What to do with extra HDDs
Hey guys, I'm setting up my NAS (openmediavault) and very much enjoying it! It now runs my Nextcloud and a couple of services. I got a mirror ZFS setup of two 8TB drives.
I got another two 8TB drives and am doubting whether I should add them as an extra mirror vdev, or create a new pool for extra backup. I'm not sure if that extra backup is necessary though, since I got a cloud backup already every day. My drives are only used 14% so I'm not even sure if I should already put them in the pool. What do you guys think?
WTF is an extra HDD?
A mirror array is not a backup. So therefor I would use at least one of those extra drives for a weekly backup of your data. You want some sort of not real-time backup in case you get cryptoed for example
That is true, but I was indeed not counting it as such, I currently just have the cloud as a backup.
If you've got cloud backup you're good, keep the drives in a drawer as spares or have another use?
Primary rule of thumb is 2 physical backups and one offsite backup(cloud). Remember physical medium can fail or degrade
I understand, but I was thinking, since I have a cloud backup, if my drive(s) fail I cam still always recover, correct?
Cloud service may also decide that they're tired of being in business and close without notice. Unlikely, but possible
What if the cloud server corrupts your data in transfer or worse shuts down its server without notification. It can and has happened.
For example, I had a cloud backup went to get it and the server could no longer be found. That was with Dropbox mind you. I lost 10gb of important files because of it. Never trust just one source of backup. Always have a secondary just in case.
Is it ok to ask what sort of data you have?
Yes definitely! It is personal data like family videos, photo's and documents mostly. I'm using this nextcloud for the whole family.