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I bought a Synology DS213+ to use as a system backup for raw instrument data and final reports generated by my lab. So, one year of such data is about 20-30GB. I think its probably OK to buy two Samsung 850 Pro 256GB SSD's to run in mirror but wonder if I should be getting 512GB SSD's instead. I'm using SSD's because this rig is going to live in a 3.4 cubic foot fire safe along with my critical paper records, so power draw needs to be minimal. Or, I could put it in a second smaller fire safe by itself... Am I thinking about this the right way? I'm a geochemist not a IT specialist.

How long will the SSDs sit powered off? Does the NAS live in the fire safe while operating?

How are you getting power into the fire safe? and network? Or do you plan on taking it out every so often to back up your data? As a cautionary tale, you may want to look at my "Are my hard drives dead?" thread since I just plugged in a NAS that had been sitting around for a while, and it's not good..

How much airflow is in the safe? You are correct that you need to be careful of power consumption due to temperature but even then, you have to consider the host electronics. Without airflow in the safe, I would imagine the system getting rather toasty even with SSDs. The recommended operating temperature per the spec is 35C/95F which isn't that high in the grand scheme of things.

I'd also take it as a matter of best practice to keep paper records away from electronics as the worst case scenario always involves electronics catching fire. Though does the safe have to the same style type between the paper and digital records? IE could you acquire a safe or small locking rack enclosure for the NAS? There are several vendors offering small yet secure cabinets to host systems in. One of my previous employers had 9U usable of space cabinet that we'd stack four high for colocation clients. They looked like a deep gym locker with rails insides. Ironically, several of our clients used that colo space for basically the same thing you're doing: remote backup of data. They often put their own UPS (the data center had its own facility wide UPS) and VPN appliance in there with the NAS.

Those to answer your question about SSD size, I'd always opt for the larger capacity as it provides more room to grow.

The NAS will live on the top shelf of the firesafe. The firesafe is a Sentry 3.4 cubic foot that sits on a carpeted concrete floor. There are two ~1/2" bolt holes in the floor of the safe to allow it to be bolted to the floor. I figured I would bring the power and Cat5 cable in through one bolt hole.
DS213+ data sheet

During System Hibernation mode, DS213+ consumes only 2.6 watts of power to listen for network activities, and resumes back to operation in very short amount of time upon demand.

I figured I would use the Synology software to do a daily backup after business hours and that I would be using the workstation as my host/gathering point for data. Its a small lab, 6 PC's taking data from 7 instruments and this one workstation up front used for reporting.

There is no airflow in the safe. Although, the safe is not stuffed full, so there could be circulation of the air that exists on all three levels. The NAS could be on the bottom to get cooler air.

I am a little nervous about starting a fire in my firesafe. I could purchase a separate same sized or smaller safe for the NAS.

Mr Bill wrote:

The NAS will live on the top shelf of the firesafe. The firesafe is a Sentry 3.4 cubic foot that sits on a carpeted concrete floor. There are two ~1/2" bolt holes in the floor of the safe to allow it to be bolted to the floor. I figured I would bring the power and Cat5 cable in through one bolt hole.

If fire is your worry (rather than theft), those holes will just lead the hot air into the safe and start the in-safe fire for you.

I'm really seeing 3-4 external drives (HDD, not SSD) backed-up to in rotation and kept in the fire safe (with plugged bolt holes) when not in use.

I should probably ask in a separate thread about the smartest way to keep my internal network of lab PC's separated from the internet.

Captain Ned wrote:

Mr Bill wrote:

The NAS will live on the top shelf of the firesafe. The firesafe is a Sentry 3.4 cubic foot that sits on a carpeted concrete floor. There are two ~1/2" bolt holes in the floor of the safe to allow it to be bolted to the floor. I figured I would bring the power and Cat5 cable in through one bolt hole.

If fire is your worry (rather than theft), those holes will just lead the hot air into the safe and start the in-safe fire for you.

I'm really seeing 3-4 external drives (HDD, not SSD) backed-up to in rotation and kept in the fire safe (with plugged bolt holes) when not in use.

OK, I see your logic. I was trying for automated convience and mirrored for redundancy. Theft is a worry because my lab is accessable to our local river trail and a nearby fun park. Both adults and kids have been videoed by the business across from me, trying all the car doors in the parking lot.

Maybe you can build a robot that can open the safe, pull out a drive, plug it in to the machine, and then put it back after the backups are done..

Perhaps a dumb question, but if you need it to be regular, why not just use automatic offsite backups? I was thinking of doing the same thing as you (for my personal backups), but the difficulty in making it be reliably fire-proof and thief-proof while also being automated meant that once I had CrashPlan going, a standard RAID NAS sitting on my desk served the standard backup scenario and CrashPlan's servers were the fire and theft backup.

I know you already have the NAS, but maybe that can be retasked somewhere else and get yourself one of these: https://iosafe.com/