At this point, I have several NAS servers around my house. The best thing I ever did, though, wasn’t setting up five NAS servers. It was separating the important data from replaceable data. That is when running a NAS finally clicked with me, and I wish I had done it a long time ago.

My homelab used to have just one NAS for everything

If that NAS was down, everything was down

Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek

Like many homelabbers, my homelab started out fairly small. Originally, I had a 4-bay Synology NAS, and eventually replaced that with a 12-bay retired enterprise server. In both scenarios, I only had one storage server up and running at one time.

For a while, that was fine. My NAS (network attached storage server) really didn’t do much more than house my Plex media. However, over time, I started to want to store more and more data on the NAS, and found myself hesitant because I didn’t have a real backup solution.

Not only that, but I also didn’t want to deal with the downtime potential that was there. I love my enterprise server, but it required a ton of maintenance up front when I first got started with everything.

Because of this, every time my server was down, my storage was down. This is fine if the storage is just used for incidental files, like movies and TV shows, but it’s not acceptable if it’s production files like photos or videos actively being worked on.

So, I basically only kept archival files on the NAS. Active projects never went to the NAS because it wasn’t ready for it. That all changed once I got a second NAS.

Once I got a second NAS, I started separating my data

Important files go on one, and easy to obtain files go on the other

Once I had two NAS systems in my homelab, I actually started using them in the way they were intended. Originally, while I wanted my NAS to be a place to store files, it became a place to store only my movies and TV shows.

When I got my second one, I actually started to be able to use it and rely on it. My original Lenovo RD440 rack-mount server kept its initial use: storing media server files. I migrated everything else off of the RD440 to my second NAS and it was such a better experience.

Now, I have several NAS systems in my homelab, but each one plays a very important role. Some NAS servers only store replaceable data—things I can re-download in a few moments. I have one NAS whose sole purpose is keeping a local backup of my Google Drive in case anything ever happens to my Google account—that’s easy to replace (unless Google cans the account).

Other NAS servers are where my important data live. I have my photography archives going back over a decade stored on one of my NAS servers. That’s irreplaceable to me. I could never get those photos back again, so it has to be on a NAS with new drives, plenty of redundancy, and cloud backup.

It’s just really nice to know which NAS can be shut down without worry and which I need to be worried about uptime with. Separating the NAS servers gave me a peace I didn’t know I was missing.

I can now back the systems up to each other for added redundancy

RAID isn’t a backup

Credit: Patrick Campanale / How-To Geek

One more thing that played into me having more confidence in the NAS systems was the ability to back up to each other. Whereas before, I only had one NAS server, so I could only have one copy on the server and one in the cloud, now I can have multiple.

Important information I can have stored on my primary NAS and then automatically have it back up to another NAS every night. This gives me two local copies, plus the remote copy I have when it backs up to the cloud.

Some might say that my backup strategy is overkill—having multiple network attached storage servers at home plus cloud backup. But, there’s just some information that I simply don’t want to risk losing, and this is the best way I’ve found to avoid that.

• 

  Brand

  Synology

  CPU

  Intel Celeron J4125

  Memory

  2GB

  Drive Bays

  2

  Expansion

  None

  Ports

  2x USB 3.2 Gen 1

  The Synology DS225+ is a great beginner storage server. It features two 3.5-inch hard drive bays and both 2.5Gb Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet. Designed around Synology’s Disk Station Manager operating system, this NAS offers a simplified experience that anyone will feel at home using. 

  
  

• 

  Brand

  UGREEN

  CPU

  Intel 12th Gen N-Series

  Memory

  8GB (Upgradeable to 16GB)

  Drive Bays

  2 x 22TB

  Ports

  2.5GbE, USB-C, USB-A (x3)

  Caching

  Expandable up to 8TB

  This cutting-edge network-attached storage device transforms how you store and access data via smartphones, laptops, tablets, and TVs anywhere with network access.

  
  

• 

  CPU

  Intel Pentium Gold 8505 5-Core

  Memory

  8GB DDR5

  Drive Bays

  4

  Dimensions

  10.14″D x 7.01″W x 7.01″H

  Weight

  3.79 Kilograms

  With 4 bays available to add up to 136TB of storage, the UGREEN NAS DXP4800 can store all of your data safely and securely.

  
  

Sometimes, redundancy is the best solution

While I don’t have mirrored NAS servers like some out there, I think that my setup is perfect for me. I’m able to keep the important documents on a newer NAS that has newer drives in it, and then the replaceable files live on the older system with refurbished drives.

I don’t expect the old system to die at all, but it just gives that extra peace of mind that I needed before diving into using a NAS the way I now do.