Macdrifter On Synology Backup

Macdrifter On Synology Backup

Synology DS-214I have been coveting a Synology NAS from afar for quite some time, but have not yet pulled the trigger on buying one.

One thing I have wondered about is backups – I put all these important files on there, but how do I make sure I don’t lose them?

Gabe over at Macdrifter has posted a great guide called Backing Up A Synology NAS.

He has the heavy duty DS1813+, but I know a lot of DocumentSnap readers use smaller models like the DS213j and DS214.

One thing I like about the post is it not only covers the options and mechanics of backing up a Synology, but it goes into a lot of depth about how to think about backups in general.

A backup has to satisfy a few requirements:
1. It has to be triple redundant
2. A backup is no good if restoring it is not realistic
3. At least one of the 2 backups must be located outside of my house
Those are the basic rules for the backup destination. But there are also some priorities for the source.

Even if you are not a Synology user, it is a great piece. Do you use a NAS? How do you back it up?

About the Author

Brooks Duncan helps individuals and small businesses go paperless. He's been an accountant, a software developer, a manager in a very large corporation, and has run DocumentSnap since 2008. You can find Brooks on Twitter at @documentsnap or @brooksduncan. Thanks for stopping by.

Leave a Reply 2 comments

David - February 7, 2015 Reply

I use BackBlaze and love it. Super low maintenance and 30 days of prior versions is handy as is being able access any file remotely or via their app. Unlimited data and multiple drives is nice too.

I will be adding Time Machine when I move from PC to Mac soon. I am not a big fan of external hard drives as I have had a couple fail. I used them as primary storage and BackBlaze saved me. I have sine added another internal HD. I have never had an internal HD fail.

As long as it’s just a backup and with how cheap they are now I willing to try an external drive again.

Wolfgang Hümmer - December 25, 2014 Reply

Hi Brooks,

First of all Happy Holidays, and thank you for your great website!

Please, don’t mix up a NAS with backup, this is very dangerous. Disks do fail (some RAID levels protect you against the loss of one or two disks by spreading your precious data over 4 or more disks). Also the NAS controller can fail, and there is a risk that you cannot piece together your data.

Especially if you “only” look at a 2-disk NAS, set up a partition that is mirrored on both disks and put all your critical data here. So in case of a disk failing you have a copy. Against a total NAS failure you can only protect yourself by backing up your NAS (Synology offers to schedule backups to an external disk).

Finally, a multidisk NAS is very sensitive to powerloss especially if it happens while writing. So you might want to look at a UPS unit.

CU
Wolfgang

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