What's my best option for home backup?
March 10, 2021 8:50 AM   Subscribe

Looking for a simple 2-disk NAS that'll do RAID1.

Two machines on home network, both OS X, both would use this device for nightly backup, one might also use this machine for additional file storage. Never set up this kind of device before, don't know which manufacturers to trust or which ones have the best Mac interface on their software (or if that's even a concern).
posted by komara to Technology (11 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
I've been looking for this myself, and I've settled on a Synology -- just can't figure out which one, whether I want the compact model or the one that does the fancy AI photo processing. Time machine backup instructions.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 9:47 AM on March 10, 2021 [3 favorites]


For home backup, a Raid 1 NAS is fine. I too use a Synology box (an older four-disk one). It supports various backup types, as well as all sorts of other services. It's definitely not 'plug in and go' though - I've had to tweak it a lot to remove unwanted services and lock down ports in the firewall.

There tends not to be a 'Mac interface' with these devices. Most are accessed via a URL in a browser. The Synology NASes have a full web GUI that's pretty easy to navigate.

I'd also look at a cloud backup solution as well if your budget permits. Backblaze B2 is a good cheap option, and can be integrated with the Synology NAS (i.e the NAS can be set up to back up to the cloud account).
posted by pipeski at 10:24 AM on March 10, 2021


The Wirecutter recommends the Synology DiskStation DS220+.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 10:30 AM on March 10, 2021 [2 favorites]


Lots of friends like a Synology, but you can't go wrong with any on this MacWorld list of Mac-friendly NAS devices from June 2020.

(I like a roll-your-own and would want 10Gb/s Ethernet to at least be in the same ballpark as with 20Gb/s speeds of Thunderbolt 2 or 40 Gb/s of Thunderbolt 3. Nightly backups don't need more than 1 Gb/s and a twin-mirrored disks write around that speed, so these are good options.)
posted by k3ninho at 10:56 AM on March 10, 2021


both would use this device for nightly backup

The standard advice (and despite what all the drobo/synology/etc. marketing materials would have you believe) is that RAID is not a backup (← just one of the first links on google on the subject). RAID protects against hardware failure but doesn't protect against a lot of things that could damage, destroy, or alter your data. Look into 3-2-1 backup strategies if you can.
posted by msbrauer at 11:01 AM on March 10, 2021 [1 favorite]


Advice about RAID not being a backup does not apply here, it’s only for situations where the RAID array is the single place data is stored.

OP’s question about using RAID external backup for their OSX machines is valid.
posted by migurski at 11:29 AM on March 10, 2021 [9 favorites]


I have a Synology 220+. It's fine and they've done a great job of concealing a lot of the complexity. You need to backup the NAS to the cloud too, so factor in that cost.

But if you're a 100% Mac household and not into tinkering with Linux computers for fun, I would consider instead getting a (new or used) Mac Mini, attaching external storage, sharing that over AFP, and backing up the Mini and attached storage to Backblaze. You forgo the RAID, but the cloud backup is much cheaper for more than 1TB of data ($60/year for the computer and unlimited attached storage for a Mac vs ~$5/TB/month for typical NAS cloud backup). It's simpler for a Mac user to set up. If you get a new M1 Mac Mini then your power draw will be comparable (if not lower than) a NAS. And it will almost certainly be even quieter.

I would absolutely have done this instead of a NAS had the M1 Macs existed at the time (and I would have bought a Rasberry Pi or similar for Linux/server tinkering. Server tinkering on a Synology is honestly kind of weird.)
posted by caek at 11:49 AM on March 10, 2021


Nightly backups don't need more than 1 Gb/s and a twin-mirrored disks write around that speed, so these are good options.)

Backing up what's actually changed that day, I rarely hit more than several tens of MB, which takes just minutes even over WiFi (despite all the hype, still appreciably slower than wired Gigabit Ethernet). Maybe you're in the habit of unloading half a TB of photos from your camera daily, but that would require quite a different class of setup anyway.

Using RAID-1 (or RAID-5) for the backup unit is to keep it from keeling over in case of a manky disk drive; the saying about not being a backup does not apply here. And ideally you would want the two drives in a RAID-1 to be from different manufacturers.
posted by Stoneshop at 12:45 PM on March 10, 2021 [1 favorite]


Nthing Synology. We just purchased a 4-bay not long ago and are very happy so far, we run RAID 10.

Note that with many NAS units you are buying the bare box, and must add your own hard drives. If you are using this primarily for backups I would stay away from HDDs that use "Shingled Magnetic Recording" or SMR as there's significant info out there about reliability (particularly with Western Digital SMR drives) and how SMR takes a performance hit for writes, which will cause your backups to run longer - albeit not terribly significantly.

Stick to spinning 5400 or 7200 RPM drives specifically designed for NAS storage. Anything faster is a waste if you only have 1GB ethernet; your network will hit throughput capacity before the drive does. If your network is 10GB it might be worth dropping $$ on a higher RPM drive or even SSD if performance is a factor for you, but it will get expensive. Spinning drives built for NAS storage are designed with 'the drive is always on and spinning 24x7' in mind and the MTBF on these can be quite impressive.

Being able to bond two or four ethernet ports is also a nice feature with many NAS units if you have multiple computers that will be pushing high loads at the same time.

We settled on a Synology with Seagate's IronWolf series drives and are very happy.
posted by SquidLips at 4:50 PM on March 10, 2021


Depending on how critical the data is, one MAY want to adopt a 3 -2-1 strategy... One local copy (the production data), one local backup (hopefully in a vault), and one offsite (cloud, or portable storage). And rotate the copies periodically (at least weekly if not nightly). 3 2 1 refers to 3 copies of data, 2 different media, and 1 copy offsite.
posted by kschang at 8:06 PM on March 10, 2021


I can vouch for the Synology Diskstation. I bought it to be a simple NAS backup, but I find myself using more and more of its features. Mine currently stores my files, runs nightly offsite backups, hosts a Plex server, runs torrent downloads, and hosts a linux VM. I recently upgraded the RAM on it because I was using it for so many things, which was trivially easy but not necessary for a normal users. And I just had a home computer fritz out on me and I didn't lose any files, so I was happy to have it this week.
posted by no regrets, coyote at 9:41 AM on March 11, 2021


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