[Closed] NAS drives which support time machine/time capsule is dead 🙁

Oh possibly photo storage as well. We use iCloud sharing but I’d quite like a backup for all our family photos.

My knowledge of these is a bit dated, but if you've just lost one due to drive failure would RAID not be sensible option? Cloud backup is all well and good but y'know, more the merrier.

Both drives in my nas (clunky old linkstation) have been replaced at least twice, but I've never lost any data due to RAID1 setup.

I've had 2 Synology NASs over the last 10 years - very happy with them - they'll do everything you describe with ease (don't know about backing up Android)

Synology NAS - mine works seamlessly with my Mac, also back it up to the cloud using amazon but I prefer idrive now as I got a good deal on storage space for a year.

I have all my music and films on mine, so the back up is local usb and off-site to cloud. Really flexible you just have to workout how you want to use it and the backup strategy.
Of course it can just work as a time machine storage.

I got myself a Qnap NAS about 4 months ago and have to say that it is fairly baffling to use and set-up.

I can find my way around a computer pretty well, but have limited knowledge of networks etc. and find myself doing a ton of research every time I want to set something new up. And half the time I end up giving up.

From what I have read, Synology seem better in this regard...

On the Raid issue, I hear you but it's a lot more for a two enclosure NAS and since 90% of it is used for 'double backup' it seems belt and two sets of braces to go RAID.

Yeah the WD software is apparently horrible as well. I don't want to have to install loads of stuff on Mac to make it work. There don't seem to be very many 'dumb' NAS drives now. I did look at getting a refurbed apple unit but they are silly money and the performance isn't great.

Thanks so far, will do some investigation of recommendations

Hi Alex, we have a Seagate Personal Cloud 3TB thing hooked up to our network doing more or less exactly what you need. They did a 5 and 6TB version iirc. It was only about £120 from Amazon.

It isn't fast but it doesn't need to be. Can stream films and music from it using a PC as a Plex server (if that's of interest) and access it anywhere using a web address or phone app etc.

Seems they don't offer them anymore, instead favouring USB3 drives. I've lost touch with computer stuff to determine if this would be a suitable option.

Having done some more reading, I think we’re going with the cheap (ish) Synology 2 bay but with just a single 4TB disc in it. If I feel the urge to go RAID I can in the future. Thanks all, useful real world advice there.

@twonks, look like seagate are out of the NAS game, everything seemed to need a USB connection and that’s not what we want.

. I did look at getting a refurbed apple unit but they are silly money and the performance isn’t great.

Mskenneththecurtain has an apple time machine thing that hasn't been used in literally years that she probably wouldn't mind parting with - would a second hand one float your boat?

I'm amazed if you can get a 2bay Synology with 4TB drive for under 250.  Synology are my NAS of choice though - set up using Synology Hybrid RAID.  Then, when one drive dies (as they do), you just replace it and let it resync.  If the NAS dies (as one of mine did a month ago) you can take the drives out and put them in the latest model.  I don't know how it does it but I didn't lose any data - it just reconfigured itself for the new NAS after a few questions.

and well done for having a backup in addition to your NAS (I'm guessing that's how you haven't lost all your data)

@kenneth - I think we're moving on from Apple but dropped you a PM

@leffeboy - yeah the more I think about this, the more thinking of this as a proper backup rather than a disk copy is helping me make a decision. Looking at the software you get that performs seamless always on backups makes me realise how rubbish one of us (and it's not me) is in backing up really important stuff we have no copies of!

I've now blown the budget and am thinking of this unit: https://www.broadbandbuyer.com/products/30498-synology-ds218j-6tb-red/

Oh yeah we have copies of the data on various machines, all we lost was the stuff we were working on in the shared directory but again someone had the latest local copy.

One of the things I like about the Synology is - aside from the backup my wife doesn't have to remeember to do 😉 - is the dropbox sync stuff so we can share a directory that just gets updated with whoever is working on it. Our current approach is to ask 'is it okay to overwrite the network copy and/or I've called it version 73.x.d.y hope that makes sense' 😉

Had reliabilty issues with Synology myself, been using QNap for a few years and it’s been brilliant. Exactly the apps I need and simple to access from anywhere. If I was going to upgrade I would get another Qnap without question.

Thanks. The QNap is quite a lot more for the same storage tho... already over budget but I'm balancing that with the fact these latest NAS drives are pretty sophisticated and we can make use of some of those features.

Just weighing in with a +1 on synology. Got 4 or 5 disk stations and a rack station at work, all great.

That said, if this is for work stuff, surely you can justify the small extra outlay for a 2nd drive vs cost of lost data/time?

Also bear in mind you say you don’t use iCloud as you don’t want stuff on the web - if you’re using the file sync features etc of a NAS you are making it internet accessible in some way. Do you trust yourself to keep a device up to date, patched and secure more than the big cloud providers?

I’m pretty much sold on the 2nd drive now. It’s less than a £100 for piece of mind.

In terms of remote access, I would probably just get my better half to open it up if I needed something I didn’t have on iCloud. Then close it down again. Or I might just ignore my paranoia about network security and ditch iCloud 😉

Qnap user here - the family have 3 of them. They are reliable, I wouldn't say difficult to set up for any sort of normal usage, but I can't compare them to Synology.

DezB Subscriber
Had reliabilty issues with Synology myself, been using QNap for a few years and it’s been brilliant. Exactly the apps I need and simple to access from anywhere.

I dont really wanna derail this thread (perhaps i should start a new one), but what do you use to access it from anywhere? That myqnapcloud website option?
Whenever i access mine (say from work) and then choose pictures, it takes so long to load the photos it is virtually unusable.
I wanted to set-up user accounts so my family can access family photos etc. but am never sure of the best way to do it and if it's secure or completely open.
I did look into configuring the qvpn app, but wasn't sure if i had to do this once I'd signed up for a vpn service, or whether the qnap acted as the vpn server, or what.

I feel like i need a book about it that isnt NAS drive for dummies, but equally isn't so technical it's impossible to understand...

cranberry Member

Qnap user here – the family have 3 of them. They are reliable, I wouldn’t say difficult to set up for any sort of normal usage

What would you consider to be 'normal usage'? Do you have any background in IT?
I just find the whole thing completely baffling and have kind of given up on it. It's got all my data stored on it and i manage to set-up qsync on my phone so all my photos get synced to a folder. But apart from that...!? Mainly confusion....

I do have a background in IT, many moons ago, so Iam an atypical user. If there's something you are stuck with, open a new thread and I'll see what I ( and others ) can do to sort things out.

cranberry Member

If there’s something you are stuck with, open a new thread and I’ll see what I ( and others ) can do to sort things out.

Cheers! I should probably revisit it, have a play around and then start a thread...!

I've just this weekend completed my most gloriously geeky achievement - I set up a Raspberry Pi to act as a time machine backup server for our two Macs. Total cost £106 for a 4Tb drive attached to a Pi 3+ (+ a 32Gb XD card). I'm quite pleased with myself. It's wirelessly doing an incremental backup as I type. I'll admit I don't know enough to know what the benefits of a dedicated NAS are. But I fancied a tinker and it all worked gloriously.

Oh, and the Pi is also a Pi-Hole (Except on STW, naturally).

😀

@superficial - impressive stuff 🙂

I like the idea of opening it for photos. With our MTB trips, we’re always trying to find a simple way to get all the photos into an easy to view ‘bucket’. Current solution is google but I’d be interested to try something else.

but what do you use to access it from anywhere? That myqnapcloud website option?
Whenever i access mine (say from work) and then choose pictures, it takes so long to load the photos it is virtually unusable.

I use the QNap apps. And Plex (but my broadband is too slow to watch anything in a decent resolution).
But music (QMusic), photos (Qphoto), files (Q.. guess) - all accessed through myqnap user account.
As cranberry says, there's nothing complex in the set up - the apps are running on the NAS, get the corresponding apps on your phone/tablet/computer to access stuff.
I also use Qsync to syncronise files between computers and the NAS (couldn't live without this).
And the backup (got a feeling it's not actually called QBackup! can't remember the name of it) keeps all my music synced between iTunes computer and the NAS, for backup and streaming.
Their support has always got back to me quick on anything I've reported. They even replied to my feedback about Qmusic and updated the app to my requirements 🙂

I wanted to set-up user accounts so my family can access family photos etc.

Synology are good for the photo stuff as well.  They have an app called 'Photostation' that you can use to look at photos and you can even set it up so that people outside of your house can look as well.  I use it as bulk media storage for work as it works quite nicely.  The downside if you enable people outside of your house to see it is that you have effectively put your NAS on the web.  If you are going to do that make sure you are on top of all updates (you can make them automatic), that you have a properly complex password and that you do from time to time take snapshots of your NAS to something else such as a USB drive.   Same applies to any device you stick on the web really

Other than that it seems to work nicely and is easy enough to set up unless you've added some other fancy firewall in your house at which point you will know what you are doing anyway

I use the QNap apps.

Ah, yes. I currently have just been using QFile & QSync. I only use QSync to act as a 'back-up' for the pics on my phone.
I have just downloaded QPhoto though and that looks like it has a similar function.
I had been put off bothering with QPhoto as there seems to be a lot of negative reviews, but I'll give it a whirl.

I think the main problem I am having is that maybe my expectation of how it would work & how I would interface with it, is different from the reality of how you actually do it, and so I'm struggling to get my head around it.

leffeboy Subscriber

Synology are good for the photo stuff as well. They have an app called ‘Photostation’ that you can use to look at photos and you can even set it up so that people outside of your house can look as well. I use it as bulk media storage for work as it works quite nicely. The downside if you enable people outside of your house to see it is that you have effectively put your NAS on the web.

Yes. Security is my main concern with this & I have not yet set up any way of sharing because I don't feel that I know enough about what I am doing, to ensure that the NAS is secure.
When I have looked into it, I get confused by all the options & methods, so just give up.
Then I look on the QNAP forum and end up completely lost & confused in IT babble....I keep meaning to sign up and post some questions, but it seems like quite a hostile place; unless you are a Tech-Wizard Geek Third-dan they seem to lay into you at the slightest sign of IT weakness.... 😉

I've actually got an almost plain text password, have got everything just as default setup goes and not had any slight security concerns. I mean, what would a hacker do, download some of my music files ?? (and we all know nobody wants those!).
If you don't like Qphoto - I'm sure there are 3rd party apps you could install (or just use Qfile, which can play music, video and view photos)

I wonder what the chances of someone - maliciously or otherwise - of finding your NAS in the masses of internet address space. I guess it’ll respond on certain ports.

Firewall is already a bit funky as I have SIP running through it for the phone and a couple of other weird rules. It’s a decent FW tho, not the rubbish you get with normal ISPs.

Anyway first I need to get the NAS and build it for internal use. In the meantime I might see if I can take the Time Machine apart...

Alex Subscriber

I wonder what the chances of someone – maliciously or otherwise – of finding your NAS in the masses of internet address space. I guess it’ll respond on certain ports.

Dunno.
Although I set-up a security option whereby more than 5 failed log-in attempts within a certain time frame gets that IP address blocked for a certain time period (I set mine to 1 day).

Since then, I've had two warnings in the event log that IP addresses were blocked due to multiple failed log-in attempts.
When I stuck those IP addresses into Google, they both came up as known security risks from Russia.
I've now added them to the 'deny connections' list & set them to 'block forever'.

What they would do once in, is another matter. No idea. All they'd get would be photo's, music & 3-D printing files.

..biggest problem would be if they had a virus for whatever funky Linux(?) based o/s it has I guess.
But I wouldn't lose anything even if I had it wiped, except a bit of time rebuilding.

See, DezB - here's the thing...

I've installed QPhoto today and it seemed to take a while to populate all the folders once I'd told it where to look, which I guess is understandable given how many pics it had to trawl through.

Now I've looked at it this evening, some folders seem fully populated, but other folders have only videos in them and some have absolutely nothing in them.

Looking on qfile the pics are there in the same folders. But trying to open them from there just takes forever and it generally times out before they actually open.

I don't get why there's a disparity. Supposedly they are looking in the same place for the same files, but it doesn't work...then I spend an entire evening trying to work out why. Then just give up.

I wonder what the chances of someone – maliciously or otherwise – of finding your NAS in the masses of internet address space. I guess it’ll respond on certain ports.

High.  We have some web facing stuff and I'm forever seeing 'people' attempting to break in.   The standard ports will be well known so if there is a Synology weakness out there (for example) then there will be people scanning trying to find machines that are open.

Why bother?  For example they might just encrypt it all in case you have important stuff there and then charge you to decrypt it.  They don't care if there is anything important or not

At worst there is the possibility of getting on to that machine and then using it as a gateway to finding other devices on your network that are more valuable.  Remember that no-one is specifically attacking you - it's just a bunch of tools that they may even have rented from someone else that they will then use to try and get some money off of anyone who still hasn't learned to keep things up to date and make passwords at least slightly complicated

edit: just checked the login block list.  Typically 10 new IP addresses added automatically each day due to too many failed login attempts in too short a time.

Incase you’re thinking about going 2nd hand, I’m looking to shift my DS215J (just upgraded to a 7x series).

Could be a cheaper option and allow you to go bigger/better quality on the drive front.

They’re great machines, I’ve had 3 in total and never had an issue with them other than failed drives (which isn’t the synology’s fault)

I’ve installed QPhoto today...

Interesting - I rckon you should raise it with Qnap support. I don't actually use it for my photos (I started using Google long before I had a NAS), so all I can see when I open the app is a load of artwork from my MP3 library. I guess it's auto-populating with image files from my "Multimedia" folder.

[i]other than failed drives (which isn’t the synology’s fault)[/i]
Hmmm... Synology: failed drives, Qnap: no failed drives. Whose fault is it then?

Just piggybacking on this. I curreny have a d-link NAS - got the enclosure from a guy at work and stuck a drive in there and put all my photos and music on there. However I don't ever fire up my home PC as i's just so painfully slow, we only use the chromebook and android phones / tablets at home

are there any NAS solutions that integrate well with ChromeOS / android?

DezB

Interesting – I rckon you should raise it with Qnap support.

I take it all back - I think I should have just been a bit more patient.

I have just had a look this morning and it looks like all of the pics have now appeared.
I guess it just takes a while to sync the tens of thousands of pics on the NAS. I was a bit thrown because there didn't seem to be any logical order to which folders were populated & which ones weren't.

EDIT - it was something like 6hrs+ between installing it & checking to see if all files were there, which I would have thought would be long enough......

it was something like 6hrs+ between installing it & checking to see if all files were there, which I would have thought would be long enough……

Depends on how much you have.  We have 6TB on one of our Synologies.  It used to take a week to reindex before we upgraded our box.  It does get there, it just takes a while.  Cheaper boxes take a bit longer as they lack the horsepower but once it is done it's done so just waiting is fine

NASes have low power processors and limited memory, so image manipulation will take time.

Update: Installed it last night after getting home from a work trip so it was late and I was pretty knackered. No drama tho. Phone app got me through format and OS install. Then web app is pretty intuitive. Very rich set of apps/features tho.

Time machine backups done, shared folders done, just need to install the ‘Drive’ App on PCs so we have incremental backups. I’ve taken out photos and music from the backups as I’m going to have a crack with the audio and photo apps.

So far so good. Transfer speed is so much quicker than the old Apple device.

Alex

Subscriber
Update: Installed it last night after getting home from a work trip so it was late and I was pretty knackered. No drama tho. Phone app got me through format and OS install. Then web app is pretty intuitive. Very rich set of apps/features tho.

What did you end up going for in the end - I must have missed it, in amongst all of my off-topic ramblings! Was it the Synology that you linked to further up?

It was. 2 x 4tb setup.