Unraid as location for Photos backup

[jang430]

Hi. I have been using Unraid for over 3 years. I have primarily used it to store videos, for streaming.

 

I feel it is now time for me to start backing up photos on my desktop. I'd like to know if Unraid is suitable to do this? Or will it be better to setup a Freenas box?

 

I prefer to use Freenas, as I have 1 already, and don't have budget to create another Freenas box. But is it safe?

 

If Unraid is safe, how would you guys go about it? I am using Acdsee on the desktop, and whenever I import photos, it asks "create another copy at..."

 

Fiurthermore, I'd like to have automated backup of my Acdsee folder on the desktop. What's the best way to set this up?

 

Thanks

 

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[bman]

I always keep at least two copies of my photos, and that's generally using two unRAID servers. I have several thousand on my desktop as well, but that's just a staging area while I finish tagging and thinning them out.

 

unRAID has worked very well or this purpose for me. I just created another share on it for photos (and a backup photos one on the backup server) and it's turned out to be a great repository for digital photo frames and the like as well as keeping them safe.

 

I use Robocopy to keep automated backups of my desktop files. I place the command in a batch file and run it from Task Scheduler. Used to use Second Copy which has all sorts of options but it was overkill in the end and I shied away from it.

 

[tdallen]

I don't have the time or energy to mix and match unRAID and FreeNAS.  I find unRAID to be a great home server solution, including photos, videos, backups, office files, etc.  Do you have any specific concerns about why it wouldn't be safe?

 

I use SyncBack Free to automate backups from desktops/laptops to my unRAID server.

[jang430]

Bman, thank you for your valuable input.

Regarding Robocopy, does it work with Windows 10? I intend to have my desktop have a full copy of all my pictures. If I want to copy most recently added photos (in case there are new ones added), will it be able to do this?

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[jang430]

I don't have the time or energy to mix and match unRAID and FreeNAS.  I find unRAID to be a great home server solution, including photos, videos, backups, office files, etc.  Do you have any specific concerns about why it wouldn't be safe?
 
I use SyncBack Free to automate backups from desktops/laptops to my unRAID server.

I know performance wise, Unraid isn't the fastest. I've read a few Unraid vs Freenas articles, and almost all say file protection isn't as good as ZFS in Freenas. Any truth in this?

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[bman]

I'm not sure there's any basis for complaint on the speed front since most photos are a few dozen MB at best. 

 

unRAID uses one or two parity drives just like FreeNAS and ZFS can.  You're planning on using your server as a backup, which means you have another copy of all your files elsewhere.  If something fails, you fix it and copy over any lost data. The server OS and configuration makes little difference in that case as far as best file protection goes.

 

ZFS (not just FreeNAS) offers features unRAID does not for data integrity and recovery, and unRAID offers some FreeNAS does not. To me it isn't worth the cost of higher CPU resources and requiring same size hard drives in each Vdev (array) to use FreeNAS over unRAID.

 

unRAID requires only that your parity drive(s) be at least as large as your largest data drive, and all other data drives are whatever sizes you have available to use.  FreeNAS can deliver more read and write throughput than unRAID because it uses multiple same-size disks together for read & write operations, as opposed to unRAID using one drive at a time.

 

Each drive in a FreeNAS Vdev generally is a member of a specialized pool of data, and none can stand on its own if something really goes awry.  unRAID uses separate data disks each having its own intact and mountable file system which can be used without unRAID if/as needed, thus minimizing data loss without getting wild with numerous Vdevs each having their own parity disk(s).

 

So which is better?  That surely is a question that each person must answer for themselves.  I'd suggest your current unRAID server will not let you down for photos as well (assuming you're using a parity drive or two) as for your video streaming.  In my mind unRAID is the value choice that doesn't compromise on data protection.

 

[jang430]

Bman, thank you very much for the good explanation. It makes things clearer. Indeed, 1 of the most important thing with Unraid is it can still be read per disk in case something goes wrong.

BTW, since we're talking about the topic, does it mean to access Freenas, drives spin in groups?

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[tjb_altf4]

Depending on the collection size, using Google Photos / Drive as an intermediary might be a nice solution that gives offsite backup as well as replication between Google Drive instances.

You can sync via desktop app, or if you want to sync on unraid, rclone should do the trick.

 

Planning on doing something similar in coming weeks, I already manage my photos via Google Photos.

[bman]

On 2017-05-08 at 8:07 PM, jang430 said:

Bman, thank you very much for the good explanation. It makes things clearer. Indeed, 1 of the most important thing with Unraid is it can still be read per disk in case something goes wrong.

BTW, since we're talking about the topic, does it mean to access Freenas, drives spin in groups?

Sent from my LG-D855 using Tapatalk
 

Technically you can have just one drive in a "group" for use with FreeNAS, but if I understand your question correctly, then the answer is yes, they spin in groups.  And need to be upgraded in groups, too... that's my personal "nope!" decision point.  I like being able to upgrade one drive at a time as needed.

[mukow]

For my setup I have a share on my UNRAID for Photos.

I then run a docker of CrashPlan to backup my photos to "CrashPlan" cloud, you could backup to another crashplan device for free, for example on your desktop or vice versa.

I have a Nextcloud docker running on the UNRAID

I have Nextcloud mobile app to automatically upload photos from my phone to Unraid.

[jang430]

bman, thanks for your resounding "nope" to freenas   I see your point now.

 

So have to make photos backup work with Unraid.  Mukow, when you say you have a share on Unraid for Photos, any suggestion on best practice?  Assuming single drive is enough, will it be better to put share on a single drive?  Or share consisting multiple drives?  I'm using ACDSee.  It asks me where to save extra copy upon import of Photos, I assume it will be best to map this share onto my Windows?  And point this folder as extra location?  

 

Furthermore, aside from this, I'd like to backup automatically also.  Crashplan seems to work.  My problem with Crashplan is I don't see backed up content unless I restore.  Is there any other backup (preferably also on docker, unraid) that can backup automatically, and allow me to see the backed up contents?

[pcgirl]

On 5/9/2017 at 2:04 AM, tjb_altf4 said:

Depending on the collection size, using Google Photos / Drive as an intermediary might be a nice solution that gives offsite backup as well as replication between Google Drive instances.

You can sync via desktop app, or if you want to sync on unraid, rclone should do the trick.

 

Planning on doing something similar in coming weeks, I already manage my photos via Google Photos.

I am interested in whether you got this setup or not with google photos?  I am also wondering if when you sync the photos with google photos and Unraid, if this counts toward idrive space or can it be done with just using the google photos free unlimited storage?

[digiblur]

I am interested in whether you got this setup or not with google photos?  I am also wondering if when you sync the photos with google photos and Unraid, if this counts toward idrive space or can it be done with just using the google photos free unlimited storage?

I keep several copies of photos. You can never replace that data. I have 2 copies at home, one is on unraid, one on Amazon Photos and another is Google Photos. Both of those use the unlimited photo storage option. Amazon with a prime subscription which we would have anyways for many other reasons, they give that to you as perk. They store the original uncompressed photo and even store RAW formats as unlimited.

Our household phones automatically back up to Amazon photos as well. I just checked and we have 57k photos at 350 gig up there.

Unfortunately they won't store video, but Google photos does as unlimited.

[pcgirl]

I have my photos on unraid as well and I use google photos.  My phone syncs to google photos.  How do you get the photos to sync to unraid with google photos and amazon prime?  And vice versa.  If I load photos onto unraid from my computer how do I sync them to google photos without using the google drive, which uses the drive capicity and not the unlimited photos?

[tjb_altf4]

15 hours ago, pcgirl said:

I am interested in whether you got this setup or not with google photos?  I am also wondering if when you sync the photos with google photos and Unraid, if this counts toward idrive space or can it be done with just using the google photos free unlimited storage?

 

If I'm reading this correctly, it isn't counted, even when backing up through Google Drive.

 

https://support.google.com/drive/answer/6093613?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop&hl=en

 

Quote

Space used depends on your storage setting and which product you use

• Items uploaded via Google Drive count against your storage quota, regardless of size.
• Items uploaded via Google Photos:
  • Don't use quota if they're stored in "High quality."
  • Do use quota if they're stored in "Original quality." 

 

Have not got around to backing up to unRaid yet, I need to spend some time organising the rest of my gdrive first lol

Edited October 19, 2017 by tjb_altf4

[pcgirl]

Yes, if you upload photos by dragging to your google drive on your PC it counts against your google drive usage but if you upload photos from your phone or from you computer by dragging to google photos in a web browser, it is unlimited.  Just not sure how to do it any other way to maintain the unlimited.

[isvein]

I have installed Minio server on Unraid and uses CloudBerry to backup from windows to unraid, but that is just one way to do it.

Before we all used Crashplan Home, but that is not an option any more.

Planing to setup another Minio server on my other server and backup to that one too.