Question for everyone, I’ve been amassing my library over many years, Im now currently looking at over 50TB of data, and Im trying to find the most efficient way to back up all this data, just in case, and Im not going to use RAID or a DROBO.
What is everyone using? Suggestions?
I use Google Workspace, and their Enterprise Plus account for backing up plex and my data
Hi https://forums.plex.tv/u/amen_ra,
I don’t know where you are currently storing your media (does it have parity?), which drives you use (ssd/hdd, but I imagine 50T means HDD) and what your goal is when backing up (Georedundancy, secondary server in case one fails, 24/7 or not, Archival storage, for example on tapes, whole library or just portions etc.) - which leaves thousands of possibilities for each case which I can’t mind read.
But I can tell you something about the experience with my setup: So I first used Plex when I wanted to access audio and video on both Computer and mobile without having to carry my hard drive with me (which I actually did! 
). I was hosting it on an Rpi. But it’s performance was very weak and certainly not meant for transcoding and could barely handle a direct stream. Not thinking about Plex, I was setting up a NAS Server on an old motherboard at the same time to backup files of my main computer on a 0.5 SSD. Easiest option for me was FreeNas, it’s not the easiest to set up, but runs perfectly stable and allows software to run in controlled areas and is free. At some point I figured to just put PMS onto that machine as well just as a backup - and it was way better than on my Pi. Today, Plex still runs on my Pi, but I never used it in the last few months.
As stated above, I don’t know exactly what you want to achieve with your setup, but if you just want a secondary Server that you can access in case one goes offline for some reason and contains all the files, not just the ones you frequently access, it’s probably best to just clone the other server and basically make it redundant. It may even be useful if you put just one behind the firewall and use the primary one 99% of the time but keep the other one online.
You got a lot of choices.
Hope this helps and if you want, just tell me some further information 
Why do you not want to use a NAS? You might look in to Unraid which works differently then Raid.
Hello there, I should have been more specific. I have a JBOD configuration with a drive tower connected via USB3.0 to my PLEX Desktop system, which runs 24/7.
My only goal for backing up is mainly in case of drive failure, it would be a pain to restore so many movies. Yes this would be backing up my whole library Movies + TV Shows.
Archival storage like to tape? Eh I dont know if I want to do that just yet. The only thing I can think of right now is to buy another 8 drive bay tower, fill it with 16tb disks, and do a complete backup with the highest compression possible to shrink the size of the backup.
I was just curious what everyone else is doing to preserve their media (Just in case the inevitable happens).
Having this rather large amount of drives, you should really consider using parity drives, as this is much cheaper than having a 100% backup. Afaik you can’t do this afterwards, but you may want to look into that when setting up the new server. That’s also what most people use.
Personally I don’t use any Parity configuration, as I only have 500Gigs and very few writes and I trust my SSD not randomly giving up (which is not what hard drives are particular good at).
Hmmm Interesting…
I see, Im going to check that out…
Im reading up on Unraid, I like how its not like traditional RAID, but Im going to have some drives, since it cant utilize NTFS formatted disks…
I use a Unraid server that I built. It is a NAS and also supports docker and VMs. Plex and other support software run in docker containers on the Unraid server. All data is backed up automatically by the Unraid OS. I have one parity drive and 8 data drives and can have up to 28 data drives. I have had several drive failures and all I have to do is replace the drive and the data is rebuilt. All data is still available even while the drive is failed or rebuilt. Also with Unraid you can mix drive sizes.
Im liking this, I will be talking to you more soon as I will probably have questions on this setup…
I will throw my hat in for the FreeNAS/TrueNAS option. I have 2 machines running it and have my storage set for RAID-Z3 which means I have 3 parity drives so I can loose up to 3 drives and still have all my data available. The software is rock solid and free. There is a bit of a learning curve but it sounds like you can easily handle it. Lots of forums & how-to’s out there.
Yes it is! 
But it’s fun walking through the steps and in my experience, even if you’re struggling to get something to work, everything else is pretty much untouched (which is very important for me pressing every button there is to see what it does). FreeNAS/TrueNAS just works once you get it up and running. Never failed for me.
Backblaze. US$6.00/mo. Some minor limitations (no temp files, .exe, no NAS, etc.) and the first backup takes weeks. However, once that’s done it will continuously backup. Restores are easy: zip files, or hard media which you pay for but are refunded when it’s returned. I must admit that The Husband has recently set up a RAID and we’ve moved all the movies onto it. That makes me nervous because the loss of our last one is why I started using Backblaze in the first place.
you should be nervous, RAID is not a backup, nor is it a substitute for backups.
backups = multiple copies of your data, ideally in multiple locations (think fire/flood/theft/etc).
multiple NAS/raid devices is a fairly common backup strategy, along with ‘the cloud’ as a 3rd level backup.
I have a collection of, now aging, readynas NAS units providing various levels/copies of backups for various parts of my collection.
don’t forget, your original source media (ie cd/dvd/bluray) can also be considered a ‘backup’, assuming you keep them stored in a safe location and in a manner which will keep them preserved from aging damage (ie not in a hot/cold/wet storage locker or basement/attic/etc).
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