Question Creating Redundant Onsite and Offsite NAS / RAID Setup ?

Aug 7, 2024
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Greetings! I am new to this type of storage setup and need to store large quantities of data for a business. I am in need of creating both an on-site long-term storage device as well as an off-site backup that I will store at another location, trying to follow data storage best practices of both on-site and off-site. Neither storage device will be actively worked from as that will be done directly on computers or smaller SSD's, these are only backups. I would also prefer smaller profiles as these are not going to be stored in a server room, but more at a residence as these are home based businesses.

The first storage device I would like to be accessible by both PC and MAC via an easy to use interface (i.e. I do not want to hardwire into it and be able to access from anywhere). We will not work off of this device, but use this to store completed projects as a backup device, as well as important personal documents and backups. The device will be directly hard-wired into my fiber internet router and as I said, I want to be able to access it via multiple PC's / Mac's at the location in a simple manner to upload files or download files if needed for recovery or a client. Goal is OS agnostic.

Security of this device is important to me - I do not need encryption, but I absolutely want to be able to create user logins and passwords to limit access. If this device would be web facing (i.e. could be searched), I'd like it to also have a brute force restriction on it, if possible, but is not a hard requirement as I can create extremely complex passwords and usernames with a password manager. I want to ensure it is not indexed by a search engine anywhere as well to mitigate security risk to it, but I'm just not sure how this type of stuff works.

The secondary device I would like to host at an off-site location on a different network. The purpose of this is to have it purely be a backup /copy of the first device I described. I would like the first device to run a weekly or daily update where it automatically backs itself up to the secondary device. The secondary device should have access where I can access it remotely from the primary location if the main device fails with this also having the same security criteria. I would also be open to a different secondary backup method as well, such as if there is a cloud service I am not aware of that would be feasible and run regular updates against the main setup. Probably much easier than having something online at someone else's home.

Frankly, I'm not sure how to go about setting this up. The amount of data we are needing to store is significant and cloud storage is prohibitively expensive. Overall, I don't have an immediate budget, but I would like to try and keep it around the $2,000 marker all in, including the drives or SSD's, depending on what is recommended. I am guessing somewhere around 20 - 40 TB to start with, and would like to have some room to expand if needed. I'd also prefer this to be a ready to go solution that I just need to add drives to, if at all possible, as I am not well versed enough to do some of the things I am seeing online with soldering and writing software.
  • What type of setup is best for this?
  • Is there a brand that features the type of interface and easy to use setup I am looking for?
  • Are there security implications I am not considering or should do differently?
  • For this type of setup, is HDD vs. SDD of consideration?
  • What software (or is it native to the device) allows me to run that backup schedule, and how do I go about setting that up?
Thank you in advance for any help you can provide me here. Will be happy to answer any additional questions along the way if I left anything out, or there is anything I did not take into account.
 
You ended your post with 5 bulleted questions.

What you need to do next is to provide what you believe to be the answers to those questions and why those answers.

Cite sources etc. to support your answers.

The next step then being to solicit further input regarding your environment and requirements.