NAS Suggestions?

[KevanG]

shopping for a NAS that will accept Time Machine backups from 2 machines (an iMac & a MacBook Pro), plus allow for external storage of large image files from both machines.
Cloud access isn't a factor, strictly local access.
Ideally a 2-drive unit that i could simply assign one drive to each computer, but allow for sharing or read/write permissions between both drives.
8Tb total would be lots
Don't need RAID
Thanks in advance for your suggestions

 

[hallux]

Synology is probably the top name in home NAS solutions, Qnap and Drobo are other options that have been highly regarded in the past. I have a Synology myself, the DS920+ (overkill compared to what you were asking for as it's 4 bays), but I've also set up a DS618 (2 bay) for my dad. Both have been working well. I have my Mac set to use mine as the TM destination, and it backs up when I first plug in and then hourly while it's plugged in.

Most of these solutions are drive-less, you buy the drives you need/want to get the capacity you want. Always go for more than you think you'll need or you'll end up regretting the decision. I don't know if Drobo or Qnap support using them as a TM destination.

 

[bradl]

+1 on the Synology. I've been using one for the past 8 years, as I bought the DS213j (2-bay). It handles not only my TM backups, but also can act as its own local cloud server. I can set a specific folder to automatically synchronize between the clients I want (my Mac, PC, iPhone, and iPad), and will only sync those files between those devices.

While you're not wanting RAID, I would definitely recommend it; to be specific, I'd recommend Synology's Hybrid RAID format, if you are using a 2-bay device. With normal RAID configurations, you are always limited to the smallest drive being used, with the remaining space on the larger drive not able to be used at all With Synology's Hybrid RAID, you do not have that limitation, so it allows you to mix different drive sizes, which comes in handy for upgrading drives should you need to.

You can set up users on the NAS and assign them a quota if you'd like, let alone assign them drives, but seeing as a NAS nor RAID are necessarily a backup solution, I'd suggest that whatever size drives you get, get 2 drives more than what you need: one for a spare in case one fails, and the other to back up your NAS. But I would definitely go for the Synology. it is very easy to set up and configure.

BL.

 

[KevanG]

Thanks very much for the insight! This is consistent with what i've learned reading up on various units.
Thinking of going for the DS220+ with a pair of 6Tb or 8Tb drives.Any suggestions on the drives themselves? I see that unit is compatible with Toshiba drives, thinking of going that route. I've not had great experiences with WD, had 2 of their drives fail within a year each

 

[bradl]

Thanks very much for the insight! This is consistent with what i've learned reading up on various units.
Thinking of going for the DS220+ with a pair of 6Tb or 8Tb drives.Any suggestions on the drives themselves? I see that unit is compatible with Toshiba drives, thinking of going that route. I've not had great experiences with WD, had 2 of their drives fail within a year each

While they are a bit more expensive, I'm using NAS drives; in particular, two WD30EFRX drives, at 3TB each. I've read to avoid any SMR NAS drives. CMR drives will work great. I went with NAS drives because of longevity; I bought these drives when I bought my NAS. That's 8 years and still going.

For the larger drives you can definitely go for the consumer grade, but like I said before, be sure to have a spare one in case one fails. Be sure to keep an eye on Newegg or Amazon for when they go on sale. You just missed a sale where the 3TB and 4TB NAS drives were on sale, but they haven't had anything bigger on sale. In fact, if you're thinking about getting something Synology, if you can wait, hold off another 3-4 weeks, because everyone then will be prepping for Black Friday.

Also, it's okay to go with lower speeds for the drives here (read: 5400rpm versus say, 7200rpm). Drive speed on a NAS isn't going to matter much as functionality and longevity would, plus the faster drives will generate heat more due to the speed of the spindle. Or if you have the money to burn, you can spend the $1500 and buy a pair of 8TB SSDs. But seeing that 1 drive would be 3x the cost of the DS220+, well.. there ya go. ?

BL.

 

[monokakata]

Consider getting a backup drive or drives for it. Synology makes backing up the NAS quite easy. Yes, you've got mirrored drive in there, but having another drive connected and automatically backing up every day (you can set how often) is good insurance.

I'm ashamed to say I can't remember what combination of failures put me in a place where I had to get a new Synology NAS with new drives, and restore to it from my backup set. It worked fine.

 

[njvm]

@KevanG - I have used a Synology DS918+ for a couple of years and I recently upgraded to 4 x 10TB Seagate Ironwolf NAS drives for around CAD $1,450. I have used the Ironwolf drives for a number of years and I have never had any problems with them. My MBP 13" and Mac Mini get backed up to this NAS using TM and again I have not had any problems.

 

[hallux]

Consider getting a backup drive or drives for it

Excellent point - it's definitely advisable to have an off-site backup. I have my Mac backing up to Wasabi cloud storage in addition to my NAS, so I don't back up the TM backup anyway, but I DO have my photos storage on the NAS backing up to Wasabi as well since I moved the photo library for my phone (a Pixel) from Google Photos to Synology Photos upon release of DSM 7.

Seagate Ironwolf NAS drives

I'm using 4x 8TB of these in my DS920+...

 

[Feyl]

Thanks very much for the insight! This is consistent with what i've learned reading up on various units.
Thinking of going for the DS220+ with a pair of 6Tb or 8Tb drives.Any suggestions on the drives themselves? I see that unit is compatible with Toshiba drives, thinking of going that route. I've not had great experiences with WD, had 2 of their drives fail within a year each

I'm using DS220+ with a pair of 4TB Seagate drives in RAID 1 and I couldn't recommend it more. It's fast, it's compatible with every device I use and it's reliable. I'd say go with it. I maxed the RAM to 6GB so I'd recommend to do that for the best performance.

 

[Ifti]

I replaced my Synology with a QNAP, which I much preferred (although this was years and years ago, so I'm sure Synology have completely changed by now!!). I've stuck to using QNAP for years and never had any issue. Connected to my 10Gb home network its just like have a drive locally connected - super fast.

You cant go wrong with either a QNAP or Synology TBH....

Personally I would go for a 4 bay.
Set up the two drives as you wish, and mirror them to the other two drives as a local backup.
A remote backup is still advisable either way.

I use 8 WD Red 6TB drives in a RAID 6 array. The drives are great - no issues to date.

 

[icanhazmac]

+1 for Synology, reliable and great software.

 

[StralyanPithecus]

Using Synology for time machine backups for both my wife’s imac and my macbook, plus several shared folders. Good hard drives are a must, using myself Seagate Ironwoff 7200 rpm NAS drives. Sometimes my macbook time machine fails (using the Monterey Beta), but a NAS restart solves it. Happened to my just a couple of times. I still recommend you not to dedicate each hard drive to one computer and use them together, just create 2 different folders for time machine backups, each one with different credentials, so you have a way to recover your data in case one hard drive fails (happens).
We have 3 Synology units, 5 drives each, working 24/7 at my workplace as realtime backups units, so they never stop spinning. So far after several years no problems, so you can put your trust on them.

 

[bradl]

Consider getting a backup drive or drives for it. Synology makes backing up the NAS quite easy. Yes, you've got mirrored drive in there, but having another drive connected and automatically backing up every day (you can set how often) is good insurance.

I'm ashamed to say I can't remember what combination of failures put me in a place where I had to get a new Synology NAS with new drives, and restore to it from my backup set. It worked fine.

I'll go further on this. I would suggest getting one internal HDD that is the same size or larger than the drives you are putting in the Synology NAS. This can either be a desktop/consumer drive or a NAS drive. This will be just as a replacement should one drive fails.

For a backup drive, you can actually attach an external portable USB drive. While right now they are $10 off but you can catch them up to $40 off at Costco, I was able to pick up a couple 5TB Seagate One Touch portable HDD and plug that in to a USB port and back up my NAS to that. If I really want to be safe, I'd pick up a couple of those, back up my NAS to each one, and store one of them off site.

The biggest thing I like about Synology's backup software is that it is so much like Time Machine, as it also handles versioning, so you can go back to a particular version of a file if it needs to be restored from a certain day, or you can do a backup without any versioning. It's very versatile.

But I would definitely get one drive as a spare for replacement, and something portable for backups.

BL.

 

[bradl]

If anyone is looking for drives for their NAS, Newegg currently has the WD Red Pro series on sale today. That is WD's NAS drive. the 4TB drives at 7200RPM are at $104 (regularly $154), while the 10TB drive also at 7200RPM is at $274 (regularly $350).

Those go off sale tonight at 11:59pm PT, so jump on them before they sell out.

BL.

 

[tizeye]

I am about to pull the trigger on Synology. On a 2 drive unit (DS220+) definitely go with the 6 or 8TB over the 4. They have a unique hard drive modeler that is fun to play with and insightful. Essentially, on two drive, cut it in half to accommodate the RAID 4 x 4TB doesn't equal 8 TB, but 4 TB, and likewise 2 x 8 TB doesn't equal 16 TB, but 8 TB. It gets interesting when you populate a 4 bay as it spreads the total with a smaller backup area and more useable disk space. Not going to give actual figures, but experiment with it and see what I mean. Also, be aware that Synology's hybrid RAID system excels when mixing capacities, such as two 4TB and two 8 TB, giving a total of 24TB, where the same combination used in a traditional RAID system, such as used by QNAP, by RAID rules in limited to the smallest drives resulting in 16TB useable and the remaining 8TB unusable.

Undecided at this point if going with the 220+ or the 4 bay 420+, but definitely ruled out the 220j. Both of the plus models represent a sweet spot in the lineup and use the 2 core Celeron processor, while the 220j uses a much weaker Realtek processor and minimal memory. Stopping up to the 720+ and 920+ uses 4 core Intel processors, but overkill for needs. Incidentally, the "20" in their model number represents the year. They haven't introduced the 21 model year, but you will see some 18 (and perhaps 16) model years that would lack the improvements introduced in the 20's.

 

[bradl]

I am about to pull the trigger on Synology. On a 2 drive unit (DS220+) definitely go with the 6 or 8TB over the 4. They have a unique hard drive modeler that is fun to play with and insightful. Essentially, on two drive, cut it in half to accommodate the RAID 4 x 4TB doesn't equal 8 TB, but 4 TB, and likewise 2 x 8 TB doesn't equal 16 TB, but 8 TB. It gets interesting when you populate a 4 bay as it spreads the total with a smaller backup area and more useable disk space. Not going to give actual figures, but experiment with it and see what I mean. Also, be aware that Synology's hybrid RAID system excels when mixing capacities, such as two 4TB and two 8 TB, giving a total of 24TB, where the same combination used in a traditional RAID system, such as used by QNAP, by RAID rules in limited to the smallest drives resulting in 16TB useable and the remaining 8TB unusable.

Undecided at this point if going with the 220+ or the 4 bay 420+, but definitely ruled out the 220j. Both of the plus models represent a sweet spot in the lineup and use the 2 core Celeron processor, while the 220j uses a much weaker Realtek processor and minimal memory. Stopping up to the 720+ and 920+ uses 4 core Intel processors, but overkill for needs. Incidentally, the "20" in their model number represents the year. They haven't introduced the 21 model year, but you will see some 18 (and perhaps 16) model years that would lack the improvements introduced in the 20's.

That makes sense, especially when it comes to the user's needs. If doing more than just handling backups and availability of files for various devices, then the 220+ is definitely going to be better. You'll get link aggregation because of the two RJ45 ports you'll have plus be able to hot swap drives. Plus there are some major advantages you'll get with using BTRFS over EXT4, though with either one you'll have the ability to drop them into any running Linux box and access the data (as long as ext4 support is compiled into the kernel or compiled as a module for the running kernel). So you'll gain the portability there.

Basically the J series is entry level, while you'll get more functionality out of the Plus while keeping the same form factor as the J series.

BL.

 

[bradl]

I am about to pull the trigger on Synology. On a 2 drive unit (DS220+) definitely go with the 6 or 8TB over the 4. They have a unique hard drive modeler that is fun to play with and insightful. Essentially, on two drive, cut it in half to accommodate the RAID 4 x 4TB doesn't equal 8 TB, but 4 TB, and likewise 2 x 8 TB doesn't equal 16 TB, but 8 TB. It gets interesting when you populate a 4 bay as it spreads the total with a smaller backup area and more useable disk space. Not going to give actual figures, but experiment with it and see what I mean. Also, be aware that Synology's hybrid RAID system excels when mixing capacities, such as two 4TB and two 8 TB, giving a total of 24TB, where the same combination used in a traditional RAID system, such as used by QNAP, by RAID rules in limited to the smallest drives resulting in 16TB useable and the remaining 8TB unusable.

Undecided at this point if going with the 220+ or the 4 bay 420+, but definitely ruled out the 220j. Both of the plus models represent a sweet spot in the lineup and use the 2 core Celeron processor, while the 220j uses a much weaker Realtek processor and minimal memory. Stopping up to the 720+ and 920+ uses 4 core Intel processors, but overkill for needs. Incidentally, the "20" in their model number represents the year. They haven't introduced the 21 model year, but you will see some 18 (and perhaps 16) model years that would lack the improvements introduced in the 20's.

If you go for the DS220+, hold off on pulling the trigger on it. Newegg is going to have it on sale for Black Friday for $60 off the MSRP. I don't know if Amazon, BH, TigerDirect, or anyone else is going to price match, but from the Black Friday scans that I've seen, that's going to be the best price for it. So if you can, hold off a week, then see what you can see before buying.

BL.

 

[tizeye]

If you go for the DS220+, hold off on pulling the trigger on it. Newegg is going to have it on sale for Black Friday for $60 off the MSRP. I don't know if Amazon, BH, TigerDirect, or anyone else is going to price match, but from the Black Friday scans that I've seen, that's going to be the best price for it. So if you can, hold off a week, then see what you can see before buying.

BL.

I definitely can hold off and had Black Friday, both for the NAS and hard drives, in my original planning. It kept me from the impulsive purchase. The other part of the debate - and the sales may decide it - is the DS220+ or pony up and future proof myself with the 4 bay DS920+ Over even the 220 four bay twin, DS420+. Whichever way, populate with two 8 TB now. Suspect the “sale” will be across all authorized vendors, with current prices being identical, suspect Synology (and WD and Seagate) contractually controls the price - regular and sale - for their vendors.

An interesting variation on the 4 bay model is that four 4TB is cheaper than two 8TB providing the same 8TB available 8 TB backup. Granted, slower spin access times. Can always trash a 4TB later replacing with higher capacity. Synology’s hybrid RAID will accommodate it, Agee standard RAID, like in Qnap or DIY builds, locks to lowest drive (4TB) readable on each drive with the excess capacity provided by larger hard drives unavailable.

 

[elvisimprsntr]

TrueNAS

TrueNAS - Welcome to the Open Storage Era

TrueNAS is the World's #1 Open Source Storage. Based on OpenZFS, it is trusted by millions and deployed worldwide.

www.truenas.com

Works great! I restored my new M1 MBP from an Intel MBP TM backup.

Runs on almost any x86 hardware or you can by an appliance from them. I re-purposed my QNAP NAS(s) by installing TrueNAS after I got fed up with all the QNAP QTS hard coded credentials and security vulnerabilities. Synology, WD, Netgear, etc. aren't much better when it comes to security.