The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/shwcobb on 2024-09-28 13:27:51.

My primary goal is to backup around 150TB (currently closer to 120TB, but 150 is expected over some time) of movies. Please don’t ask me why - I know it’s an absurd amount, but that’s why I’m posting on a sub with a “hoarder” in its name; just know it’s incredibly important to me, so I want to have robust backups. Ideally, my unborn child will become a parent itself before I lose this data.

At the same time (but not as crucial ATM), I’d like to have about ~50-70TB of this data as part of my home NAS. I’ll comment on this in more detail below.

Money is obviously not unimportant, but is relative, so I’ll leave the budget out of the equation.

BACKUPS

Let’s take 150TB as the go-to number. What would you say is the proper way to backup this data, taking into consideration backups will be cold and not used until a part of my NAS data drops dead and I have to fetch from the backup? Do I use NAS-grade 5-year-warrantied HDDs or some green/blues? How do I periodically check these backups’ health? What’s the procedure of duplicating data from this backup onto another, i.e. generating a 2nd backup?

I would like to avoid heavy machinery - I live in a small apartment (rent) and don’t have the space for racks or some extensive cabling.

What to even use to achieve this process (I’ll have to initially download all movies manually)?

NAS

This is not as important as the mentioned backups since I already use a seedbox as a Plex server and share it with some friends, but ideally I’d like to build my own NAS with a decent amount of storage (anywhere between 50 and 100TB, really) that I’d just use within my home network. Silence is a priority here - I don’t want to hear clicking and/or thumping while watching a movie or working from home.

Are WD’s Red Pros the way to go? Synology or DIY NAS using TrueNAS for performance+silence? I can possibly store it within a hallway closet (where the router is located as well, btw); there’s no air flow, but there’s decent amount of space.

tl;dr - I need to backup 150TB of movies with the possibility of introducing a 50TB+ NAS in the near future. How to approach this? What to use for the initial backup process? How to health-check cold HDDs? How to clone and replace a damaged HDD from another backup (its clone)? Best NAS option, silence-wise?

I know I ask a lot of broad questions here, but I searched through a lot of this sub and am none the wiser concerning my situation. Feel free to comment on any subset of my questions if you have some relevant experience. Very much appreciate the help :)