Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
So here, I guess, is the real question... what would make you happy that isn't "I get to run my business for free?" How much free do you want that isn't enough to make the product non-viable? Is the only point that you want "whatever it takes for it to be free for me" and that's your line for what "a viable free tier" is?
If you are a real business that has real storage needs, and the free tier isn't big enough for all of your needs - then they have it at the right size. The point isn't to make it free for everyone. It's only to make it free for those that would not be able to pay for it. If you would ever consider a NAS instead, you have made the point that they sized it correctly. If the alternative is to not back up at all, then that's when they want it to be free.
I don't have a problem with the cost - I have a problem with the general idea - mostly around performance. Scott's OP and other posts definitely show how this can be cost effective.
I currently find myself in the situation of needing a new backup target and offsite synced solution (second site connected via VPN). $240/yr for 50 TB of storage space is pretty good (not the space itself for this, but managing/access to it I guess you'd call it).
But I'm guessing that my new NAS will last me 7-10 years, so that's $1680 - 2400 over the life of a typical NAS, and that's before I consider the need for more storage in my PCs to allow for it.
Currently the dual drive Synology with 8 TB drives I was looking at was around $900.
So for my situation, I'd still need a NAS at the remote site to replicate to -so that cost is a wash, and the Local NAS will have a higher upfront cost, but lower life time cost - so it boils down to the time value of money equations to see which is better (and that assume zero drive purchases in the PCs to give me 8 TB of usable storage in AetherStore).
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
I'll toss it out there that backing up data only from my POV is pretty rare.
If I have a single server with a dozen shares on it, I don't want to have to rebuild all of that manually because I only backup the data. The case of whole server failure, I just want to restore the whole server, share permissions and all.
Right, but that's because you've opted for a manual setup process. Which is absolutely fine, but you've decided, probably based on your large available backup space and restore time windows, that doing that is better than having an automated build and only backing up data. It's a choice, and a very legitimate one, but it remains a choice.
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@BRRABill said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Again, I had their target market wrong.
And again, at the low pricing, it's really not even a thing. If you can't afford $120 a year for a TB of backups, well then as you always say they can't afford to be in business.
And, more importantly, it's only $10/mo to test at that size if you want to play with it with a full 1TB of data. You can always test and cancel, unlike a NAS, for example.
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
So for my situation, I'd still need a SAN at the remote site to replicate to...
Did you mean a NAS?
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
So for my situation, I'd still need a SAN at the remote site to replicate to...
Did you mean a NAS?
Corrected
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Currently the dual drive Synology with 8 TB drives I was looking at was around $900.
But with no device failover, so a very different comparison. It's fine if that is not something that you need, then it certainly applies to you. But it is very, very important to understand that it's not a fair comparison to compare a single node NAS to the AetherStore approach. You are comparing a two way mirror, single node solution against a four way mirror, four node solution. You can argue that there is a risk to data accessibility in the case of desktops being shut off all at once, but the durability of the data is generally dramatically more important and the quad mirror and quad nodes simply is in a different class than you are considering.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
So for my situation, I'd still need a SAN at the remote site to replicate to...
Did you mean a NAS?
On a side Note - The remote location does have 8 PCs in it... all with 500 GB drives, with around 300 GB free. Assuming 4 copies (I would never consider less in Aetherstore) that gives me 600 GB of storage. I'd need to install 4 TB drives in all 8 machines to match the capacity of a 2 drive 8TB NAS.
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
So for my situation, I'd still need a SAN at the remote site to replicate to...
Did you mean a NAS?
On a side Note - The remote location does have 8 PCs in it... all with 500 GB drives, with around 300 GB free. Assuming 4 copies (I would never consider less in Aetherstore) that gives me 600 GB of storage. I'd need to install 4 TB drives in all 8 machines to match the capacity of a 2 drive 8TB NAS.
Why would you not consider less? I think that's strange. Four way mirror with four nodes as a secondary site, secondary replica of data. You are talking about feeling the need for eight or twelve copies of your data to feel safe... why? What's the fear?
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
AetherStore approach. You are comparing a two way mirror, single node solution against a four way mirror, four node solution.
Do any of the 4 node NAS boxes allow for 4 drive RAID 1? Let's look at the cost of that option here as well then.
Though - really? How many SMBs are really looking to get more than a 1 drive fail protection?
With AetherStore, the only reason I worry about having 4 drives is because of the volatility of end user devices. Even then I'm still not as protected as I am in the DC, because most SMBs don't supply UPSs to end users, as an example.
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And if you don't feel safe with AetherStore without 8-12 copies of your data, why would you be okay with dramatically less with a NAS when it also has less nodal redundancy? What aspect of it is making one feel safe and the other feel risky?
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
So for my situation, I'd still need a SAN at the remote site to replicate to...
Did you mean a NAS?
On a side Note - The remote location does have 8 PCs in it... all with 500 GB drives, with around 300 GB free. Assuming 4 copies (I would never consider less in Aetherstore) that gives me 600 GB of storage. I'd need to install 4 TB drives in all 8 machines to match the capacity of a 2 drive 8TB NAS.
Why would you not consider less? I think that's strange. Four way mirror with four nodes as a secondary site, secondary replica of data. You are talking about feeling the need for eight or twelve copies of your data to feel safe... why? What's the fear?
Where are you getting eight or twelve? I'm talking about four copies.. nothing more, nothing less. I suppose we could split the difference and go three, but again, really?
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
And if you don't feel safe with AetherStore without 8-12 copies of your data, why would you be okay with dramatically less with a NAS when it also has less nodal redundancy? What aspect of it is making one feel safe and the other feel risky?
again, not sure how you came to 8-12 copies.
8 PCs, 4 total copies, need 8 TB usable space.
First things first, 8 TB * 4 copies = 32 TB
32 TB / 8 PCs = 4 TB.
So I would need 4 TB in the PCs to allow for 4 copies.
And why do I demand 4 copies, because as stated, the volatility of end users and the PCs - I already explained that my application causes the need for more frequent reboots than normal. Frankly, 4 might not even be enough to ensure the data is always online. (that would be an interesting test.).
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
So for my situation, I'd still need a SAN at the remote site to replicate to...
Did you mean a NAS?
On a side Note - The remote location does have 8 PCs in it... all with 500 GB drives, with around 300 GB free. Assuming 4 copies (I would never consider less in Aetherstore) that gives me 600 GB of storage. I'd need to install 4 TB drives in all 8 machines to match the capacity of a 2 drive 8TB NAS.
Why would you not consider less? I think that's strange. Four way mirror with four nodes as a secondary site, secondary replica of data. You are talking about feeling the need for eight or twelve copies of your data to feel safe... why? What's the fear?
Where are you getting eight or twelve? I'm talking about four copies.. nothing more, nothing less. I suppose we could split the difference and go three, but again, really?
You want four copies locally, and four copies remotely. You said you would not consider less. That's eight copies. If you have a second set locally as you would need to consider to be even close in the NAS world, that's twelve copies.
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
And why do I demand 4 copies, because as stated, the volatility of end users and the PCs - I already explained that my application causes the need for more frequent reboots than normal.
So your concern is that you think that a reboot of a PC from time to time is going to make your backups inaccessible in the rare event of a system outage? If a server is down and you need to do a restore, you can't either stop people from rebooting for those few minutes and/or just wait for a reboot to finish?
I'm sorry, but I must be missing something huge. This sounds completely ridiculous. What kind of bizarre uptime do you need from your backup storage?
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
So for my situation, I'd still need a SAN at the remote site to replicate to...
Did you mean a NAS?
On a side Note - The remote location does have 8 PCs in it... all with 500 GB drives, with around 300 GB free. Assuming 4 copies (I would never consider less in Aetherstore) that gives me 600 GB of storage. I'd need to install 4 TB drives in all 8 machines to match the capacity of a 2 drive 8TB NAS.
Why would you not consider less? I think that's strange. Four way mirror with four nodes as a secondary site, secondary replica of data. You are talking about feeling the need for eight or twelve copies of your data to feel safe... why? What's the fear?
Where are you getting eight or twelve? I'm talking about four copies.. nothing more, nothing less. I suppose we could split the difference and go three, but again, really?
You want four copies locally, and four copies remotely. You said you would not consider less. That's eight copies. If you have a second set locally as you would need to consider to be even close in the NAS world, that's twelve copies.
Well the remote copies are the equivalent to the remote NAS. OK so in that case, you're right it would be 8 copies, because one would be backing up to the other aka NAS to NAS sync.
But I personally don't have the need to have an onsite synced copy, so that last 4, for a total of 12 is not needed.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
event of a system outage? If a server is down and you need to do a restore, you can't either stop people from rebooting for
As my users to stop working? really? Yeah sure I could ask them to stop rebooting without asking - but damn, that would be rough since my first comment to them is to always reboot.
Here's my question, let's assume 4 copies - does the storage become completely unavailable if all 4 copies of any of the data go offline at any one time? If yes, then what happens when you try to write to that storage during that time? just a failure, as if a NAS is offline? is there any data corruption?
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
But I personally don't have the need to have an onsite synced copy, so that last 4, for a total of 12 is not needed.
Okay, but that means that you probably don't need quad nodes and quad mirrors on AetherStore, either. Because you are only comparing it to a two mirror one node NAS.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
But I personally don't have the need to have an onsite synced copy, so that last 4, for a total of 12 is not needed.
Okay, but that means that you probably don't need quad nodes and quad mirrors on AetherStore, either. Because you are only comparing it to a two mirror one node NAS.
Sure, but I have a near zero percent chance that my NAS will just turn off during the day as well.
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
As my users to stop working? really? Yeah sure I could ask them to stop rebooting without asking - but damn, that would be rough since my first comment to them is to always reboot.
It would actually be rough? I mean this sounds crazy. You are in your ten year server loss event. The biggest deal that happens to IT in a decade. You have a server that has died and you need to do a restore....
And your four users reboot so much, so often that even for once a decade you can't ask them to at least stagger their reboots for a few minutes while you pull data off?
I'm calling BS. If that's the case, your already so fragile that you can't be functioning. And they can't be doing any work, their machines never stop rebooting!
This is, quite simply, not a possible scenario in the real world.
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Here's my question, let's assume 4 copies - does the storage become completely unavailable if all 4 copies of any of the data go offline at any one time? If yes, then what happens when you try to write to that storage during that time? just a failure, as if a NAS is offline? is there any data corruption?
It's like a drive becoming temporarily unavailable, there is a delay. If it is long enough, the write will fail. If it is short enough, it will just cause latency. In any case, the process writing to it will know what happened and act accordingly.
