[REQUEST] Small Business backup solution (extremely poor Internet upload speeds)

[Metanis]

I have a small business client with 4 computers and one SQL-based LOB application. They started 2 years ago with a single computer. They make roof trusses and their LOB app is like a CAD program for designing, quoting, and building trusses. That software vendor already schedules nightly backups to a sub-folder on the local C: drive.

Every computer currently has a dedicated spinner for local backups done by the built-in Windows 7 backup program. (The PCs are running Win10).

We want to add an off-premises component to their backup strategy. But their Internet uplink is only 1Mb DSL. They've had HughesNet and it was even worse. We are looking into Musk's StarLink but that might be awhile.

I'm thinking in terms of adding a NAS in the middle and then scheduling the NAS to push to the cloud after working hours when the 1Mb link can be saturated.

Can anyone point me to a packaged solution that might fit these requirements? Just for more background, their uncle's business located 30 miles away just burnt to the ground, but they had saved everything in OneDrive and lost nothing. That's motivating us to find something similar but that can work on such extremely low bandwidth.

Thanks!

 

[nlinecomputers]

Synology NAS running Backblaze pushing the backup to Amazon. And to an external HDD that you take off site everyday or place in data rated fire safe.

Onedrive can also run on that slow of a connection once it has been properly seeded.

 

[Sky-Knight]

I'll echo the Synology request, but only if you aren't going to offsite it.

Synology Active Backup for Business can be installed on each endpoint and provide scheduled full image backups of all platforms, with configurable retention.

HyperBackup can then be used to replicate the data and configuration of the Synology device to Backblaze or many other offsite data storage options. Simultaneously it can also backup the entire NAS to an attached USB drive of sufficient capacity on a schedule. This drive can be rotated.

The only real weakness to this setup is the software is 100% Synology dependent. That means, if you have an event that destroys the site and the local Synology at the same time, you're going to have to source a new Synology device, and drives for it, connect the new HyperBackup app to the data source that contains the backups, restore all that data to the Synology device, relink all the appropriate backups and then FINALLY you can start restoring actual production data.

All of this is why I use M365, Onedrive / Sharepoint all the things, and the backup M365 with an on premise Synology via Synology Active Backup for M365. If the Synology dies in this case who cares, the production environment is still online in the cloud. So the replacement Synology can take an ages to rebuild... we don't care as much because people are still working.

You're in a seriously limited situation with only 1mbit of upload. That will be saturated with normal internet use. That's .125MB/s, or 450MB/hr. If you limit the Synology to only uploading during an 8 hour period at night, your maximum offsite delta is 3.6gb per day. Tossing in the initial push you're going to be hurting.

Onedrive / Sharepoint will likely have an easier time syncing files themselves into M365 services with those limitations. But again assumes their daily delta isn't much more than 4gb.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

If their internet is slow, but reliable, move them to the cloud? They can just RDP into Win10 desktops up in Azure....run their project software up there...
RDP is low bandwidth.