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Like others, I have a 2 tier system.
About 2TB of my (Synology) NAS is critical files. Those get sent via Hyperbackup to cloud storage on at least a weekly basis, some daily. I have them broken up into multiple tasks with staggered schedules so it never has much to do on any given day.
The other 16TB I have get sync'd (again with hyperbackup, but not a scheduled backup task) to a 20TB external drive roughly once per quarter. Then that drive lives on the closet of a family member.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| Git | Popular version control system, primarily for code |
| HTTP | Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the Web |
| HTTPS | HTTP over SSL |
| NAS | Network-Attached Storage |
| RAID | Redundant Array of Independent Disks for mass storage |
| SSD | Solid State Drive mass storage |
| SSL | Secure Sockets Layer, for transparent encryption |
| VNC | Virtual Network Computing for remote desktop access |
| VPN | Virtual Private Network |
| ZFS | Solaris/Linux filesystem focusing on data integrity |
[Thread #119 for this comm, first seen 26th Feb 2026, 15:51] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
I have 2 500GB SSDs in RAID1 for important data, truenas apps etc..., then 32TB total in RAIDZ1 for large Dataset that won't need speed (movies, TV show, music, pictures, archives,...)
If I have a complete NAS failure, a remote backup (via rsync to a friend's NAS Weekly) of the SSD and bootable drive can be used in a new system, and my torrent app has the list and magnet of all torrents stored on the SSD so it can re-download them.
Tape or backblaze
Similar to most responses, I backup whatever I created myself, not shared by someone or downloaded from somewhere. I care about pictures that I took, documents, financial records, etc, which don't take up much space at all.
I've started using k8up to save my photos and config to an encrypted restic repo in an s3 bucket. having a lot of trouble backing up my SQL DB though, not as easy as they make it sound.
I don't for media. I have 2 parity drives and that's it. I'd like to do some kind of off site mirror but I haven't had time to figure it out and buying enough storage to do that is expensive.
My actual data for like taxes and stuff is backed up to my server and backblaze.
The stuff that I actually care about are automatically backed up twice, once to a simple external on site and once to a cloud. The cloud rotates between the most recent backups so it never takes up more than 1tb compressed, while the local external keeps backups for much longer (something like 6tb at a time).
So you have 56TB of total storage, but how much of that 56TB is actually used? Take the amount of storage used and add 10-12% to that figure. Now you create a new NAS (preferably off-site) with that amount of storage and that becomes your backup target. Take an initial backup (locally if possible to speed up the process) and then you can use something like rsync to create incremental backups going forward. This is the method I've used and so far it has worked out well. I target 10-12% more than the amount of used storage for my backup capacity because my storage use grows reasonably slowly. If your usage grows faster you might want to increase your "buffer" a little more so that you're not having to constantly add drives to your backup target.
Yeah, this is certainly a viable "brute-force"-ish ooption. While I have 56, I'm only using 26 or so. But I'd actually be hesitant to do anything less than a full capacity mirror because I do expect to eventually use this (and more - adding drives to Unraid).
I've balked because of cost and upkeep (maintaining the same capacity, additional chances for drive failure, two separate sites I need physical access to with a high bandwidth connection), so I admit I was hoping I was missing an easier option.
I mean, if you want a full mirror, rolling your own backup target is going to be the cheapest option even with the current high price of hardware. Other options are cloud storage, or using another media like tape. Cloud storage is of course an on going cost which rules it out for me, not to mention privacy concerns. There are certain "cold storage" options from cloud storage hosts which are considerably cheaper but they have limitations on how the data can be accessed and how often. The tape route is possible but it's not really viable for home use due to the high upfront cost of the drives. Outside of that, backing up a subset of your storage as others have suggested is the only other option. Creating viable backups without breaking the bank is a challenge as old as computers, unfortunately.
Definitely following this