Backup solution (online/nas/whs)

[cheesemp]

I'm trying to decide on a cheap backup solution for my family (2 or 3 homes across the country) as I'm begin to realises unless I do something a lot of important photos and documents could be lost. Ideally I'd like the backup solution to be offsite and simply for the family (I have remote access via logmein so I can do the hard work myself). I've currently got it down to four possible solutions:

1) Online backup solution - i.e. livedrive have 3 computers unlimited for £90 a year which would just about do the job (Really need 4 annoyingly)
2) 2tb RAID 1 NAS at my house that syncs to (usb) backup drives at my parents/brothers houses. (Ebuyer have a readyNAS with drives for ~ £170)
3) Windows home server with some form of VPN to allow auto backups. This will be a little expensive though.
4) Sync remote USB drives with one large USB drive at my house (Not ideal as my PC have to be on to backup).

Obviously 2, 3 and 4 will push my broadband to the limit but presumably this can be handled with night time syncs/initial local syncs. I also like the fact that 2 and 3 are one off costs but then i'll have electric/upgrade costs in the future.

So I was just wondering if anyone else has done something like this or not and would anyone have a recommendation?

For the record I'm highly Linux/Windows literate so if someone knows of another cheaper solution I can handle the tech side.

[jim]

How much data are you looking to back up?

And is a lot of it synced across machines and therefore duplicated?

[Splash]

Sounds like a good fit for rsync to me - high initial "seeding" bandwidth required, followed by smaller scheduled synching.

[cheesemp]

About 500Gb (100Gb critical) at my end, 80Gb at my fathers, 80-100Gb at my sisters and an unknown amount at my brothers - guess > 50Gb. I'd also possibly like to bring my uncle and auntie in at some point if I can get it working so I guess another 100Gb?

So to summarise about 400Gb at a minimum but 1Tb would be best.

Most of the data isn't duplicated - We're talking family photos/videos, word docs, music.

[spoon_]

Crashplan? Its free...

[cheesemp]

Rsync could be an option but what would you recommend for hardware? Cost is a big consideration here - could a budget NAS do it?

[cheesemp]

Crashplan looks interesting... Almost seems crazy they can do scheduled unlimited backups for free. Real time backup would be even better but I'm not paying $120 a year for it. I guess I can rely on local USB backup for real time?

Edit: Have you used crashplan to recover files spoon_? Is it easy to use?

Edit2: Just realised it doesn't include online backup for free so I'd need my PC on a lot, a server or pay for online as well...

[Jay]

for my home I use WHS to backup each PC in the night. I also use rSync to backup my websites etc from my DataCenter server back to my NAS.

[Splash]

Rsync could be an option but what would you recommend for hardware? Cost is a big consideration here - could a budget NAS do it?

Depends on how "budget" you're talking, but most prebuilt NAS servers are built on linux or BSD. If there's any way of getting ssh access then you should be able to install rsync yourself, the hardware requirements are hardly stellar (aside from that it hold however many disks you might need)

[cheesemp]

I like the idea of WHS (and the system imaging it allows) but the thought of managing a VPN to do the backups is scaring me a little. Also I then have the cost of a new server...

[cheesemp]

Splash - I had been think about one of these readyNAS's from ebuyer but annoyingly the free second drive offer has expired bumping the price up more than I hoped to spend.

[Splash]

Serversplus are saying that the Microserver offer has been extended until 31st May (http://www.serversplus.com/microserver_cashback) - not sure if that makes it worth looking at for you, but I suspect it's still overbudget for you (though it does give you up to 4 bays for storage)

[mikerr]

Online backup solution - i.e. livedrive have 3 computers unlimited for £90 a year which would just about do the job (Really need 4 annoyingly)

I have a livedrive reseller account - I could sell you (or any hexus member) 2 accounts for much less than that (£10/year each!)
They don't place any limits - I have clients with 4TB on them (I can see total usage, not files though obviously).

WHS is really painless and simple, and pretty much automatic - you can restrict what it backs up so you're not throwing huge amount of data over the VPN
It does do deduplication to make backup images smaller, but not sure if it does that at client level before transferring or not.

Personally I use a combination of WHS, dropbox (regularly used stuff (50GB)) and livedrive (unlimited with about 2TB on it!)

[cheesemp]

Thanks for all the replies and offers. Just having a think now. Guess its between the microserver and livedrive account - both very tempting...