Simplest and cost effective backup solution

[Bbdude83]

Hi All

So we're about to move away from Wintel devices and into the MacBook world. Challenge is the SSD drives on MacBook increase the overall price significantly as you go towards 500Gb.

Our hope is buying a 128Gb SSD MBP and do a few things:

- Network storage on a 500Gb SSD drive (possibly hooked up via the router) for large movies and photos.
- For files stored on the 128gb MBP and files stored on the 500gb network storage we'd do daily incremental backups to offsite storage.

It's been about 10 years since I really dove into computers so I'm a little behind the tech. So a few questions

- What's a good SSD drive to use for network storage?
- We use Carbonite right now for back ups and have mixed feelings about it. What would be a more effective backup solution to do what I've outlined above?

Thanks in advance for any input!

 

[Someone Somewhere]

There's almost no point in putting an SSD on the network. More latency and lower bandwidth means you're not going to see the speed improvements, unless lots of people are using it. Movies are photos are usually suggested to be on cheaper mechanical storage for that reason - SSDs are better than mechanical at sequential transfers (big files), but really really great at random stuff. OS, programs etc. are random. But movies are very sequential.

I'd stick a pair of 2-4TB drives in RAID 1. You'll chew through 500GB fast.

 

[mrmez]

Yeah, zero point in an SSD for NAS.
I setup one at work (also Mac's) as we have a few people that need to access small files often, but for backups I use a separate NAS with 2x2Tb hdd's.

Your most basic and cheapest option is using a USB HDD attached to your router. Depending on the router etc this should be more than enough for movies and backup.
As said, OSX does incremental backups hourly. Your first backups are going to be massive, but after that it will be pretty quick and shouldn't interfere with movies.
The included OSX Time Machine software is all you'll need.
Online backups can be done in addition if you like.

 

[Bbdude83]

Thank you both for your responses. So something like the WD MyCloud 4TB in RAID 1 would be a good brand? Lastly, I'd like to have the NAS backed up off-site. Is something like Google Drive set up to do this or are there better alternatives? I'd like the off-site to be incremental as well, maybe not daily, but weekly.