Your NAS isn't enough – you still need to back up your data!
Conclusion
A high-availability system is designed to serve its users even if issues such as hardware failure or power loss affect it. A side effect from a high-availability setup is that information that would have been lost from a failure in a non-redundant system may survive if it is managed by a storage cluster or even a high-end domestic NAS.
On the other hand, high-end storage systems can only protect your data so much. As shown in this article, solutions designed to keep a storage system running in the face of adversity might fail to guarantee the integrity of the data. After all, their primary concern is to maintain the continuity of the service, not to protect the information stored inside.
For this reason, it is advisable to maintain proper backup for your data, even if you keep it in a NAS server that looks impervious to the typical threats against data integrity. Quality storage decreases the probability of suffering data loss, but does not remove it.
Infos
- Schroeder, B., E. Pinheiro, and W. Weber. "DRAM Errors in the Wild: A Large-Scale Field Study." In: Proceedings of SIGMETRICS '09, (SIGMETRICS, 2009), http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~bianca/papers/sigmetrics09.pdf
- "A Complete Guide to FreeNAS Hardware Design, Part I: Purpose and Best Practices" by Joshua Paetzel, February 3, 2015, https://web.archive.org/web/20151122065016/http://www.freenas.org/whats-new/2015/02/a-complete-guide-to-freenas-hardware-design-part-i-purpose-and-best-practices.html
- ZFS and ECC RAM: https://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1235679&p=26303271#p26303271
- Common hardware malfunctions: https://blog.storagecraft.com/hardware-failure
- Unrecoverable errors in RAID 5:http://raidtips.com/raid5-ure.aspx
- Backblaze drive stats for Q1 2021: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/backblaze-hard-drive-stats-q1-2021/
- QTS and QuTS hero vulnerability: https://www.qnap.com/en/security-advisory/qsa-21-57
- DeadBolt: https://www.qnap.com/en/security-advisory/QSA-22-02
- ZFS and power failures: https://www.klennet.com/notes/2021-04-26-zfs-and-power-failures.aspx
- Cost of data center outages: https://www.ponemon.org/research/ponemon-library/security/2016-cost-of-data-center-outages.html
- Cepth: https://ceph.io/en/
« Previous 1 2 3
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Gnome Fans Everywhere Rejoice for the Latest Release
Gnome 47.2 is now available for general use but don't expect much in the way of newness, as this is all about improvements and bug fixes.
-
Latest Cinnamon Desktop Releases with a Bold New Look
Just in time for the holidays, the developer of the Cinnamon desktop has shipped a new release to help spice up your eggnog with new features and a new look.
-
Armbian 24.11 Released with Expanded Hardware Support
If you've been waiting for Armbian to support OrangePi 5 Max and Radxa ROCK 5B+, the wait is over.
-
SUSE Renames Several Products for Better Name Recognition
SUSE has been a very powerful player in the European market, but it knows it must branch out to gain serious traction. Will a name change do the trick?
-
ESET Discovers New Linux Malware
WolfsBane is an all-in-one malware that has hit the Linux operating system and includes a dropper, a launcher, and a backdoor.
-
New Linux Kernel Patch Allows Forcing a CPU Mitigation
Even when CPU mitigations can consume precious CPU cycles, it might not be a bad idea to allow users to enable them, even if your machine isn't vulnerable.
-
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.5 Released
Notify your friends, loved ones, and colleagues that the latest version of RHEL is available with plenty of enhancements.
-
Linux Sees Massive Performance Increase from a Single Line of Code
With one line of code, Intel was able to increase the performance of the Linux kernel by 4,000 percent.
-
Fedora KDE Approved as an Official Spin
If you prefer the Plasma desktop environment and the Fedora distribution, you're in luck because there's now an official spin that is listed on the same level as the Fedora Workstation edition.
-
New Steam Client Ups the Ante for Linux
The latest release from Steam has some pretty cool tricks up its sleeve.