Off-Site backup with a NAS

Synology is like Microsoft. They've provided hardware and an operating system with some functionality but plenty of customisability but they're not going to provide tech support to teach you how to use windows, word, excel, etc. Additionally like windows, there are plenty of additional 3rd party addons are available for it depending on how you want to use it and what for which again they can't provide support for.

Sure - it's not something you'd expect a complete novice to configure in the same way you wouldn't expect a novice to configure a home network, but in saying that there is plenty of information available for people who are happy to go through a tutorial and follow instructions to work with.

ShotByTom wrote in post #18868456
I spent about $900 for a 4 Bay Synology NAS (16TB), and it has been a PITA! If you aren't familiar with NAS, I would look for another solution. Synology support is about as useless as Comcast! When I called with questions, they told me that Synology NAS is meant for experienced users and they don't offer setup help beyond what is on their website. I use Smugmug to store all delivered images and I keep everything stored on multiple drives at home. I'm still trying to figure out how to make use of this expensive NAS.

This really makes my point. If you depreciate $900 over 5 years then you get $15 per month. In addition, you need to spend time to set it up and infinite hours on updating and other maintenance tasks. Cloud storage are somewhere in the range of 5 - 10 US$ per month. And yes, this requires that you do have the corresponding internet bandwith.....

drmaxx wrote in post #18868651
This really makes my point. If you depreciate $900 over 5 years then you get $15 per month. In addition, you need to spend time to set it up and infinite hours on updating and other maintenance tasks. Cloud storage are somewhere in the range of 5 - 10 US$ per month. And yes, this requires that you do have the corresponding internet bandwith.....

Infinite hours updating and maintaining? Please. And I don't expect to have a symmetric gigabit Internet connection any time soon. Never mind the security implications of having all your personal data on someone else's server and accessible to the entire planet.

mike_d wrote in post #18868745
Infinite hours updating and maintaining? Please. And I don't expect to have a symmetric gigabit Internet connection any time soon. Never mind the security implications of having all your personal data on someone else's server and accessible to the entire planet.

I might just have been unlucky with my qnap. But there are regular safety update that require a shut down and restart (not a fast process on my older machine, typically 10 Min.) plus the update process - and with my good luck, I already experienced two (unfortunately well known) catastrophic OS update failures with major issues worth several hours of tinkering. Yes, not 'infinite' - but definitely too much for my taste. And if you not want to 'be accessible to the entire planet' then these security updates are a must.
The current cloud backup I am running has client side encryption. Can certainly be cracked - but I would not classify this as accessible to the entire planet.

drmaxx wrote in post #18868858
I might just have been unlucky with my qnap. But there are regular safety update that require a shut down and restart (not a fast process on my older machine, typically 10 Min.) plus the update process - and with my good luck, I already experienced two (unfortunately well known) catastrophic OS update failures with major issues worth several hours of tinkering. Yes, not 'infinite' - but definitely too much for my taste. And if you not want to 'be accessible to the entire planet' then these security updates are a must.
The current cloud backup I am running has client side encryption. Can certainly be cracked - but I would not classify this as accessible to the entire planet.

My NAS sits safely behind my firewall. I would have to take extra steps to expose it to the Internet, which I'm not going to do. Its not critical to patch the software constantly because its not exposed to the Internet.

I do keep some data in OneDrive and Dropbox, but its stuff that is backed up locally. The big danger in sticking everything on some public cloud storage without a local copy is that your account could get compromised or the provider decides you've violated some rule and locks your account. Now what?

Sure, I'll do encrypted backup to the cloud, but I'm not about to give some big corporation my only copy of important stuff. That lives on my NAS were it's easily accessible at gigabit speed, then backed up a couple of different ways.

mike_d wrote in post #18868867
but I'm not about to give some big corporation my only copy of important stuff. That lives on my NAS were it's easily accessible at gigabit speed, then backed up a couple of different ways.

I am talking off-site back-up here (title of the thread) - which never ever should be the only copy you have. If you loose this backup then under normal circumstances you should have at least two other copies to repopulate an other off-site solution (plus some more paranoia backups that are not updated very frequently - but that's me).

$5-10 per month for 16TB of online storage? Where are you getting that from as that is a good deal.

Cloud storage is less maintenance, is usually more simpler to setup. I'll definitely give you that.

But I think there's a curve in the graph, and once you get beyond 1TB or two, then having your own starts becoming much more economically viable, and worth the extra 'trouble' so to speak.

It also means you have very quick access to a lot of that data if it's located geographically close.

It's all YMMV and comes down to a number of factors based on each users unique requirements, situation, options, etc.

For me, I went through the pain and trouble of getting Synology configured (which wasn't too difficult in the end) - and now I don't have to pay any monthly fee's and my data is replicated offsite as well as backed up in 2 other different ways at both sites and I couldn't be happier.

adza77 wrote in post #18869084
$5-10 per month for 16TB of online storage? Where are you getting that from as that is a good deal.

Three that come to mind are Backblaze (was 5 $US), Carbonite ($6) and Crashplan ($10 per month) with unlimited storage. I currently use Crashplan on an old plan for $2.50 per month - again for unlimited and incremental backup with versioning. Quite happy with the service (used the versioning feature a few times) - but the deal is running out soon and I am not sure, if I can get similar from one of the cheaper services.

adza77 wrote in post #18869084
For me, I went through the pain and trouble of getting Synology configured (which wasn't too difficult in the end) - and now I don't have to pay any monthly fee's and my data is replicated offsite as well as backed up in 2 other different ways at both sites and I couldn't be happier.

Does this mean that you have two Synology server? Or how are you doing the off-site replication? Over the internet or dedicated line?

Not really....if you're setting up something like the OP asked about, it's not a difficult task. We use 2 Synology NAS boxes, at 2 different locations, and they sync off each other. Very convenient if you have two people working on projects together, and it's much, MUCH faster than using a cloud drive. That's not hard to set up.

But....Synology advertises things like hosting your own website, email server, media server and several other features that they refuse to provide any assistance with. Sure, there are tons of Youtube videos on Synology showing how to do things, and I'm pretty sure I've seen them all!

If you want to use it like a hard drive with remote access..not hard, anything else, forget about!

drmaxx wrote in post #18869096
Three that come to mind are Backblaze (was 5 $US), Carbonite ($6) and Crashplan ($10 per month) with unlimited storage. I currently use Crashplan on an old plan for $2.50 per month - again for unlimited and incremental backup with versioning. Quite happy with the service (used the versioning feature a few times) - but the deal is running out soon and I am not sure, if I can get similar from one of the cheaper services.

Thanks for that - these are definitely cheaper than what I've seen with the other companies.

But as you mentioned, deals can expire, and plans have changed. Microsoft dropped it's features, and when you use 3rd party providers they have the ability to make changes down the track which can mean having to resetup with another provider all over again. Having your own devices ensures that you are in full control.

I don't believe there is a single right solution out there, but there are various pro's and con's for each option - and it's up to the individual to prioritise the pro's and con's to what is most effective for their individual circumstance.

drmaxx wrote in post #18869096
Does this mean that you have two Synology server? Or how are you doing the off-site replication? Over the internet or dedicated line?

Correct - I have two NAS now. It was possible for me to do with just one NAS and software (so it's on my computer's HDD and I sync that with a single NAS) - however since we have a second NAS at our office (self employed) that has ample free space available on it - I opted to go with a complete mirror solution with two different NAS's so all the photo's at home are no longer stored on the PC's HDD but on the NAS instead.

ShotByTom wrote in post #18870614
But....Synology advertises things like hosting your own website, email server, media server and several other features that they refuse to provide any assistance with. Sure, there are tons of Youtube videos on Synology showing how to do things, and I'm pretty sure I've seen them all!

So does Microsoft. You can host websites, email servers, media server's, etc with Windows Server OS as well - but like Synology they're not going to provide assistance with setting this up as well.

I agree that Synology isn't a solution for everyone - and that's where cloud based services can be more convenient for many - but it wasn't difficult in the end to get Synology configured to sync between two NAS's. It takes a little bit of persistence, but that's about it.

The best place to get support for Synology would be forums with other synology users as opposed to Synology direct. I use the same approach when dealing with issues with Microsoft. Most answers come from other users who have found a solution.

ShotByTom wrote in post #18870614
But....Synology advertises things like hosting your own website, email server, media server and several other features that they refuse to provide any assistance with

A mail server and web hosting requires using non Synology software, it also requires you to have the right network infrastructure and the right kind of connection to your ISP. These are things outside of Synologys control, they are really just supplying part of the hardware required.
Setting up a media server however is very easy, and something you should go back and have another look at.
Video station is Synologys own media server and I found it easier to set up than the storage volume and shared folders.
Or, there are plenty of 3rd party options, Plex being one that is well supported on Synology and it's also really easy to set up.
Both have Andoid and iOS apps making access to the content really easy as well.

Actually they don't require 3rd party software, Synology has 2 mail server packages and 2 web server packages. The ISP side of things was the easiest part to figure out. I haven't found anyone that can say these things are working well for them, and how they got them to work. There are several tutorials on user forums, but I haven't been able to get it to work.

The Synology media server is finicky and doesn't like a lot of audio-video coding combinations. The easiest way I have found to use it with my Apple TV is the good old fashion iTunes server, I'll see how that works after tomorrow's announcement from Apple!