Recovery

Use RAID for availability, not as the only backup

Plan the primary NAS and recovery copies as different jobs. The backup has to be reachable when the primary array is not.

Decision 01

Name the failure boundary

Drive failure, accidental deletion, malware, hardware failure, and site loss are different events. A storage plan is complete only when each important data set has a recovery path.

Decision 02

Keep copies independent

An external drive, second NAS, or remote destination can be independent. The exact choice depends on data size, restore time, and location risk.

Decision 03

Test a representative restore

Choose a file set, document the steps, perform the restore, and record the result. A green backup job is not the same as a usable recovery.

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Related decisions

Build a plan

Sources and scope

Last reviewed 2026-07-13. This page separates the decision it supports from the facts that still require a platform or model-specific check.

Applies to

Personal, homelab, and small-team storage planning.

Does not cover

A complete incident response or backup-software configuration.