Your NAS Without RAID Is a Ticking Time Bomb — And the Fix Costs €1 a Month
Imagine a medical practice. Eight years of patient records, invoices, reports. All of it on a small NAS device in the office. One morning the device won’t start. Disk failure. They call a data recovery company — “we might be able to recover it, €800-2000, no guarantees.”
This scenario plays out every day. And preventing it costs just a few euros a month.
The “I Have a NAS So I Have a Backup” Myth
A NAS (Network Attached Storage) is a great device — centralised storage accessible from every computer on the network. But most small business NAS devices run on a single disk. No RAID.
What is RAID? RAID writes data simultaneously to multiple disks. In its simplest form, RAID 1 writes the same data to two disks at the same time. If one fails, the other takes over. No data loss.
On a single-disk NAS with no RAID, the moment the disk fails, everything is gone. No warning, no recovery.
“But my NAS has RAID” — good, but not enough. RAID protects against disk failure. It won’t save you from fire, flood, theft, ransomware or accidental deletion. An offsite backup is essential.
The Solution: AWS S3 Cloud Backup
AWS S3 (Simple Storage Service) is Amazon’s cloud storage platform. It sounds like something for large corporations — but small businesses can use it for just a few euros a month.
How it works:
NAS Device (Synology/QNAP)
↓ (automatic, nightly)
Hyper Backup software
↓ (encrypted)
AWS S3 — Frankfurt (eu-central-1)
↓
Your data: safe, encrypted, redundant
Synology NAS devices have a built-in “Hyper Backup” application. You configure it once, and every night it automatically sends changed files to S3. Your backup runs while you sleep.
AWS S3 Storage Tiers — Which One Is Right for You?
AWS S3 has different storage tiers, each offering different pricing and access speeds:
| Tier | Best For | Access | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| S3 Standard | Frequently accessed data | Instant | ~€23/TB/month |
| S3 Infrequent Access | Accessed a few times a month | Instant | ~€12/TB/month |
| S3 Glacier Instant | Rarely accessed archives | Milliseconds | ~€4/TB/month |
| S3 Glacier Deep Archive | Long-term archiving | 12 hours | ~€1/TB/month |
Recommendation for small businesses: Active business data: S3 Infrequent Access — reasonable cost, instant access when needed. Older records and archive files: S3 Glacier Instant — very low cost, still accessible instantly when required.
A personal example: I keep my own personal backups in S3 Glacier Deep Archive. For 50GB of data, I pay approximately €1 per month. I don’t need urgent access — it’s perfect for long-term archiving.
A typical scenario for a medical practice: active patient records in S3 IA (€5-8/month), older archived years in Glacier (€1-2/month). Total monthly cost: €6-10.
GDPR and Legal Considerations
If you’re handling patient, client or customer data, GDPR applies to you. Two things matter for cloud backup:
1. Frankfurt Region (eu-central-1) is essential Your data must remain within EU borders. The AWS Frankfurt region guarantees this.
2. Encryption is mandatory Hyper Backup encrypts your data before sending it to S3. The encryption key stays with you — not even AWS can see the content.
3. The account is in your name I open a separate AWS account for each client — in your name, with your email address. The data and the account belong entirely to you. I only handle the technical setup.
For medical practices and law firms, I also prepare an AVV (Auftragsverarbeitungsvertrag / Data Processing Agreement) — required under GDPR, completing your legal protection.
How Does the Setup Work?
- AWS account opened in your name
- S3 bucket created with the correct tier and lifecycle policies
- Hyper Backup installed on your NAS
- First full backup taken (may take a few hours)
- From the next day, only changed files are sent (takes minutes)
- Monthly monitoring report sent to you by email
What you need to do after setup: Nothing. Everything runs automatically.
What If I Don’t Have a NAS?
S3 backup is also possible without a NAS. We install a small backup agent on your PCs (Duplicati — free), and selected folders are automatically sent to S3. Same pricing, same method.
Conclusion
A single-disk NAS can fail without warning. Even a RAID NAS won’t protect you from ransomware or physical damage. Cloud backup is no longer the preserve of large corporations — with AWS S3, your data is encrypted, redundant and safe for just a few euros a month.
The account is yours, the data is yours, the encryption key is yours. I just set it up.
Write to me on WhatsApp for a free assessment of your NAS situation.
📱 WhatsApp: wa.me/4916098665971