Our business currently has two aging NAS devices with about 8 TB of usable storage each. One is configured as a copy of the other, and we also back up selected files from local PCs to the NAS once a week. We do not need full system images; the goal is mainly to recover files that would be inconvenient to recreate.
The NAS devices also store business files that need to be accessed by multiple users. Their main purpose, however, is providing faster access to technical documents and updates supplied by manufacturers. A proprietary manufacturer application or portal currently points to a network location on the NAS, so any cloud replacement would ideally need to be mountable or otherwise accessible like a network drive.
Most of our core operating data already lives in various web-based vendor systems and is not stored locally for compliance and operational reasons. Losing the NAS data would therefore be a major inconvenience rather than a total business disaster, although we still want reasonable protection against accidental deletion, ransomware, hardware failure, and local incidents.
Our managed service provider has suggested replacing the NAS devices with newer versions of the same setup, but we are also evaluating cloud storage. What storage and backup architecture would make sense here? Should we keep local NAS storage, move entirely to the cloud, or use a hybrid setup with local caching and off-site backups?
4 Answers
A hybrid setup is probably the safest fit. Keep a small local NAS or cache for fast access and compatibility with the manufacturer application, then back it up to an off-site cloud target with versioning. That avoids depending on internet access for every document while still protecting against hardware failure, theft, fire, and other local problems.
Cloud storage can work well if the files are relatively small and your internet connection can handle the uploads and daily access. For shared documents and archived manufacturer files, a provider offering SMB, SFTP, WebDAV, or rsync access could be easier to integrate than a consumer sync service. If the manufacturer software requires a normal network path, verify that it supports the cloud provider before replacing the NAS entirely.
I would also reconsider the weekly PC backups. Even if the files are not business-critical, daily or continuous versioned backups are usually easy to configure and reduce the amount of work lost. A backup product that supports scheduled file backups and cloud targets can handle this without requiring full image backups.
At minimum, follow a 3-2-1 backup approach: three copies of the data, on two different types of storage, with one copy off-site. A mirror is useful for availability, but it is not a true backup because corruption, accidental deletion, or ransomware can be replicated to both devices. Keep multiple restore points and make sure at least one backup is isolated or immutable.
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