Backup Strategy SMBs

Synology
1

Hi All,

Looking for a sanity check for updating my backup strategy.

Background:
We are a small family owned manufacturer of machined parts. I am the new admin left with an RS1221+. When I started, it only had 4 4TB drives. I have 6 VM’s across 2 VM host machines. I am using Active Backup to back up the VM’s along with a job to backup critical file shares on one of the VM for quick access file level restores. It did not take long to fill this up and not able to maintain more than a couple copies. This device is for backups only, it does not act as public file share, only accessible by a local account and service account for Active Backup.

Improvements:
Added 4 8TB drives to create another pool in open bays, migrated some of the jobs to the second pool.
Hyper Backup of the VMs and File share to S3 type cloud.

Watching one of the videos, I might be missing having another local copy that would provide a quicker restore than Hyper Backup back from the cloud - its there if we lose the building. Trying for the new version of 3 2 1.

Question:
Should I duplicate my RS1221+ at one of our other 2 buildings on site or is there a better model? Same capacity or more with either 8TB or 12TB (looking for value). And then replicate from builing A to building B across the local network.

That way I am better covered locally if I lose the server room in building A but still have building B.

I appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks
Mike

2

This is one of those situations where I would suggest contracting Will for an hour or two to get a recommendation. Running a business is different from running a home server, so while I might have thoughts to help, there are probably questions I’m not smart enough to ask. Good luck.

3

Yes, you absolutely want a second backup in a separate location. Whether a second building on the same site is far enough away is your call.

If the NAS is solely backup rather than live data, and you’re going to backup everything, then there’s not much to choose from between snapshot replication and hyperbackup to a hyperbackup vault.

Backups can store multiple versions. I would normally have any backup NAS bigger, but as both of yours are backup that point is moot. Your second backup NAS could even just store less versions and be smaller.