QNAP TS-453Bmini-8G 4 Bay Desktop NAS?

[stevevp]

My back-up strategy is woefully inadequate and, thanks to the recent death of my 4TB WD MyBook is essentially non-existant - other than a manually mirrored data disk inside the PC itself when I remember to do it ...

I have been considering a Synology or QNAP NAS for sometime now but have been put off by the complexity of the kit when all I want is something to run automatic back-ups from my PC and my wife's iMAC. I continue to resist the urge to buy an iMAC myself but that's another story. I have now seen this new model and think it might be what I want: TS-453Bmini :: QNAP

So, two quick questions please.
1. Is anyone using this particular NAS and if so do you have any comments please?
2. Which make of drives would you recommend? I have read that Hitachi are the best and after my recent failure I'm not a fan of WD!

Thanks, Steve

PS I am aware that I will still need a replacement local back-up (I will probably go LaCie 2big) and something on the cloud if I could choose between the different providers.

 

[happycranker]

Steve, I have used a Synology DS 414 for many years with no problems. I had a problem with one of the HD's recently, this was reported by the Diskstation software. I replaced the HD with a new bigger size and everything back to normal with no loss of data. I personally used WD Reds HD's, which are designed for NAS applications.

 

[Roelof Moorlag]

About complexity, did you consider offsite backup with Crashplan? It's super easy and you don't forget. It's quite affordable these days (about 60 euro/year for 1 computer and unlimited data). For the onsite backup i would use an external harddisk (single drive) and a programm like SyncBack Free (it does data validation)

 

[clee01l]

Roelof's suggestion to use CrashPlan is a good one. It is a free app if you use it to backup to a local disk. If you have an unlimited data subscription, then you can also use CrashPlan to back up locally at the same time. No need to run two separate backup apps.

 

[stevevp]

Many thanks for your replies and suggestions. The Crashplan route makes sense, both to a new local HD and a paid subscription to the cloud. I did try them a couple of years ago but gave up when I saw how long the first back up would take.
For two amateur users, a NAS is probably a bit of an expensive option although it does give the option of remote access to documents when travelling away from home. This raises a separate question: if you have a NAS, should you really be accessing and possibly editing backup copies of files or should you maintain a separate synced copy for this purpose?

 

[clee01l]

if you have a NAS, should you really be accessing and possibly editing backup copies of files or should you maintain a separate synced copy for this?

From LR's [erspective.it matters not where your master image copies are stored LR can handle the develop with Smart previews which are trotted locally. So the speed of accessing a network file is irrelevant. Even when LR needs the original copy (to print or export), the network performance is only a minimal delay for one or two images.

 

[stevevp]

Thanks, I take the point about LR but I was wondering more generally about having a back-up copy of eg a Word document which has been edited (whether by remote access to the NAS or Crashplan - if the latter is possible) and now differs from the original. It doesn't seem like a very sensible thing to do unless it somehow gets synced back which I guess a normal back-up program wouldn't do?

 

[clee01l]

Thanks, I take the point about LR but I was wondering more generally about having a back-up copy of eg a Word document which has been edited (whether by remote access to the NAS or Crashplan - if the latter is possible) and now differs from the original. It doesn't seem like a very sensible thing to do unless it somehow gets synced back which I guess a normal back-up program wouldn't do?

Actually, Normal (i.e. true) backup programs do this automatically. It is called version control. If you delete a file and six weeks later realize your mistake, you can find the last saved backup on the backup location. Make a big change to your word document, save it and realize a few minutes later that a whole paragraph is now missing that should not be, then the latest backup before the file changed can be located and recovered. CrashPlan and any other real backup app will do this. A simple cloned or sync'd disk simply replicated your mistakes to the backup disk. Crashplan lets you set the back up frequency and retention period

 

[stevevp]

Many thanks. I had thought that only changes to the original file eg on my PC would result in versioned backups rather than changes to the backup copy on the NAS if the latter is accessed and worked on remotely. It would be great if Crashplan can do this. I have ordered my LaCie 2big 6TB to replace my dead WD EHD and intend to start a 30-day trial of Crashplan. As suggested I'll use Crashplan to manage both backups and see how it goes. I'll park the NAS idea for now. :thumbsup: