Can we talk NAS boxes?

Hardware
23

I went the paranoid route many years ago when I started amassing a lot of digital photos and media. So I subscribe to the 3-2-1 backup rubric: 3 backups, 2 on different media, 1 in the cloud.

  • 4-bay Drobo attached to the Mac for full backup of photos, media, documents.
  • 4-bay Synology DS415play on the home network (not connected to external internet) with separate volumes for Files, Photos, Videos, Time Machine backup.
  • 500 GB Samsung SSD for clone of the MacBook Pro via Super Duper.
    ChronoSync backups for to Drobo and Synology every morning after midnight.
  • Backblaze backup of MacBook Pro and attached Drobo. You canā€™t backup NAS to Backblaze.

FWIW, using the Synology hasnā€™t been that difficult and I havenā€™t had any disk failures or problems. I have had one Drobo fail a few years ago: the Drobo itself failed, not the disks. Hot swapping in drives to the Drobo and Synology is brain-dead simple.

I said I was paranoid.

Cheers, David

24

I have a 5-bay Drobo 5N. It was slow as molasses wirelessly, so I finally just connected it to my iMac. I work with a lot of media, and itā€™s taken me a few years, but I think Iā€™m starting to figure out my own best practices for using the Drobo as an archive. Being able to swap out larger hard drives as I reach capacity (or as the occasional drive fails) has been pretty nice. If I had it to do all over again, I probably would not buy it (or I would have a Synology, which seems to have surpassed Drobo in terms of features and ease-of-use since I made my original purchase).

Iā€™m probably on the low end of tech know-how in this forum, and the Drobo works for me. I suppose itā€™s complicated compared to some solutions, but if youā€™re on the MPU forum, you can probably figure it out.

25

I also use a synology disk station. Another advantage is that is located in another part of my house. If someone walked off with my mac I would still have back ups. If you have a drive attached to your Mac that would probably be gone too.

26

Be careful assuming youā€™re fine having your backup just in another room, you could also be victim of fire, flood or other natural disaster. Having your data in the cloud or at least in another neighbourhood would be better.

2 Likes
27

Having a backup in another room: a fire/flood wonā€™t necessarily destroy my whole home and the backup might be usable. If my home office burns down, the room where the 2nd backup is might not be compromised. Advantage: way faster restoring from that one than from the cloud. But I back up additionally to the cloud, in case my whole home is wasted.

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28

True. I will be signing up for backblaze for that exact reason.

2 Likes
29

Same ā€¦Iā€™m going to setup a Backblaze system. Initially I was going to use
Time Machine backups for my Macs going to our home Mac mini server that Iā€™m
setting up now.

I thought ā€œApple really hasnā€™t touched Time Machine in years with regard to adding
meaningful updatesā€

I bough ChronoSync and after looking at how ChronoSysnc works with ChronoAgent client apps to consolidate backup I personally feel like a ChonoSync > ChronoAgent> Backblaze setup is going to be superior in that I get solid backup and faster file sharing as well via ChronoAgent.

It feels like itā€™s all coming together.

30

This is what Iā€™ve been doing for some months now. Backblaze on my Mac mini server. ChronoSync + ChronoAgent to back up other computers to the server. ChronoAgent is a must have for this ā€“ massive speed up in execution time.

I still use TimeMachine (on the server) as one of several backup paths I use for redundancy.

2 Likes
31

Iā€™ve had a NAS for the last few years and am looking at upgrading to the DS1019+ too. If youā€™re looking purely at backups, then yes an external may well be the way forward.

For what itā€™s worth, I use my NAS for all back-ups but also:

  • Web hosting: I run an affiliate website hosted from my NAS meaning that I save on traditional web hosting fees
  • Media Streaming: I use the NAS as a Plex Server to stream media to multiple devices around the house
  • Home security: Footage from security cameras backed up and stored for a period of a month
  • Controlled remote access to all files across family and contract workers
  • Free software to manage my business including CRM and sales pipe
  • Real time collaboration with contractors on centrally stored files
  • The setup and management of various Virtual Machines

I wouldnā€™t say any of the above has been a hassle to setup - in fact, Iā€™ve been pleasantly surprised how quick and easy it has been to get everything up and running

1 Like
32

I didnā€™t realize the Synology could do so much.

  • How do you like it as a plex server?
  • What software are you using for CRM and sales pipeline?
  • Do you sync the CRM with your contacts on your iphone?
1 Like