WD Sentinel DX4000 12TB Backup Plan

Over the years I've learned the lesson (the hard way) that data without a backup has a funny way of being lost - call it Murphy's Law as applied to storage - any files that can go wrong, will go wrong, and usually at the most inopportune time.

To that end, with 12TB of new storage on the network (WD Sentinel DX4000), I needed to get an automated backup plan in place; One of the other things I've learned over the years is that when it comes to backups, I'm lazy - if I don't automate, I don't backup.

Fortunately, data storage has never been cheaper (one could argue that sentence applies in more ways than one).  I ordered a Western Digital My Book Essential 3TB through Amazon.com to be the primary backup location for the most critical data on the network.  There were a number of similar products on the market, but this one was chosen primarily for 1) cost and size, and 2) the hope that perhaps two products from the same vendor will coexist better than others.  Since the DX4000 has two USB ports available on its case, connecting the device was easy.

To perform the actual backups, software was needed.  The DX4000 ships with a product which (for a fee of course) will backup data to the internet.  However, with a few TB in play, that solution would be too time consuming/costly.  Since the DX4000 is running Windows Storage Server, its possible to use a Remote Desktop Connection to log into the box.  Doing that, I installed a copy of Cobian Backup (v11 Gravity) on the DX4000, a backup package I've used for a number of years without issue.  It has a small installation footprint, and is easily configured to do full backups.

A number of Cobian scheduled tasks later, the DX4000 was setup for nightly backups of critical data directories - all for about $150 and about 1 hour of time.