Offline Data Storage

Ahoy! My internal hdds are at max with all I've been torrenting and I'm considering some type of Docking station for my desktop with several 10Tbs drives in them to allow me to store and backup my data for offline protection.

I was wondering if anyone had done any type of setup like this and if it's a reliable method for offline data storage. I'd also like it to have a RAID capability but I have software which can mirror drives to each other on startup/shutdown, etc. Also, I'd need it to have a USB-type connection for a USB SSD drive to pop-out & connect to my Smart TV for viewing.

An end goal would be to get a 3-2-1 setup but I can't find a reliable Cloud storage I'd trust with that much data except maybe Filen.

Any positive input about brands, drives, services, etc. would be most appreciated!

Thanks!

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Also, I'd need it to have a USB-type connection for a USB SSD drive to pop-out & connect to my Smart TV for viewing.
Let me introduce you to my friend Jellyfin.
- I've heard of Jellyfin but my PC doesn't have a WiFi card, only a NIC. For some reason when they rebuilt my computer they didn't put a WiFi card back in. I can't use Jellyfin w/o that, can I?
  
  As long as you are in some way connected to the same network as the TV (by cable, wifi, black magic...) you can use jellyfin.
  
  Not only is it not necessary but it's not recommended.
- My experience with all the media servers is not great.
  Popped up Jellyfin once again just last weekend and the quality was not great, and it had issues streaming. Just like every time I've tried any media server.
  The answer for me is a media player pc at the TV running something like Kodi.
  
  That's not anything to do with Jellyfin, that's something to do with your hardware.
  
  The actual answer is a better device for playback of media.
  Example: If your TV is a 30" 720p 80% sRGB panel why even bother acquiring 4K HDR high bitrate remux content (except for saving later because it's very obscure).
  And I suspect that either your tv lacks the decoding power or is incompatible and your media server either wasnt setup for HW transcode or improperly setup/insufficient to handle the load.
- If you want something that actually functions well, use Plex. Jellyfin isn't anywhere close to feature parody with Plex.
  Jellyfin will have you tearing your hair out when you meet its limitations, whereas Plex pretty much just works out of the box.
  
  I haven't come across any limitations. Been using it for years. Plex became trash around the time they started forcing streaming channels into the feed and sharing my watch history without my consent.
I'd start by noting that raid is more about availability, not backup... I suspect you already have that in mind but just in case. Ideally if you are up for learning ZFS, that is one of the most resilient raid tools out there. Most NAS and Unix or Linux OS will have support for this.
Never connect RAID disks via USB... This only causes headaches.
Avoid SATA port multipliers, these can cause problems in raid.
SAS has the most reliable and flexible options for connectivity. Used JBOD chassis, even small, can be found cheaply and will run SATA disks well.
As to cloud data, I strongly recommend BackBlaze. Many utilities can natively interact with it (API compatible with Amazon s3) and you can handle encryption on the fly with several sync options. They are one of the cheapest solutions, and storage is pretty much all they do.
With pretty much any cloud storage, look at the ingress/egress cost of your data too... That is where many can bite you unexpectedly.
Worth noting that when you get to large storage, a good organization method for your data is key so you can prune and prioritize without getting overwhelmed later... Don't want several copies of the same thing eating cash needlessly.
Good luck! And welcome to the wonderful illness known as data hoarding!
- Oh important note! Check to make sure any drives you'll use are CMR, not SMR (shingled)! SMR will not function right in raid and will fail from arrays.
- Wow, thanks for all the insight. I've just got to find a good JBOD chassis and then figure out what disk drives to use. I'm really not literate when it comes to RAID. I'd just prefer to use my Sync software to backup to the individual drives and then store one offsite as part of a 3-2-1 plan.
  I've heard of BackBlaze and I think I looked into it at one point. I just keep seeing bad reviews on just about all the Cloud services with people saying they can't get access to their data or there is data loss but I will give it a look again.
  I appreciate the good wishes and you better believe, I'm a "hoarder". It only took ONCE to lose everything and now I want like 10 complete backups of everything. LMAO. 😜 Best to you!
  
  I've never had issues; maybe been lucky lol.
  That said, they provide some amazingly detailed status about drives! Worth looking at the reports they post. Might get you insight into what to expect from the various manufacturers and models... Maybe avoid some junk drives in the process.
  One of the most recent of these:
  https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-drive-stats-for-q3-2024/
  Raw statistics might help cut through a lot of bias!
- How much are you storing on Backblaze? I love their Desktop Backup, and I've got about 20TB backed up with it. But I'm planning to add a significant amount of additional storage on a new machine and I worry that their unlimited plan may not actually be unlimited. I've heard good things about their B2 service but the cost would astronomical, way way out of my budget.
  edit: Oh, apparently Backblaze Desktop doesn't support Linux. Well, I'm hosed. Got any suggestions for affordably backing up a significant amount of data on a Linux PC?
  
  Check out storj.io
  
  Tapes are how you back up large amounts of data. A small tape robot can handle petabytes.
  
  I use b2 for about 15tb, still one of the cheapest really without being sketchy. Cost isn't too bad unless you are reading it often.
  As another person already noted, if you really need to back up high amounts, tape is the way to go. Plan to keep your critical stuff off site somehow too. For large amounts sneaker net is still best unfortunately.
  
  apparently Backblaze Desktop doesn't support Linux.
  I haven't tried it, but apparently if you do a mapped network drive in Windows then BackBlaze will let you back it up as normal.
If you're dealing with this much storage, it's time to upgrade to a rack. Don't deal with having to shove 10 drives into a packed full-size.
Start scouring 2nd hand auction sites and buy one used. They're pretty cheap as far as solutions go if you can grab them used. Something like this would be ideal: https://www.silverstonetek.com/en/product/info/server-nas/RM22-312/
- In my experience racks are unpleasantly loud. You can put up to 16 drives or so comfortably in a regular big tower PC case with much better/quieter cooling options.
  
  I know you can't see my face but I just threw up in my mouth a little bit.
  His tech bubble is clearly going to keep growing so why not invest now versus buying a full size case and all these extra hard drives and then realizing in a year or two that you really wanted a rack amount to begin with so you can expand even more?
- My only problem is space. I have everything connected in my room, modem, router, phone, desktop, etc. It was how the house was wired and it's a real mess. I'd have to hang a rank from the ceiling but thank you for the product information and input.
The keyword here is DAS - Direct Attached Storage
- Noted and added to my "buzzwords" list. Now I can search smarter. Thank you for the response!
  
  If you really end up with DAS, I can recommend this: https://www.qnap.com/en-us/product/tl-d800c
I build a NAS in 2015. It runs TrueNAS Scale, tons of docker containers for self hosting everything, and 4x 16TB disks in RAIDZ2. I can lose any 2 disks and be ok.
Edit:
I should add that I also ship my data with rsync to back blaze b2, and truenas has built in capabilities to encrypt the datasets before shipment, including directory/dataset names. My shits all up there encrypted and randomly named.
Tip: if you are going to store data on "the cloud" aka someone else's computer, encrypt it locally before sending the data! There are existing solutions to do this in a cloud-optimized way (that is, not sending in an archive which has to be fully reuploaded for any tiny change) such as cryptomator. I think rclone also has an encryption feature but haven't checked.
- Oh definitely. I'm seeking a service that encrypts at the local level before ending sending a byte to the cloud but thank you for the input!
An end goal would be to get a 3-2-1 setup but I can’t find a reliable Cloud storage I’d trust with that much data except maybe Filen.
I love Backblaze for cloud backups. I dont have much data, but i have some important files like irreplaceable photos, and Backblaze helps me sleep at night
Remember, 3-2-1 is all about not fully trusting any one backup.
I have 4 replicants of my data at home (because any one of them could die at any time) with an online backup. Not the best setup, but it's what I can do at the moment.
As for RAID, that's a solution for a specific problem(s).
- Horders Unite! lol I'd be like you probably if I had what I wanted. I HATE to have to recreate all the hard work I put into my systems and videos. Yeah, I've always heard people saying NO, NO, NO RAID for backup so, I guess, no raid.
https://www.snapraid.it/
I just ordered the bits for my future storage appliance, so I can share what I decided to roll with. I stumbled across the Fractal Design Node 804 case, which has room for 8 x 3.5" drives, and then I got 4 x 8TB WD Red Plus drives to start with, RAIDZ1, and then I can add another 4-disk pool later on down the road. The Red Plus drives run at 5400rpm instead of 7200, that's fine for what I need and saved a few bucks while still keeping me in CMR-drive-land. I also grabbed 2 x 1TB NVMe drives to run as a mirrored pair for the OS. 64GB of RAM so I have some headroom for services I want to run. And I'm going to put TrueNAS Scale on it, which makes it really convenient to run those aforementioned services that I am wanting to run directly on the NAS, like NextCloud and my Linux ISO downloading tool.
Also now that my family has pretty much moved entirely away from using the big clouds as much as possible, I'm now reading some of the other comments here and looking into Backblaze to store my encrypted backups offsite. Not everything, mind you, there is a large percentage of my data footprint that is either easily recoverable or just simply would be non-catastrophic to lose. But the important stuff, that's getting encrypted and put in someone else's internet locker for safe keeping.
- Thank you for the input! I've had so many good responses and so many things to think about. I'm sure, like you, I'll probably stumble upon the perfect thing when I least expect it. I've looked at the Red drives too and I'll probably be going with them or the Seagate IronWolf drives. Also, appreciate the input on BackBlaze. A lot of people have recommended that and I've got it bookmarked for future reference.
I just JBOD a bunch of random sized disks in various forms of enclosures (a 4-bay cheap piece of Chinese shit filled with 4 random sized HDDs harvested from dead PCs, a couple of USB-3 external laptop drives, two random sized SSDs in their own enclosures harvested from dead laptops) within a linux LVM using WSL2 to host all the drives using a VM of Debian running on a Windows PC.
I think I've kludged together approximately 20 Tb of total disk space, and all i need to do to enable Striped RAID on it all is wait for a refurbished single enormous NAS drive to go on sale on Amazon and enable RAID on the LVM as a separate volume.
- Why snapraid and LVM when you can have the functionality natively with Windows Storage Spaces?
  
  Because I'm running a bunch of docker containers from inside the LVM and DockerDesktop is wonky ass software.
  Also, I don't want to think about having to worry about enabling a feature that can be locked behind a Windows Pro license when migrating to another system
  Also, because you just now gifted me knowledge of this feature.

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