Network Attached Storage (NAS)
Network Attached Storage (NAS)
Whether you have a home office, a small business or a big business the following facts of cyber life are true. Data sets are growing larger and larger. Images are have higher resolution. Legal standards and industry requirements are making data archiving a necessity.
Not only does this effect the overall storage requirements of a business but the safety of this data can be at risk.
This risk is can take several forms:
- The data sets have gradually grown larger than the company's backup capability.
- A scheduled backup may no longer be effective because it required 2 pieces of media to complete.
- The second piece of media is not inserted.
- The files you are trying to backup are in use and cannot be backed up after the second piece of media is inserted.
- On-line backup can only backup a small data set each day because the speed of the on-line connection is too slow to allow much more than 10-20 GB per day.
Data is really a company's most valuable asset. In fact it might be a company's only unrecoverable asset. Capital equipment is insured and can easily be replaced at no or a small cost to the company. Plant and equipment can be destroyed, but with the proper insurance, these can also be replaced or the company can relocate. Personnel make the company what it is, but even these valuable assets can be replaced. The only asset a company has that is truly perishable, is it's data. Not only is is perishable, it can grow stale very quickly. In the financial world yesterday's data can be too stale to be of use. In fact data that is 10 minutes old may fall into the same category if it is the data on a flight recorder or recording a Nuclear reactor's operation.
If any of this critical data is lost so that it is truly unrecoverable the company may cease to exist.
Types of Storage
Simple Single / Raid - 1 Mirrored disc storage
Raid - 5 Error Correcting Storage
Raid - 5 "Hot Swap" Error Correcting Storage
Raid - 5 "Hot Swap" Error Correcting Storage with Built in Tape Backup
Raid - 5 "Hot Swap" Error Correcting Storage with Built in Tape Library
Dual Raid - 5 "Hot Swap" Disc Arrays (Raid - 10) with a`Built-in Tape Library
Benefit vs Cost
The cost of the NAS device you choose is based on the feature set you require.
NAS devices come in a varied set of configurations and the costs vary from less than $1000 dollars to more than $20,000 dollars and everything in between. The Feature set that you can chose ranges from a single external hard drive in a network connection enclosure to a disc array consisting of several redundant, "Hot Swap" drives with a built in hi-speed tape library.
Obviously a single drive is the least expensive entry into the NAS world. It is a small incremental increase in expense to grow the single drive to a Raid - 1 Array. A Raid - 1 array is a mirrored drive set, this means that the data stored on this array is redundant and a single disc failure will not effect the data's survivability. This configuration is perfect for a Peer to Peer, small office network. It is even applicable for backing up data on a single laptop or workstation. The growth of digital cameras have resulted in very large amounts of irreplaceable data that is not currently backed up.
A NAS solution is the answer. As the network size increases so does the NAS requirements. The configurations are varied but can be classified as 6 classes.
- Simple Single / Raid - 1 Mirrored disc storage
- Raid - 5 Error Correcting Storage
- Raid - 5 "Hot Swap" Error Correcting Storage
- Raid - 5 "Hot Swap" Error Correcting Storage with Built in Tape Backup
- Raid - 5 "Hot Swap" Error Correcting Storage with Built in Tape Library
- Dual Raid - 5 "Hot Swap" Disc Arrays (Raid - 10) with a`Built-in Tape Library
The devices that make sense for a small business reside in the first 4 classes. These devices range in cost from $1000 to $8000 but can be tailored to have the feature set that is required by the business.
Raid Classes
NAS differs from the traditional file serving and Direct Attached Storage in that the operating system and other software on the NAS unit provide only the functionality of data storage, data access and the management of these functionalities. Furthermore, the NAS unit does not limit clients to only one file transfer protocol. NAS systems usually contain one or more hard disks, often arranged into logical, redundant storage containers or RAID arrays, as do traditional file servers. NAS removes the responsibility of file serving from other servers on the network and can be deployed via commercial embedded units or via standard computers running NAS software. NAS uses file-based protocols such as NFS (popular on UNIX systems) or Server message block (SMB) (used with MS Windows systems). Contrast NAS's file-based approach and use of well-understood protocols with storage area network (SAN) which uses a block-based approach and generally runs over proprietary protocols. Minimal-functionality or stripped-down operating systems are used on NAS computers or devices which run the protocols and file applications that provide the NAS functionality. A "leaned-out" Free BSD is used in Free NAS, for example, which is open source NAS software meant to be deployed on standard computer hardware. Commercial embedded devices and consumer "network appliances" may use closed source operating systems and protocol implementations.
- Additional Storage
- Fast data retrieval
- Data Backup
- Disaster Recovery
- email Archival
- Data Redundancy
Online Backup
The on-line, off-site backup of critical data is a cost effective solution and it is painless because it happens automatically. If you think about it in monthly costs, a second server and tape drive will cost about $5,000. It will have about a 3-4 year life. That is about 104.00/month for 4 years. You can on-line backup about 14GB of data every night for the same amount, with no up front costs. If you want to back up more than 14GB is cheaper to use Tape, but you have to deal with all that goes along with that.
Disaster recovery can be handled in many ways that balance expense against need;
- Complete Backup that is manually taken off site everyday
- Complete backups that are automatically stored off site.
- Continuous data backup that stores data on a network attached storage device.
- Continuous data backup that stores data on a network attached storage device with a built-in tape drive and an on-line off-site backup failsafe.
- Complete redundancy with an off-site server.
None of these solutions is particularly expensive when you consider the alternative. There are software/hardware appliances that facilitate these disaster recovery options. I have been investigating them because many of our clients do not have as good a backup subsystem that they could. Many Clients will deem our optimum solution too expensive.
In my 40+ years of computer service experience no one has ever cared about the expense of data recovery but most complain about the cost of data backup. The cost of a real and complete backup strategy is going to cost less than $10,000.00 for a 3 year solution. How much less depends on the amount of data involved. The cost of data recovery for a server based RAID storage system can cost up to $25,000.00 per instance. The cost for even a 80GB single disk recovery can typically be in the 3000 – 4000 dollar range.
Backup Exec or any other backup software that you use to backup your server has a disaster recovery client that backup's the boot data and mission critical data to a workstation, or an off-site Network Storage device. There are services that will backup your data, and store it in a vault underground in a mountain out west. This is the kind of backup banks and government institutions use.
Continuous backup is the newest technology and it is the most disaster proof backup technology available. It basically has a copy of data that is consistent to your last good operation. Of course it is the most expensive form of backup.
When you combine the various backup methods and strategies you get a full-proof backup system that gives you all the protection and convenience your company really needs. We are backup experts and can design a system that will stand up to any scrutiny form any government or industry inspection team.
Off Site Storage
Do you feel as though off-site/on-line back-up would obviate the need for our in-house tape drive (or at least the need to replace it when/if it expires) or is there a sense in having the tapes in the case of day-to-day mini-disasters like recovering deleted files?
Say we have the "inexpensive server with tape-drive" at your shop. In practice how would you be able to use that? Would you have to bring it to our new/temporary offices and set it up with a few computers from Best Buy? George has talked about the fact that if we had such a cold server it would be able to have all of our software already loaded without affecting our software licenses where applicable. Would we be able to log into it remotely assuming that none of us could move around (e.g. pandemic)
Answer: We have a AIT-3 tape drive in house on our servers. We can easily recover your data for you, or if we had to, we could take the tape drive out of our system and loan it to you.
The other solution is a Secure On-Line backup, stored by its very nature, off-site. We are offering this as a new service starting the beginning of the year. We have been testing this option for the past 6 months and have several clients on the service now.
We have contracted with a nationally known On-Line backup service. This service is SEC and HPPA approved. The On-line backup sends data to a secure location that is hardened, has backup power, Multiple power feeds, Multiple Internet feed, a secondary mirrored site and is physically secured.
The backup client will back up the entire server or selected data on a daily-nightly basis. The data is recoverable on-line or physically on external media. Since the server site is based in Marlboro, MA I could recover the data with-in a few hours. Off-site back up every night will satisfy many requirements.
The pricing is about $25.00/Compressed GB. The compression ratio for data is between 3 and 4 to 1. i.e. 14GB of data compresses down to about 4GB.
Either way we can provide whatever you need. A new AIT-3 tape drive will cost about $2,000.00. To recover the data you would need a system with a SCSI controller and backup exec loaded. You could also have a inexpensive server built with an AIT-3 tape drive installed and ready to go. It could be stored at our location and be ready to provide operational service with-in a few hours of a disaster.
The on-line, off-site backup of critical data is a cost effective solution and it is painless because it happens automatically. If you think about it in monthly costs, a second server and tape drive will cost about $5,000. It will have about a 3-4 year life. That is about 104.00/month for 4 years. You can on-line backup about 14GB of data every night for the same amount, with no up front costs. If you want to back up more than 14GB is cheaper to use Tape, but you have to deal with all that goes along with that.
Disaster recovery can be handled in many ways from complete redundancy with an off-site server to complete backups that are stored off site, to continuous backup to network attached storage device with on on-line backup failsafe.
None of these solutions is particularly expensive when you consider the alternative. There are software/hardware appliances that facilitate these disaster recovery options. I have been investigating them because many of our clients do not have as good a backup subsystem that you have.
On-line - off site storage may be the only piece that you are missing. Backup Exec, the software that you use to backup your server has a disaster recovery client that backup's the boot data and mission critical data to a workstation, or an off site Network Storage device. There are services that will backup your data, and store it in a vault underground in a mountain out west. This is the kind of backup banks and government institutions use.
Continuous backup is the newest technology and it is the most disaster proof backup technology available. It basically has a copy of data that is consistent to your last good operation.