Organisations use NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices as reliable high-capacity data repositories. Still, you need to protect your data no matter how reliable your NAS disks are. With NAS storage backup, you can ensure data recoverability and business continuity in case of any disaster or outage.
Read this post to learn:
- What is NAS backup?
- Why is NAS storage backup important?
- What are the different NAS cloud and local backup strategies?
- How to effectively organize NAS backup workflows
Understanding NAS Backup
The term NAS backup can have two meanings: backup as an asset and backup as a process.
- An asset is copy of NAS data, which you create, regularly update and store in a separate repository. In case the original data is unavailable, corrupt or lost, you can use a backup copy for recovery purposes.
- A process is a set of workflows that you implement and execute to create, transfer and store spare NAS data copies. The volume and variety of data that modern organizations operate require complex measures to enable efficient backups.
The Importance of NAS Storage Backup
Critical enterprise data that organizations store on NAS device disks is normally valuable and subject to compliance requirements. In such circumstances, ignoring data loss threats is not an option. Below are some challenges that a NAS backup can help you overcome in case of a data loss scenario:
- Human error: Human errors include accidental file deletion, improper drive maintenance or system update, rendering the NAS system inoperable.
- Maintenance error: Maintaining the NAS functionality requires timely hard disk service and replacement, which might be overlooked in some cases. Also, employees responsible for hardware operations may replace the wrong disk or damage other critical NAS equipment. Any hardware failure can then lead to NAS data loss.
- Cyber threats: Malware can infect a NAS device and cause serious problems with data access and integrity. For example, ransomware can encrypt the data and then delete it if hackers don’t receive the ransom on time. Moreover, cyber threats aren’t limited to dangers from the outside – a malicious insider who has access to NAS can delete or corrupt the data.
- Insufficient cooling: NAS appliances require a specific cooling system and air access to function properly. Overheating inside a device’s case can cause drive to malfunction, and data loss can follow.
Natural disasters: Depending on the region, a flood, a fire, a hurricane or an earthquake hitting your office can destroy a NAS appliance. Recovering the data from a destroyed HDD is a task that can be either extremely expensive or even impossible. - Power issues: Unplanned power supply interruptions in an organization’s office or data center can lead to issues with NAS hardware and disks. In addition to the downtime throughout the blackout, more issues, such as data corruption due to incorrect RAID integration, may appear once power is restored.
- Disk failure: An organization configures RAID to avoid data losses if one of the drives in a NAS fails. Still, a failure of multiple disks can result in a global NAS malfunction and data loss emergency.
Modern NAS backup solutions, such as NAKIVO Backup & Replication, enable fast and efficient incremental backups of unstructured data in SMB/NFS shares that organizations host on NAS devices.
NAS Cloud and Local Backup Strategies
You can categorise your NAS backup strategy based on the type of data repository and data transfer protocol. The four main strategies are:
- NAS to a USB disk backup
- NAS to NAS backup
- NAS online backup (backing up NAS to the cloud)
- NDMP backup
Let’s review each strategy in detail, focusing on its strengths and weaknesses.
NAS to USB Disk
You can normally can connect USB devices to NAS appliances via onboard ports. The simplest NAS backup strategy is to connect a regular USB disk drive and copy the required data to that drive from a NAS. The approach is manual, with all the specific traits of legacy methods.
Pros:
- Simplicity – you don’t need anything but a USB drive and knowledge of your NAS operating system to use this method.
- Security – you can control the hardware and data throughout the backup process. Additionally, backups on a USB drive become air-gapped once you detach that drive from your NAS.
Cons:
- Volume deficiency – the capacity of a single HDD is limited to 30 TB as of February 2024. With appropriate adapters, you can use that disk as a portable USB storage. The volume can suit some SMBs, but enterprises most probably need more capacity to fit their NAS backup data.
- No automation – you can’t automate a NAS backup system based on copying data to USB drives. This puts certain limitations on convenience, backup timing, and overall data reliability.
NAS to NAS backup
This is a local backup strategy that provides more control over your data but requires additional investments into infrastructure and maintenance. Here, you need a production NAS and a NAS to keep backup data copies. The strategy can also include backups from production disks other than NAS (workstations, servers, mobile devices, among others).
Pros:
- Scalability – you can increase storage capacity on your backup NAS appliance as your data volumes grow.
- Flexibility – NAS storage backup over the network provides a set of efficient transfer options and tools.
- Automation – setting up automated workflows can streamline data administration, cut backup windows and increase data resilience.
Cons:
- Maintenance – team members need to service NAS hardware, software and disks in addition to the production environment. This requires appropriate qualification, effort and time.
- Costs – building and monitoring a secondary NAS generally require additional investments.
Cloud NAS Backup
You can use public clouds such as Amazon S3, Backblaze B2 or Microsoft Azure to store your NAS online backup data copies. This strategy can suit SMBs well as they don’t need to invest significant funds in an on-site NAS appliance and its maintenance.
Pros:
- Flexibility – vendors allow clients to increase cloud storage limits on demand. Organizations can save funds when they’re starting their business and extend online backup storage capacity as their data volumes grow.
- Data resilience – public cloud data centres are normally geographically distributed to ensure data redundancy and service availability. This makes the data fault-tolerant and protected against disasters.
Cons:
- Storage cost – as your NAS backup data volumes grow, public cloud storage fees may dramatically increase. In such cases, large enterprises might want to consider building their own backup infrastructure instead of regularly investing in public clouds.
NDMP Backup
- Network Data Management Protocol (NDMP) can be used to control communications between storages on various systems, including NAS appliances. You can use the protocol to create backups of files from your NAS and file servers via the network. You can back up NAS data directly to a backup server or tape using this protocol.
Pros:
- Versatility – NDMP is an open standard protocol with specifications standardized for various backup solutions and NAS appliances.
- Management features – you can manage your data backup workflows more efficiently with NDMP options.
- Optimisation – offloading backup traffic enables you to avoid bottlenecks during data transfer.
Cons:
- Incompatibility issues – a data format for NAS backups is not specified and can be set differently by NAS vendors. It can cause incompatibility issues between different NAS platforms for cross-platform data backup.
Conclusion
NAS backup means creating a copy of the data you keep on your network-attached storage disks. You can back up NAS data to multiple repositories, including USB drives, other NAS appliances, cloud storage or tape. Given the volumes of NAS data to back up, consider integrating a specialized data protection solution such as NAKIVO Backup & Replication to enable fast backups, swift recoveries and advanced data management.
Photo by Joshua Sortino on Unsplash
