read often could lose data? You could run 3x 960GB SSD if budget allows and have very fast random and sequential access, or more on a budget but much slower 3x 1 or 2TB 2.5" HDD, or even cheaper 3x 1 or 2TB WD RED... or, even cheaper, 3x 500GB WD RE Enterprise drives. Then for your media/other files do what you're comfortable with.

some other ideas :)
 

Keljian

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Sep 9, 2015
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Tminus - like your idea, but implementation is the issue- my server runs an M1505 and that's passed through to a storage vm. I have 8 drives, so I don't have 3 spare drives controller ports to use on the card.

I have them on the motherboard, but ESXI won't pass them through

Currently toying with the idea of ZFS - but I do need something to back up my data to (all of it) to do that, and I'm not sure how I'm going to do that.
 
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rubylaser

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My real backup are a pair of 2TB external USB drives that live in the fire safe along with the deed to the house and stuff like that. I take one out every so often and make a rsync of the "important stuff."
Just a heads up. There are different levels of fire safe protection. Most of the consumer grade fire safes are only rated save paper documents. Most kinds of digital media won't survive like CDs, DVDs, or hard drives. I would suggest storing your critical backup off site or in a cloud based solution.
 
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fractal

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Just a heads up. There are different levels of fire safe protection. Most of the consumer grade fire safes are only rated save paper documents. Most kinds of digital media won't survive like CDs, DVDs, or hard drives. I would suggest storing your critical backup off site or in a cloud based solution.
Thanks for the heads up. I kinda knew that. The unit I have is one of the consumer ones with gel in the walls that give off moisture to keep it below combustion temperatures. Pretty much guaranteed death for hard drives. Optical media may, or may not, survive. I do have off site backups that I should probably update more often than the family get togathers at xmas.
 
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