Home network with real-time redundancy (think LAN based Dropbox)

I'm soon to be having a major re-think of the home PC network.

Currently there are 3 PCs and a laptop, all separate devices without automatic back-up. Obviously this isn't ideal.

The new setup will consist of a full desktop set-up (gaming rig) + Windows 8.1 tablet (with dock for full desktop use + keyboard attachment for laptop use - Dell Venue 11 Pro)

I've been seriously considering buying the WD 'My Cloud' as an access point for all files outside the home, as a secondary device for redundancy in case the main PC or Tablet drives should fail.

I'd let it to work just like Dropbox, with the WD My Cloud offering file access externally. Ideally should a file be updated on the WD drive this would be pushed to main PCs once booted..ala Dropbox

This way you get the best of everything:

Redundancy in case of drive failure
Remote access
Real time file syncing (no need to constantly make backups)

Can anyone guide me as to what I'd need to do this, or advise what I should be doing to achieve a similar set-up. I'm not wanting to spend on a full NAS based solution and I need maintenance and set-up to be relatively simple as I have zero experience with this kind of thing!

Any guides or ideas of how to achieve this would be very welcome :)

For my reference:
http://www.techspot.com/downloads/57...is-backup.html

initial thought is why make it more complicated than it needs to be. the only area you need redundancy is in the disks in the data source. that'll save constant traffic updating the remotes, keep the data safe in the store.

i'd look at a different device.

I'm aiming at a similar system this weekend, and will be trying out Seafile on an N54L running Ubuntu 13.10. The only other viable solution is owncloud, which is apparently pretty pants. I'll post back how it ends up going. I'm aiming for something a bit more spophisticated I think (I need 2 separate users over 1 Desktop 2 laptops 2 tablets & 2 phones, with connectivity from outside). I have my own domain, so external access is easier, but something like Dyn should do you fine.

Sounds completed, let us know how you get on!

It shouldn't be - I've already got the server set up and running, so it should (fingers crossed) just be a case of apt-get install and then run through a few options. The install process is very simple (https://github.com/haiwen/seafile/wi...seafile-server). Theres a demo of the web functionality at seacloud.cc - assuming it works like that I'm expecting it to be a basicly perfect replacement for dropbox. We'll just have to see what performance is like.

Ok so I've done some experimenting with Yadis as linked above. If you set-up two instances for syncing you can replicate a dropbox type real-time updating over the network.

Let's say 1) is my main PC and 2) is my USB drive connected to my router

I can set up syncs both ways 1>2 and 2>1 so that whichever copy I update the version with the latest modified date gets copied to the other device. You can also enable file versioning for multiple backups if desired.

This is great, but now I need to figure out a way to be able to edit the files on the USB drive remotely, working directly with the file on the drive. Current FTP access only seems to allow me to copy the file locally to the remote client PC, edit, then upload it back to the USB drive - which isn't ideal as it adds unnecessary complication.

So I guess what I need is a VPN set-up, or some other way of working on the file directly. So when remote working is done you can save, close and be sure the files will auto-sync and update when your main PC is next turned on.

Am I making sense, I'm very much a noob at this sort of thing.

A few links with ideas I need to investigate:
http://www.dyncommunity.com/question...-computer.html
http://ifolder.com/
http://ftpbox.org/

Right, that was astonishingly easy to install. So much so that I'm amazed its actually working.

You'll need a linux host (or a rasberry pi) and about 10 minutes. Functionality is literally exactly the same as dropbox, including a version history which will be insanely useful. I'll be testing it more thouroughly over the coming days, and we'll see what performance ends up being when its got going on for 10k files on it, but at the moment, colour me hugely impressed.

Does your solution allow remote editing of files (i.e. remotely login to files saved on your home network, open them directly (not download locally to edit))

Does it provide realtime syncing of files?

I'm thinking my situation would be best served with a combination of Google Drive (15Gb cloud storage) and realtime syncing of targeted directories to my router attached storage, which then makes all files accessible for viewing only (i.e. media collection, pictures, music) online. Dsynchronize does this perfectly and is dead simple to setup. All the other options I tried either backup in 1 minute intervals minimum, or simply don't offer exact 2-way syncing of files (for example Yadis backup will add files to the backup drive, but not delete them when they are deleted from the source PC, so it's not true 2-way syncing.)

Thanks for the update, but I doubt I have your level of technical know-how to set-up what you have done!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by cptwhite_uk

Does your solution allow remote editing of files (i.e. remotely login to files saved on your home network, open them directly (not download locally to edit))

Does it provide realtime syncing of files?

I'm thinking my situation would be best served with a combination of Google Drive (15Gb cloud storage) and realtime syncing of targeted directories to my router attached storage, which then makes all files accessible for viewing only (i.e. media collection, pictures, music) online. Dsynchronize does this perfectly and is dead simple to setup. All the other options I tried either backup in 1 minute intervals minimum, or simply don't offer exact 2-way syncing of files (for example Yadis backup will add files to the backup drive, but not delete them when they are deleted from the source PC, so it's not true 2-way syncing.)

Thanks for the update, but I doubt I have your level of technical know-how to set-up what you have done!

---

Assuming you can install the client on your machine it works exactly the same as dropbox (i.e. edit on local filesystem, it syncs when it detects changes). Syncs then propogate out to other machines. With one machine on the lan and one tethered to my phone it took approx 2m for an updated 250k word doc to propogate (about 15 to get to my server on the lan, the rest out to the laptop). I've yet to test on a better connection or deletions (although it does versioning if you set it up that way, so it will retain deleted documents for a period.

It doesn't allow remote mounting of say a shared folder, but then I don't trust windows filesharing enough to expose that to the web and if I desperately needed it for some reason I could always VPN.

If you want to try it out pm me and I'll set you up a user on my server for a couple of days (with a tiny disk space allocation!)
It will

Online data redundancy is nice, but make sure you have offline backups of anything you care about too.

Hard drive failure is only one source of trouble, you can also get accidental deletion, the act of some nasty git breaking into your network or apparently on the rise data ransom:

http://arstechnica.com/security/2013...0-in-bitcoins/

An auto-snapshot filesystem would help with some of this, allowing you to recover/regress files to an uncorrupted state, but only if you catch the problem before the relevant snapshot rolls over and disappears.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix

Online data redundancy is nice, but make sure you have offline backups of anything you care about too.

Hard drive failure is only one source of trouble, you can also get accidental deletion, the act of some nasty git breaking into your network or apparently on the rise data ransom:

http://arstechnica.com/security/2013...0-in-bitcoins/

An auto-snapshot filesystem would help with some of this, allowing you to recover/regress files to an uncorrupted state, but only if you catch the problem before the relevant snapshot rolls over and disappears.

---

True Dat - I have it set to store 30 days history on stuff I feel is important (which includes deleted files) and its stored on a RAID 5 array, which has desperately important stuff (documents rather than music collections) mirrored to a cold HDD every 2 weeks. Stuff I desperately couldn't be without is also stored on dropbox, so I reckon I'm covered (can you tell I've suffered at the hands of a crashed head before?)

The Truecrypt stuff should hopefully be sorted by the versioning, but if it isn't its still only going to be 2 weeks at most.