On-site backup: external disk vs. internal disk vs. NAS

Hi

For backing up my computer on-site, what considerations are there for choosing between an external hard drive connected via USB, another internal hard drive or a hard drive in a NAS connected via a router?

Presumably the internal drive will be fastest? But what about the speed of USB drive vs. NAS?

And will data on an internal hard drive be more likely to be destroyed by a virus (can such a thing happen)?

Anything else to consider?

It depends how much you are willing to spend For normal users (soho/personal use) I would say one internal drive + external USB drive, which is disconnected when not needed is all you need. But nevertheless I wouldn't rely on internal drive only. There's too many thing that can happen with that, so external drive is must in my case. Even if you sacrifice internal drive.
NAS is fancy thing, which is not all that cheap (yes I know it's not all that expensive either), but it has few minuses, which people normally forget. First, sure it has RAID, but that's main problem of it. You can change disks without problem, but once controller says it has enough, you are scr**wed. There's not many people who can rescue data from RAID 5 where controller failed. And yes they do fail... more then someone might think.
So my suggest... get external USB drive and don't have it connect and turned on when not needed, and you will be fine.

I've got a 2TB internal drive. Then that gets backed up to 2 external ones (bare drives) via a USB 3.0 drive dock. 1 of the drives goes off site.

I have 2 x 2TB drives internal in RAID1. Then I also have 2 x RAID1 eSATA boxes, which each have 2 x 2TB drives in RAID1. The internal drives get backed up to the external drives. One set is for photos, the other is for other stuff.

eSATA is pretty quick.

Off-site backups to a 2TB drive.

IMO an internal drive is best for on-site based on speed but an external is best (marginally) based on physical safety.

It's up to you to decide which is more important. Do you do most of your backups real-time or do they run overnight where speed is far less of an impact?

Offsite backups are a must, however, so you should consider that a part of the system. I have an internal RAID 5 with a 3TB internal backup of that. I then rotate external drive backups of those offsite every week or three, depending on volume. I just brought my latest backup set to work this morning...

If you set up an automatic backup to an external drive you can switch out the external for an offsite or two. Alternating them that way gives you a bit more coverage and protects you from a local disaster (house burns down, flood, robbery, etc.)

External drive, not connected, in addition to your offsite drive(s).

Multiple externals, with one stored off site.

Backup speed should not be an issue. Once Time Machine or Windows backup starts...you should not be sitting there waiting for it to complete. Let it run at lunch or at night.

For the Mac world, it is hard to beat Time Machine writing to a Time Capsule via ethernet for a local backup. Periodically also do a backup to a portable drive that gets swapped to a bank vault or other offsite storage. Another alternative is backup to a cloud service.

If you can... try and go eSATA. I have an external back drive that is only connected during backups. The backup dock has the option to run via USB or eSATA. If your computer has a eSATA port use it, you'll never look back.

primoz wrote in post #14729443
NAS is fancy thing, which is not all that cheap (yes I know it's not all that expensive either), but it has few minuses, which people normally forget. First, sure it has RAID, but that's main problem of it. You can change disks without problem, but once controller says it has enough, you are scr**wed. There's not many people who can rescue data from RAID 5 where controller failed. And yes they do fail... more then someone might think.

That is why many of the NAS systems are getting away from a dedicated RAID controller and basing the NAS OS on a linux kernal. They are upping the processing power of the NAS box by using the savings on not having the controller chip. A Linux RAID is very easy to rebuild and can be moved from one box to another without loosing any data. I wouldn't fret too much over that.

I'd be far more worried about those who keep on using the built in raid inside most of the Desktop's we are buying. those are based on very inexpensive chips that are batch made and you can't even be sure if they will even be available in new generation rev's of the same motherboard.

NAS can be far slower than USB as you are dealing with a network and most of us don't do proper cabling to get even close to the Gigabit throughput potential in a home computer environment. But the down side to doing the USB thing is that you have to remember to plug it in and do the backup. I like that a NAS is always out there. In a different room (in my case locked in a basement cabinet) so even if someone comes and breaks into my house and nicks off with the computer, chances are they won't even look for the backup NAS. And I have my computer set to Wake and backup at 3:00am automatically for me. It makes sure that the backup happens each and every night.