Data Backup Digest

NAS stands for Network Attached Storage and it is a way of sharing devices to multiple computers. When you plug an external hard drive into a computer, the files stored therein can only be accessed on that specific computer. If you connect a NAS to your wireless router it then allows you to share the hard drive across all of the computers on the network.
Companies often use this method to host their backup files. It allows everyone working to have access to the whole sea of files, without them being tied down to a specific computer. It’s a cost effective and popular solution, especially due to how easy it is to expand all the devices on the NAS.
This article will explore where you should locate your NAS that’s being used for a backup. There might be an obvious answer to you, but there are a lot of factors to take into account.
The first solution is to store your backup NAS in the same building as your devices and computers. The good thing about this is that if the NAS breaks then you’ll be able to access it easily to see what’s up; maintenance is easy. It’s also cost effective, since a NAS doesn’t take up much space and can be stored anywhere in the office without a hitch.
However, there are drawbacks to this method. You have to consider that the whole point of a backup is that it is a secondary copy. If something happens to the primary data then you need to be able to access the backup data and restore everything from that. Here comes the drawback: if there’s an issue in the office, then you could lose the original and backup data. That issue could be anything from a natural disaster, like a fire or flood, or even a robbery. Even if the backup data itself is fine, if the NAS is broken or stolen then it loses the whole network access to the data. This will cost time and money in order to get things back up to scratch and productivity will suffer because of it.
The other solution on where to store your NAS is offsite. This is a bit more complicated to setup, but it’s entirely possible. For more information on how to go about this, refer to this page for instructions.
The benefit to storing your NAS offsite is that you won’t have the same vulnerability issue as detailed above for storing everything onsite. However, there is a downside in that it’s harder to maintain, unless you hand it off to a professional company. There’s a problem with this too, though, in that it ultimately all leads to increased costs if you don’t already have somewhere offsite to store the NAS in a safe and climate suitable environment.
Ultimately, the best place to store your NAS is offsite, but that’s not always going to be possible. If it is, though, it’s definitely a route to consider taking, especially if your network depends upon the reliability and uptime of your NAS.