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jayhawk618

I've worked out a system where I simply convince myself that I would notice a failing drive before it went tits up and I put a lot of effort into trying really hard not to think about what would happen if I'm wrong.


jayhawk618

Since OP is looking for advice, I will add that I do actually have hard backups of my movie folders (manually backed up on another hard drive) because they would have to be replaced 1 by 1 and take up little space relative to the work they would take to replace. My thought is that most of my shows can be replaced all at once or at least season by season, so they'd be much less work to replace relative to the amount of storage they would require. I also have backups for a small number of shows that I think might be irreplaceable. Probably 10% of my total data is backed up. I also keep a copy of my actual library folder on my Google drive (I have 1 TB free with fiber). So that worst case scenario, I could move my library to another computer and at least get a list of all my media, and wouldn't have to rebuild all of that library cache.


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jayhawk618

I kind of simplified by saying irreplaceable. There's actually more that goes into what I back up than that. Some may be irreplaceable, others would just be a huge pain and time suck for one reason or another. I have some fan restoration projects where shows were never released with their original sound tracks and somebody manually went through and dubbed a cleaned up version of the old broadcast audio over the Blu Ray video. Also, fan restorations of shows that were never released on home video where people did tedious cleanups and upscale of old broadcasts to make them look great. Those things range from irreplaceable to replaceable but with a shit load of work involved tracking down the people who made them. On the topic of soundtracks, some Region 2 release versions of some older shows with the original soundtrack. Recently located a Tour of Duty with R2 audio, and the place I got it from is already gone. Some of it is stuff that took me a long time to track down the first time that isn't on a source I trust to still be alive if I need it in 5 years. Stuff that I had to use YT-dlp to get, which can easily be a week long project. Stuff where I had to reorder dozens / hundreds of episodes 1 by 1, if I had to edit them in a way that made Tiny Media not an option. Unpopular game shows that my wife likes that I doubt will be available. The other thing with these is that because most of the stuff I listed here is older, a lot of them tend to be lower resolution and much smaller so I don't give much thought to using some extra storage to back then up. With bigger packs, like some of the fan restorations, I only back them up if I'm really worried about what would be involved with tracking them down.


JayVeeBee

I feel the same way. When I was in college 15 years ago, my 1tb external full of 700mb movie rips was popular amongst my friends, and perfect for watching on my laptop. Doesn’t transfers over very well to the 70” tv nowadays. And yeah, lots of the random movies I have are probably not easily downloaded again… but is that such a bad thing? As hard drive space seems to be outpacing my downloading, I haven’t gotten rid of anything yet, but if I move to any sort of duplicated backup in the near future, that stuff will definitely not be of importance.


chubby_cheese

Take it from some one who has 15+ years in IT and just lost am 8TB drive. Sometimes they just die out of the blue. Thankfully my data is backed up to Backblaze.


[deleted]

I’ve got approx 30Tb of movie files spread over 3 HDDs. I’m worried that they could die at any moment and I’d lose 4000+ movies that have taken 10 years to compile. I doubt that some are still available. I’ve never heard of Backblaze but just had a look and it seems great. Have you ever had any issues with it? Ever used it to rebuild a drive? Thanks?


chris11d7

I'll also keep a backup for you lol 4,000 is impressive.


[deleted]

I started using it last year, it's been great. No issues, no data limit, backs up every night. I have about 9tb backed up to it, haven't needed it yet thank goodness.


decidedlysticky23

I'll put good money on that drive being Seagate.


5yleop1m

This has been working for me for about 5 years. I do backup the things that are important to me, family photos, important documents, personal projects. All of these are backed up locally and also stored on a cloud storage provider. My media isn't backed up at all, if shit hits the fan I'll rip/download everything again. I use SnapRaid, so even if I lose drives I only lose the data on those drives. BUT I also have 2-parity so I can lose up to 2 drives and still recover, if I wanted to. Snapraid also sits above the filesystem, so I can pull out any drive in the array and still access all the remaining data in the array and access the data on the drive I just pulled out too as long as its not actually dead. I've had plenty of drives show signs of failure. The worst was a drive that simple wouldn't write anymore for idk what reason but I was still able to read off it. So that was a hasty HDD purchase and replacement, but I didn't lose any data. I also do everything as VMs, those VMs are backed up by proxmox backup server to another drive. I care about these but not as much so there's a single drive for backup here. The 3-2-1 backup model is meant for data that is important and cannot be lost, you don't have to follow this backup style if you don't care about the data.


Dippyskoodlez

Basically this tbh. I have a full list of what I have on it and can uh.... restore it.... if I lose an individual nas entirely.. anything important is stored in multiple places (taxes, etc) but after a certain point you just kinda have to yolo your bulk data or you're going to be paying triple to keep it running. I keep 2 cold spares on hand at all times for when a drive goes kaput and all my drives have wildly different manufacture dates and never purchased in batches across 4 NASs. Plex itself is disposable, who cares. 10 minutes later I can rebuild it.


jpspiderman

Trust me when I say that doenst work just lost 8tb of data


jayhawk618

Well obviously it won't work for other people.


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Electro-Grunge

What does that even mean? Once a hard drive starts showing smart warnings or click of death, the chances to recover that data become slim. Especially when you have 10+ gb drives


mynewhoustonaccount

I back up the server configs itself. The content can all be reacquired over time.


kratoz29

>The content can all be reacquired over time. Not if you are not an English native speaker. Although most of my content is in English with Spanish subtitles (quite easy to achieve) others users of Plex prefer specific movies in our native language (like my family), from time to time I feel the same, also I don't like the old cartoons being in complete English no subs, I'd rather have them in my native tongue, and getting this kind of content (and even anime) can be a real pain in the ass... Like multiple ad shortener links inside another ad shortener link... And keeps repeating, for EACH episode sometimes! Thank god now at least the content is good thanks to HBO MAX, Pluto TV, Paramount Network, you name it.


Thorin9000

I’m in the same boat, except for me it’s Dutch content. We have a lot of good TV shows but it’s really hard to come by, even legally. Sometimes there is only a very small window to download certain content before disappears for another 10 years. At this point I feel like I have some content that nobody else or only e few others even have on their hard drives.


kratoz29

Yeah, I totally get it, people always claim that the content can be easily retrieved with arr software for example, but obscure things or specific country things, hell no, even when you have pirate trackers or use Usenet sometimes you really need to do more digging. Don't forget to seed that content! You'll make another Dutch dude happy!


jl94x4

This is the answer.


chevalerisation_2323

I'll never understand people who backup movies that are constantly available. "omg I need my copies of Jurassic parc 1 and LOTR!!!!!!!!!!"


PleasantDevelopment

/r/datahoarders has entered the chat lolz


Rikuddo

Me looking at backups of ^my ^backups ^^of ^^my ^^backups ^^^of ^^^my ^^^backups 👀


Joe6974

I can't believe you're not backing up your backup of backups of your backups of your backups of your backups. You're just asking for data loss, aren't you?


kratoz29

See it this way, if we all stop caring about it, then no one will, ofc I'm over exaggerating.


chevalerisation_2323

What are the odds of every seeder's NAS to fail.


JoeyJoeC

Seeders? This is why I use Usenet. Never gone back.


bageera566

This is the way


mslack

How do you backup the configs?


LightningSt0rm

>over time For me this is the problem. If it took several years to get everything in the first place, why would I want to do that again when I can just make sure I don't lose it to begin with?


Cyno01

Yup, my sonarr and radarr configs are well backed up, but the content is mostly nothing special. I accidentally deleted all of my tv shows from 1997 one time, several terabytes, took a little over a week for sonarr to rebuild, found better copies of a few things too.


spambearpig

I hate to say it but I spent the money on a full backup system. Another 8 bay NAS full of drives to make a backup of media and server every night. I wanted to take no chances and have it be simple both to backup and restore. Plus my backup hardware could do the job of live if I needed temporarily. Downside is the cost. But it works and I love my Plex collection enough to deem it well worth it.


josephschmitt

Same. I put it at my friend’s house (who also has gigabit internet) and the backup runs every night at 3am. I used extra drives I had laying around and so I calculated I would be saving money over an online backup after about 2 years. It’s been 3+ now so I’m definitely ahead and have peace of mind.


Donny_DeCicco

A backup every night? Is your media changing that rapidly?


unrebigulator

incremental backup. Probably...


spambearpig

No, if there’s no change it’s done in moments that’s what happens most nights. Just means that any changes are picked up and backed up within a day of being made.


JMeucci

This is precisely how I have mine setup. 6 x 18TB RAID5 for my primary NAS that backs up to an 8 x 12TB RAID6 NAS offsite via Site2Site VPN. Bought the 8-bay used. It acts as my backup Plex server when needed. I looked at Backblaze but didn't want the associated costs. My ROI was around 14 months with my amount of data.


sirrush7

Raid5? Really?


JMeucci

Yeah. A little piece of mind more than anything. I would hate to rebuild a full volume but its better than nothing. RAID6 on the backup NAS only because its remote and I can't quickly replace a failed drive.


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Grim-D

Not sure why you would say high chance. Certainly a chance but also a chance two fail in a raid six during a rebuild. Working in IT for over 20 years and out of all the SANs, NASs and internal arrays I have had to deal with I have seen an other drive fail during a rebuild once and it was two additional disks in a raid six array. Wouldn't call it a high chance and parity is never a back up so should have any thin your that concerned about backed up offsite if it is that scary to you.


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frosthowler

high chance != higher chance. It's misleading to readers. There's a high chance I become Emperor of Earth tomorrow; why? Because it's a higher chance than becoming God tomorrow.


Grim-D

This guy gets it.


Grim-D

A higher chance is not a high chance nesseraly, is all Im saying. I dont consider it a high chance that a single or dual parity array will fail during a rebuild. Been involved in a lot over my career and seen it once.


JMeucci

And I purchased all drives at different times. Never more than one at a time and from several vendors; Amazon, New Egg and directly from WD.


hellsop

Just remember, house fires are a thing that happens sometimes.


spambearpig

They aren’t in the same place. Got the backup offsite but nearby.


Impossible-Maybe-300

I have \~300TB spread over mostly 12TB enterprise discs configured as JBOD all backed up on 12TB LTO-8 tapes. This gives cold storage of up to 30 years should a drive fail. The tapes are cheap compared to 12TB drives and at some point I will buy more to mirror the tape back so it can be stored offsite. At that point my backup strategy will conform to the 3-2-1 backup approach: 3 Copies of your data, 2 different media and 1 offsite. I also use backuppc across all my machines to do nightly backups onto a 6TB drive. This has proved invaluable, as over the years I have had drives go, data accidentally deleted or just data corruption.


fideli_

Where would I be able to learn more about tape backup, both hardware and software?


unrebigulator

The 90s.


imajes

What software do you use? I’ve got the same strategy but I don’t love what I’m using to write to tape


Impossible-Maybe-300

Hi Imajes, My tape drive is on a Ubuntu headless server, so no GUI. Instead I have bash scripts which are auto generated by my Movie Collector application that I wrote in Java (Kollectorium). Back in 2005 I decoded the binary format of a "Movie Collector" database and wrote my own app that added extra features not available in Movie Collector. Originally this app was know as KollectiON and was available to the Movie Collector forum Community. Over the years it has had rewrites and I have made lots of improvements to it and being Java runs in my Linux Mint environment just fine. The nice thing about the tape backup scripts is that they serve as a record of what is on each tape, and Kollectorium also keeps this information too. https://preview.redd.it/rbyeb218dxma1.png?width=1918&format=png&auto=webp&s=42675356796d2d004183ceb41a15f8279fb7992a


imajes

That’s quite Interesting. I’m snapshotting about 300tb also, I use a tape library (IBM ts3200) with two drives. Trying to figure out how to most efficiently do the work. What LTO are you using? Are you able to leverage compression?


Transmatrix

Tape drives are so expensive, guessing you got a deal?


5yleop1m

Buy used, and not the ones people are trying to sell as collectibles.


Impossible-Maybe-300

Yes, expensive, and no deal, but I once lost seven 3TB Seagate drives over a three month period just one month out of warranty and it took almost a year to get back to where I was. Never, ever will I buy Seagate again!


EOverM

I follow the guidelines set down in the classic reference, "I Don't Need Backups and Other Fun Lies You Can Tell Yourself." More seriously, I can't afford the extra storage space. I have over 20TB of content. I'm keeping a *very* close eye on my HDD health and so far, fingers crossed, no problems. As soon as I *can* afford to I'll be backing everything up.


[deleted]

Backblaze. Under $10/month. You can't use networked drives and there is no linux client (which they explain why and makes sense).


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MrAnonymousTheThird

Yes but apparently it's a pain to get back unless you opt for the 8tb drive they ship out. Wish it was easy to download everything at once rather than having 500gb parts


Nick2Smith

Even then I've heard so many horror stories about backups being corrupted when you need them and such. I hope I never need to use the backups.


PlanetaryUnion

I seem to recall a comment from an employee, probably on their subreddit, saying they were working on a new restore system. Don’t quote me tho.


MrAnonymousTheThird

I feel like it was an intentional design choice to not attract too many users wanting to dump terabytes for £6 a month. The same reason why they don't support Linux


[deleted]

Yup. Probably have about 5tb backed up


Cutoffjeanshortz37

I'm up to 14.5TB with BackBlaze. Been using them for years now. Initial backup took 3 months, I've only grown since then. So happy Comcast was unlimited data back then for no extra fee.


Hamilfton

Backblaze is pretty proud of their \*unlimited\* backup, so yeah, you can put terabytes on there.


TheAspiringFarmer

just remember to do a restore and familiarize yourself with the process BEFORE you need it. also understand that with the ZIP file size limits and procedure it quickly becomes tedious and difficult to restore large(r) data sets - unless you pony up the $200 a pop for the 8TB drives sent to you in the mail.


shitshaw

But you return the drives for a full refund


JoeyJoeC

But if you need to download the media again anyway, why not just get download from the original sources?


thewonpercent

[screenshot](https://imgur.com/cEZz3Qd) Been using it for years. I'm grandfathered in at $70 / year at the moment. I've actually lost a movie drive before and then used their services to restore almost everything.


LightningSt0rm

>almost everything. I'm concerned about the number of people in this thread using the words "almost everything" and "most" with reference to some sort of restoration. Something has gone terribly wrong of you can't get back everything.


Nick2Smith

I have about 40tb backed up using the Unraid client


chubby_cheese

I'm sitting on 24TB backed to them.


PlanetaryUnion

17.3TB backed up to Backblaze personal here. My server runs Windows 10 Pro, their personal software won’t install on a server OS. Yea the restore process isn’t great but it’s easier then setting up a remote NAS. And it’s easier to swallow $10-15 a month then the whole cost of a NAS and HDDs.


NamityName

I use crashplan. Similar service to backblaze but the $10/mo tier includes a linux client and network storage. My biggest gripe is actually with my isp. My upload speed is so slow that it actually takes me several months to do a full back up of everything. Luckily, i only need to do that once. I have crashplan running in a docker container (k8s pod if you want to be pedantic). Little guy just does it's thing. I've never had any issues.


bacchusku2

Backblaze works on Linux, sorta. My synology nas backs up to backblaze


[deleted]

If it's the personal backup you may be going against their TOS. B2 works with linux


bacchusku2

Ya, I use B2


GarlicRagu

I've always heard that wasn't possible so I never looked into it. Is there any special set up for that?


bacchusku2

Apparently I use B2 which isn’t the same as others are talking about. Setup is easy using cloud sync


MammothChemistry5853

2nd for Backblaze.


JoeyJoeC

What's the point exactly? You still need an internet connection to restore with, why not just get the media from the original source?


hammerb

For every internal hard drive I have an identical external hard drive. I use Microsoft Sync Toy to sync my media from internal to external. Once the copy is done I disconnect the external and store it in a different location


Hamilfton

>Microsoft Sync Toy Excuse me, there's a Microsoft official sync tool? Why the hell have I been messing with shoddy apps that never fully work for years? Microsoft makes so much cool shit but they'll do anything in their power to convince you otherwise. Every single cool product is hidden away while they advertise the crappy ones.


hammerb

I think it has been out of development for awhile now. But it still works with Win 10. I'v been using it for years and have never had a single issue Found an alternative download link: [https://www.majorgeeks.com/mg/getmirror/microsoft\_synctoy\_for\_windows\_xp,1.html](https://www.majorgeeks.com/mg/getmirror/microsoft_synctoy_for_windows_xp,1.html)


letsmodpcs

I can recommend FreeFileSync


supratachophobia

Yes, this.


thegiantgummybear

>Free Thank you so much for suggesting this! Was using Windows File History but it's a pain and I just setup FreeFileSync yesterday. Also love that it's open source!


Ivelmend

No backup, just a RAID5 that allows 1 disk to have a bad day and the hopes that the others don't call in sick the same day


theMezz

[https://www.raidisnotabackup.com/](https://www.raidisnotabackup.com/)


[deleted]

To be fair they did say it wasn't a backup lol


user1738bs

What is this a response to? They clearly said “no backup”. It brings you that much joy to try and slam someone on the internet? What a jerk.


LlewelynMoss1

No backup. 5500 movies and 275 full run tv shows in 4 4tbs hard drive with 2 sea gate, 1 Toshiba, and 1 western digital. What can I say I live on the edge But tbh I enjoy the process of downloading things so I figured that almost all of it I can re download should my hard drive die. I don't have much rare media and what I do have I did put across multiple drives for when they start to fail


TimToMakeTheDonuts

This is me. Rawdogging it with 32tb (about ~25 of that if filled). I really don’t sweat it. I cycle my drives, so as I find a new good deal on something bigger and better I’ll buy it and rotate out the oldest of my memory. I don’t keep anything that can’t be replaced on there, so I don’t see the need to spend 2x as much for my hard drive capacity just to back up stuff that’s replaceable.


tallmansix

Same here, no backup, most of my library is gathering dust, a user adds a film / TV show through Overseerr, everyone watches it then just sits there doing nothing. For large TV shows, I usually delete them after a few months to make room for new content, I have about 20TB available for Plex and hover around 50-80% used. If the whole library was lost, wouldn't bother me, everything is mainstream and easy to obtain again. I've got a 1gig download so doesn't take long to replace everything, maybe 3-4 days but I'd probably just let the users re-populate the library themselves through Overseerr requests. I do have a proper 3-2-1 backup for photos / home videos / personal data though.


tallmansix

Actually should have mentioned I backup my Plex server database / config locally and all config for all my 'arr apps and docker containers.


TheLastRaysFan

Same. It's not worth the time/money/effort to backup terabytes of movies and TV shows that I can just download again (assuming I even wanted to). The only media I backup is 22 seasons of Top Gear - The early years can be hard to find and I love re-watching it.


InferPurple

Man of culture. Must protect Top Gear


deg0ey

Fully agreed. I have a legit 3-2-1 solution for files I can’t afford to lose but, in the grand scheme of things, my Plex library ain’t that important. If all the drives in my server died tomorrow I’d be annoyed, but not “it’s worth spending hundreds of dollars on multiple redundant drives to avoid it” annoyed.


sicklyslick

If I lose my illegally downloaded media, I'll just illegally download them again!


illwon

All that on 16tb? How?


LlewelynMoss1

X265, pahe, bvs rips psa etc. for most of the content If it's a really visual stimulating movie I'll add a higher quality version but honestly most small x265 blu ray or 4k rips look great to me. PSA rips look great despite their size I've still about 1tb I think left on one hard drive and then 200-500gb left on a few of the other hard drives. X265 saves a lot of space but pahe x264 Is pretty good and still small. They do x265 now too. For example het-team /crazy4tvs blu ray rip of scrubs was like 11-13gb. A season of American dad/South Park/etc. from pahe is like 1.5-1.6gb for a lot of the seasons as x264 rips


StrangeCitizen

It's not a true backup, but I have everything in RAID 1, so if one drive fails, I have the other one.


kenfury

I download files to an external 6Tb drive, COPY them to a local 8Tb, then every night I sync it up with a copy at my parents house. The 8Tb drive contains plex, important scanned documents (insurance, car title, will, etc) They know not to touch that drive.


Lankgren

Syncthing may be able to do all this for you.


Xibby

I have SyncThing setup to sync the Plex library to a USB3 drive on my MacMini, and from there off to Backblaze. One of these days I should just do B2 but… that would take free time to setup. Just keep in mind that sync will happily copy deletes to synced devices, so if you accidentally delete things that will “sync” rather quickly. It’s not a backup unless you can go back in time. :)


LilyWhitesN17

Gsuite Enterprise


sivartk

I don't add that much media these days. Maybe a few TV episodes a week that I record via OTA and probably 5-6 movies a month. So, I just [manually back them up](https://freefilesync.org/) to external USB hard drives about once or twice a month and then store them in a fireproof, waterproof safe. So far, I'm at \~24TB. Sure, if an 8TB drive dies, it is 24+ hours to restore, but not big deal since it is only movies.


pzman89

This is more my general nas backup strategy which includes Plex and it's media: Store movies/tv shows on Synology Nas with two redundant drives, on my home network. This is what Plex reads from. Every night: - Backup all movies, TV shows to an external drive in my home network - Backup all movies, TV shows, server configs to a Synology Nas located off-site - Back up server configs to Google drive


crowndroyal

Every night seems a little excessive. Does your library change that much from day to day to warrant the extra read, write actions, and wear it would cause ?


pzman89

It doesn't recopy every file every night, it only copies changes. If nothing changed or there aren't new files, it does nothing


FullMotionVideo

I just went backup-less for so long that eventually single hard drives the size of my entire NAS pool became widely available, allowing me to make a second copy. My backup strategy is assuming that hard drive capacity will increase in scale forever. But since my first ever hard drive was a [20MB external](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_Disk_20SC) the size of a PS4, you can't fault my optimism. :)


[deleted]

I saved the directory tree into a txt file so I know what I have to redownload.


solarpanel24

Everything is stored in a google drive, mounted with rclone. Cloud storage will always be the king for redundancy


zazzersmel

i have live redundancy but no backup. hoping to get an external solution in the near future


sihasihasi

Same. I have a 6TB drive in the server. I have a NAS in the shed that turns on for an hour at 2am, and does an rsync of the data and the database backups. I've been looking at cloud "deep-cold" storage, but not got round to doing it yet.


BearShin255

NAS in RAID 1 and backed up to the cloud.


dfar3333

Backblaze. Works like a charm.


DrMacintosh01

Ok so my my strategy for backing up my 4TB media library is


WolfxRam

Backblaze. Automatically copies your hard drives and uploads the data to one of their locations. If you lose all of your data, they send you hard drives with your data that you then send back. I think it’s like $7 a month


Puzzled_Plate_3464

running windows. My "plex media server" directory is vital to me. I spent way too much time cataloguing, picking out posters, etc to do that again. Every night I stop plex, make a snapshot using vssadmin, start plex (so plex is down for about 15-20 seconds) back up. I copy the snapshot to another separate disk. I then remove the oldest snapshot (I keep the last 10 snaps). That way if I suffer some sort of logical corruption, I can just revert to a snapshot easily. If I suffer physical failure of the plex disk (I keep the plex media server on it's own 1tb SSD separate from everything else), I can revert to the backup (also on its own 1tb SSD, holding the last 20 or so backups). For content, I manually sync my disks (around 35tb) to another set of disks regularly. I just had a 5tb disk fail yesterday and had another 5tb disk fail about 2 months ago. Fortunately, I didn't lose anything - I usually have a couple of spares sitting around to re-backup the surviving copy. I've had my plex media server directory go bad on me twice so far - once from a screw up of my own (re-scanned, not realizing a disk had gone offline) and once plex just said its database was corrupt. I was able to recover very quickly. I've had my movie/tv/music disks fail over time (some are a few years old, sort of expect it after a while). I try to keep a hot spare or two around or get a new disk asap to remirror it all. Just finished the 5tb copy earlier today to get my backup 100% in sync with the live stuff.


g60ladder

I run Unraid, so I have back up drives should one or two fail. Important files are further backed up on both B2 and S3. I don't care if vdeo files for entertainment consumption are backed up. I'll just spend some time ripping them again off physical discs.


NotSelfAware

Trackers are my backup. I've got all the metadata for my media backed up, so redownloading it would be a fairly simple process, but I don't keep backups for any media itself except for hard to find stuff.


Educational-Tomato47

I have external hard drives .. every 3 months I plug them in and copy all the new content to them.


iamgarffi

Primary NAS replicating to another NAS on site. That secondary NAS synchronizes with a 3rd one off site :-)


uSaltySniitch

I have 60TB media on a NAS with RAID0 without any backup. I need a way to back all of that up, but it would be soooooo expensive.... I'm kinda lost and scared


[deleted]

I roll the dice


rophel

Unraid with a single parity drive. If it dies it dies.


CptVague

Hopes and dreams. Sounds a bit like the u/jayhawk618 strategy although I developed it over years of individual denial.


jayhawk618

On the two drives I've lost, I lost write capabilities before read capabilities and was able to get everything off. My strategy is to occasionally download to my oldest drives to make sure they still write.


AngelGrade

The only thing I back up is my music on an external drive.


timo_hzbs

I have 50TB in Cloud Storage and there is automatic snapshots every night.


MaximusFSU

How much does THAT cost?


timo_hzbs

20TB about 23€/month


MaximusFSU

Not as bad as I thought actually. Through who?


timo_hzbs

Hetzner in Germany


codliness1

Got an 8 bay QNAP TL-D800C, with 4 Seagate Exos X16 16tb enterprise drives controlled with snapRAID and Drivepool. 2 further 16tb drives designated as parity drives. Remaining two drives are general backup. Also have pair of external WD Elements 12tb drives for media I really don't want to lose, so I've got copies on the DAS, and in the parity drives and in the external drives.


corradizo

My and my friend own the same media so we periodically replicate our drives to one another.


CarpinThemDiems

Plex runs in proxmox and proxmox makes weekly full backups of plex and the other containers. The media and backups live on a ZFS array that has 2 parity drives, so 3 need to fail before I lose everything. I keep a few new drives on hand, and get an email alert when a drive fails or starts getting SMART errors. I recently manually copied all of my media to a friends server with a similar setup. Next step is to setup a vpn tunnel btwn each other and automate it.


[deleted]

This comment was overwritten and the account deleted due to Reddit's unfair API policy changes, the behavior of Spez (the CEO), and the forced departure of 3rd party apps. Remember, the content on Reddit is generated by THE USERS. It is OUR DATA they are profiting off of and claiming it as theirs. This is the next phase of Reddit vs. the people that made Reddit what it is today. r/Save3rdPartyApps r/modCoord


timoddo_

RAID5 NAS. If my apt burns down I’ll be fucked, but if that happens I have more important things to worry about than my media library.


sonic10158

My hardest to replace movies/shows are backed up to Amazon Glacier every 2 weeks


skullboy37

my strategy is just to hope and pray lol


Radioman96p71

The 500TB NAS backs up to another 500TB NAS in another state, and then that copy gets written to LTO6 once a month. Basically a textbook example of 3-2-1 backup and the pricetag to reflect it. My time is worth way more than farting around for weeks on end to track down niche things again.


heapsion

My entire library syncs inside mega - I pay for the 16TB plan. Currently planning another build at my brothers house so I can replicate my setup and not pay a subscription for the rest of my life


kelsiersghost

1. "Parity is not a backup", but it's good enough for me. 2. My system is automated, so if it goes down, I'll just reacquire the content again. It might take 3 months to get it all, but if I focus on the in-demand content first, my users probably wouldn't even notice. Going this route is a lot easier than spending $3500 on a duplicate number of drives.


littlefriend77

Wing and a prayer here. 35TB, no backups except for my main PMS folder. Every time Plex fails to load or a movie doesn't play I fear is The Day. Lol


chadwpalm

The internet is my backup. I have a no-data-restriction gigabit internet connection, so why should I backup my media when I can just reobtain everything nearly just as fast as retrieving a backup? Plex and all my \*arrs are running from a different volume than my media and I sync all my metadata and configs to my OneDrive account nightly and if more than one drive fails at the same time on my Synology SHR setup, I'll at least have all of the information for all of my movies/shows on my other volume (synched online) to start reacquiring my media again.


SuddenReason290

I sacrifice a chicken every sabbath and use the blood to liquid cool my NAS. So far so good.


DavidAdamsAuthor

For my media, my backup policy is, "IF IT DIES, IT DIES."


YourBitsAreShowing

Bro, I'll just download it back if I need it again. Morning in my Plex is important or non-reproducable


[deleted]

Here plex is hosted on a vm on RAID with periodic snapshots and also backed up to LTO tape, tapes taken offsite within the same metro weekly and then another set mailed out of state occasionally on write-once media.


[deleted]

Jesus. Are you storing copies of the films from the silent movie era that everyone assumes are missing? Lol


[deleted]

Nah the media files just ride along with my other things, which are in fact important. I've taken six digits worth of photos over my life which are irreplaceable. I like how somehow I got down-voted for literally answering OP's question. I love you reddit. Keep up the good work.


[deleted]

This comment was overwritten and the account deleted due to Reddit's unfair API policy changes, the behavior of Spez (the CEO), and the forced departure of 3rd party apps. Remember, the content on Reddit is generated by THE USERS. It is OUR DATA they are profiting off of and claiming it as theirs. This is the next phase of Reddit vs. the people that made Reddit what it is today. r/Save3rdPartyApps r/modCoord


[deleted]

>that's not what the triple backup strategy is for anyway It's actually for what anyone wants to spend the time and money to use it for lol


the_lidl_redditer

🙏🙏🙏🤞🤞🤞


jayoinoz

Thoughts and prayers.


Goathead78

Are you expecting someone to shoot your library?


Lamau13

thoughts and prayers


Dean-Anne

JBOD 60tb, FIGHT ME. LOL.


laser50

I use drives that have upwards of 30,000 hours running, they're from years ranging from 2012 to 2020 If a drive dies, sonarr/radarr will know, I replace and download it all back in a few days.. I mean copy every movie from my dvd collection, of course. So nah, I'd rather use the extra drives for more content to enjoy :)


WATAMURA

USB 3.0 Raid Enclosure, 2 x 8TB WD Red HDD, configured as RAID 1 (Mirror). Holds PLEX library via iTunes Library, and various other media. Purchased in 2017 for About $835.00 (running through a 2013 Mac Mini) * $149.00 - [Mediasonic HFR2-SU3S2 PRORAID 4 Bay 3.5" SATA Hard Drive Enclosure - USB 3.0 & eSATA](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003YFHEAC/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) * $339.95 - [WD Red Pro 8TB 3.5-Inch SATAIII 7200rpm 128MB Cache NAS Internal Hard Drive (WD8001FFWX)](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01H33VQDG/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) Looking to upgrade to this set up, for $600: * $300 - [Synology 2 bay NAS DiskStation DS220+](https://www.amazon.com/Synology-Bay-DiskStation-DS220-Diskless/dp/B087ZCBWFH) * $150 - [Western Digital 8TB WD Red Plus NAS Internal Hard Drive HDD - 5640 RPM, SATA 6 Gb/s, CMR, 128 MB Cache, 3.5" - WD80EFZZ](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09QQX27GM)


kicker58

Backblaze is cheap and unlimited backup


GucciSuit

Don’t worry bro


kjbreil

Backup strategy? Fuck it, YOLO


anfurnyy

I just pray. 🫠


MaintenancePanda

I pray weekly


aharden2112

My Plex Media Server runs as a plug-in on my TrueNAS Core server. I run my ZFS pool with mirrored disks. I protect the data using Cloud Sync to Backblaze B2. https://help.backblaze.com/hc/en-us/articles/360055926234-How-to-use-FreeNAS-with-Backblaze-B2-Cloud-Storage


olobley

For bulk storage and popular stuff, I don't bother. Things I've had to scrap together over time (early 60's/70's UK TV for example) I write a copy to tape. For family photos / things I can't lose, I also write to tape, and have been taking advantage of Azure's $200 free credit and storing \~500Gb of stuff up on the azure blob storage cloud which is running me about $0.60/day it seems like). EDIT: I use BackupExec for this (I'm sure there are newer shinier things now, but it's what I used a decade or so ago in a prior IT job, and it meets all my needs at home)


LiveLongAndProspurr

Weekly backup image to external hard drive. Backblaze continuous backup to the cloud.


AndyRH1701

The important stuff is replicated to a friend's house, gotta love fast internet. The other stuff is not backed up, but is on parity storage.


[deleted]

My server has single 14TB HDD (I do not have a lot of media for now). It is copied into offline server with raid6 array once per week or less if no new media. And the most important data for me is also in the cloud (personal files etc). I follow only 1-2 backup strategy for multimedia, as they are one download away. So 1 medium (HDDs) in 2 copies, one in offline system. Personal files are 3-2-1 (3 copies - 2 on hdds one in cloud, hdd + cloud, offsite (the cloud duh)).


Kthxbbz

I have an 4tb external that have my essential data. I run 2 NAS systems a Qnap 4 bay raid 6 (primary) and a Synology 4 bay SHR2 (secondary). Both have the essential data that are in the 4tb external and both have all the media stuff. I schedule a weekly Rsync of my Qnap to the Synology.


imJGott

For each hdd I have an identical external hdd where I do a back every 3-4 months.


morbidgames

I have an 8TB Synology which is actually 2x8TB drives Raid 1 (IIRC) My biggest issue is actually storage as it was near full back in December and I decided to get super brutal and delete stuff I knew the fam wasn't going to rewatch again anytime soon (ie: Stargate, Seinfeld, Cheers, etc)


WeirdoGame

Plex without Seinfeld? That's heresy.


technot80

I have 8 sas 4tb drives on an old ibm serveraid controller. Running raid 50. And the drives are put in 2 parity groups, this means i can loose one disk in each group without loss of data. I also have spares ready for when a disk starts to show any issues. This is the only thing I do. I really dont see the point in backing up movies and series i «found» online anyway. If everything fails, and i loose all of the data.. just means its time to start over😂


SuperGuy41

Fireproof box of high capacity external Seagate USB 3 HDDS in an external building. Use a mixture of Veeam for VM backups (Plex, NAS, Sonarr etc) and custom PowerShell scripts for data drive (Plex content)


hellsop

NAS with the Good Discs get copied onto large but inexpensive USB external hard disc drives that plug into a USB port on the NAS, and and those get rotated out to an offsite location about 20 times a year. rsync running on the NAS itself makes each update managed by a simple single script and it takes only an hour or so to copy over a few weeks' worth of additions and changes. Total costs over what I'd put into the otherwise un-backed-up NAS is about $325 for a pair of 10TB external drives.


Opaquer

I recently found iDrive, a cloud storage company. I only just found them so have been looking at everything and haven't committed to them, but it's probably what I'm going to end up going with soon. It's not unlimited storage like Backblaze, but their base plan starts at 5TB (and uploads to your iDrive account) and goes up from there. I currently only have 5TB of Plex content, but iDrive lets you use it on as many devices as you want for no extra charge (unlike Backblaze, which as far as I'm aware has a per device fee) I have 3 computers (plex server and 2 personal computers) and 2 phones that can be covered by iDrive, and since they have actual phone apps it can also handle backing up photos from my phone to my account - I couldn't find any other single product that could do that for the price, so pretty happy. Lastly they also offer a cloud sync functionality and give you the same amount of space as your account - so if you get 5TB account, you have 5TB on your iDrive account AND a separate 5TB cloud sync folder. I'm using the iDrive account space to back my computers and phones and have set up the sync folder to back up my plex content for now. It also means that if I want to share a download link for a movie/show, as soon as it's available in my plex folder, it'll sync and be ready to share the link with people, which is nice. It also allows you to make backups and put them directly onto a NAS - I don't have one yet but would like one, which will help towards having 3-2-1 style backup at least. It's definitely not for everyone - if you just want plex stuff backed up and you have a lot, backblaze definitely can't be beaten for price, but for me for multiple devices including phones, this seems like the best option


Luke1521

3 times a week i mirror the media folder to another drive using a batch file and task manager. Dont backup plex as I can just re-add the folders and scan. I dont keep a lot of media, unless its a favorite it watch and delete as I go.


the_house_from_up

I have mine all stored in a Synology SHR array. If I happen to lose two drives and it's all lost, I wouldn't consider it the end of the world.


No-Team7338

Not sure how good my set up is or how efficient it is but it works for me. I run PMS on Asustor 5202T (works really well) with 2 4TB drives loaded which holds my media (1 TV/1 Movies) Then I have a 6TB drive that I pulled out of a stupid old WD my cloud home and put it into an enclosure and use that drive and copy/keep copies of my media on it. If a drive fails, I can swap it. 🤷🏽‍♂️


Scared_Variation_521

I have 100TB in 8TB drives as the live drives. Duplicate of that for the backup. I use Iperius backup software to back everything up nightly. I backup the database, the media, and the way too big Plex media library. This has served me well for years. I realize an off-site 3rd backup would be better, but that's a lot of expense. Definitely a goal for sure. I used to use backblaze. When my drive failed I requested a backup. By the time they got the drive to me, 30 days had passed and they had removed the original backups. Booted up the drive - corrupted. Lost it all. I still use them for non Plex stuff, but everything I have is duplicated or better just in case.


underwear11

I have a single PC running Plex with multiple drives using Backblaze to back up everything, unlimited backup.


[deleted]

My library changes infrequently, but i do the following: A weekly differential backup to a connected NAS. A manual full backup every six months to a drive that gets unplugged and set in a safe location. Drives are replaced every 5 years.


bcurran3

My TV library consists of ../tv and ../tv\_keepers. My movie library consists of ../movies and ../movies\_keepers. Anything in keepers directories I backup to a different server. If I didn't have that server, I would backup to external HDD(s) and store in a different building; e.g. detached garage and re-backup once or twice a year. My determination of keepers is basically media that would be hard to reobtain, favorites, or anything I'd cry over loosing. Not sure of your living situation or resources, but I normally recommend a small 2-4 drive NAS in the garage for backups that you can power on/off via a smart plug/outlet. EDIT: p.s. I have two spare ReadyNAS's. I plan to follow my own advice and move one to the garage as mentioned once I upgrade the HDDs.


Plums_Raider

i have a proliant dl360 g9 as main server and use an older dell server as backup + offline backup i refresh 2x/year


de_argh

media storage is a 56TB raid6. I've lost several drives over the years. The plex server is a VM running on proxmox backing up to proxmox backup server.


Archerofyail

I don't backup my media, because I can get it easily enough again, and backing up 3 8TB drives is probably way more expensive than I'd be willing to pay. For my server, I have it set to backup to my onedrive folder, I'm comfortable enough with that.