Hey, hey, you! Yes, you! Are you backing up your network-attached storage (NAS) device? I didn't think so. Lucky for you, it's incredibly easy to do. Better still, it's just as easy to set up and adhere to the 3-2-1 backup strategy, which involves keeping one copy off-site. That means either physically storing a copy of your backups at a relative's or your place of work, just as long as it's not within the same building as your other copies. There's also the option for cloud-based backups to handle this part.

Depending on what your NAS device is, whether it's pre-built or a custom DIY job, your options may include a one-click off-site backup solution like what Synology offers to customers, or you may need to create an account with Google, Microsoft, or even Cloudflare for storage access. It all depends on how you wish to approach the 3-2-1 backup strategy, but the important part is to actually make it happen and start backing up all your valuable data elsewhere, just in case some unforeseen situation arises at home.

The 3-2-1 backup strategy is your new best friend

Keep all your stored data safe from loss

The primary function of a NAS is to hold data and lots of it. The issue with this is it puts whatever may be stored on the NAS at risk of loss should something happen to the software or hardware. This is why we have a redundant array of independent disks (RAID) and backups. Both help avoid or mitigate data loss depending on the problem that arises. For backups to be effective, however, we must follow the 3-2-1 backup rule. For a quick recap:

• 3 copies of your data (including the original copy).
• 2 different types of storage media (USB drives or external SSDs).
• 1 backup copy stored off-site (off premises or in the cloud).

The importance of this backup strategy cannot be overstated. The process of implementing the 3-2-1 rule may appear overkill, expensive, or even complicated at first, but it's really easy once you have everything in place. First, one copy of this data is stored on the NAS itself. The NAS becomes part of the backup plan. Then we simply use external storage, another NAS, or even a desktop PC to store another copy of the backup data. Finally, we involve cloud-based solutions.

Storing data off-site can prove challenging if you aren't able to stash it somewhere safe. That's where the cloud comes into play. Although I'm always banging on about saving money through self-hosting, the cloud can have a place within the home lab, especially if it's at no additional cost. Better still, depending on your NAS, it could be as simple as activating some integration that sets everything up for you. Backing up your NAS will stop feeling like a chore or some technically burdened process.

How to handle off-site backups

For free (or thereabouts)!

Incorporating cloud storage into backup strategies isn't new. We've been doing it since these solutions came to be. What has changed, however, is availability and cost. There are countless options available from the likes of Microsoft and Apple, and many of them offer free tiers or at least affordable plans that can store most of what you need to back up. Some providers I'd recommend checking out include Cloudflare R2, Amazon S3, Google, Microsoft, and Backblaze B2.

These storage solutions are incredibly powerful, but they can be extremely simple too. It all depends on how you approach them and what the end goal is. For handling the storage of NAS backups, something like Cloudflare's R2 free tier more than likely will suffice. If you have more data that needs stashing away, I'd recommend comparing plans to see which offers the best bang for your buck. How much is your data worth to you? Can you handle (and recover from) losing all your backups in a natural disaster?

Using Cloudflare R2

A lesser-known option for off-site backups is Cloudflare, the same content delivery network (CDN) that seemingly takes most of the internet offline when its network experiences a catastrophic failure. These are extremely rare events, so fear not as your backups will be safe. It's one that can seamlessly integrate with your existing NAS backup strategy. Even Home Assistant has an integration that can back up all its files to Cloudflare's storage platform.

Cloudflare's free storage tier offers buckets that can be used to stash backups. It's not quite as established or feature-rich as something like Microsoft Azure, but it's more than enough for home users, and that's why I use it as part of my own 3-2-1 NAS backup strategy. Whether you're rocking some form of automation like me or just move across backup files every week, it's easy to utilize the cloud and ensure your NAS (as well as the wider smart home or home lab) is all fully covered.

As for getting Cloudflare R2 to work with your NAS, this can be as simple as configuring Synology's Hyper Backup or QNAP's Hybrid Backup Sync, depending on what you have holding all your data. Custom solutions running Unraid or TrueNAS Scale may require additional configuration. Something like rsync can work well with a cloud solution like R2 from Cloudflare. All you need is a destination to point it to, and all backup data will be migrated as configured.

Remember to test backups

Simulate the ultimate data loss

Even if you simply move data manually to an external SSD and call it a day, you must always test your backups to ensure you can recover from data loss. Depending on how you configure your NAS backups, logs may be available from test runs that can help you make sure everything works as intended. Even restoring a small sample of data can go a long way to check that all is well.