Really seeking guidance from the experienced heads on here. Converting literally thousands of priceless film negatives into digital format that the family matriarch took over a quite extraordinary lifetime (each converted image is just under 200mb per image). Similarly, there are some amazing audio cassettes/interviews that are in need of conversion. I've been tasked with doing this and I'd love to be able to store all this converted film and audio onto a storage device which could be amended with new "stuff" as it is still being uncovered, have everything backed it up locally, to the cloud and also have Time Machine back-up that local storage. It's of incredible value to the family and I want to ensure it can survive any disaster. Can external storage be networked in say a simple NAS (say Western Digital product with RAID) and still be backed up by Time Machine? Can that photo library on external storage be backed up to iCloud? Any thoughts or solutions would be greatly appreciated!
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Networked storage options that play nice with iCloud and Time Machine?
- Thread starter Riptide#62
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Get a modern Smart NAS! With such massive data you need a NAS to archive that data with resources on your Mac! You can even keep you pictures on smart NAS and upstate your Mac OS without missing a library of pictures!
Also look at the shareware Pixel Mator Pro and make those old pictures pop!
Also look at the shareware Pixel Mator Pro and make those old pictures pop!
No, network-attached storage like a NAS can't be backed up by Time Machine. However, another backup solution (e.g., Carbon Copy Cloner) should be able to clone files on NAS storage to another network- or direct-attached volume.
External storage directly-attached to the Mac (e.g., via USB or Thunderbolt) can be backed up by TM.
I think some NAS devices advertise support for acting as the destination for TM backups. I wouldn't do that. First, then you are relying on the vendor for continued (and bug-free) support for any possible future changes to Time Machine, and second, I believe TM reliability is significantly better when the destination is directly-attached storage vs. a network volume. That's my experience, anyway (though I still do some TM backups to network volumes for portable machines).
I'm no expert, but I'd probably lean toward putting my "master copy" on direct-attached storage, and use a network volume on another Mac or a NAS device as one of my backups, using cloning software like CCC. Use more direct-attached storage for a Time Machine backup. (I'd purposely use two different backup methods in case of a software failure in one of them.) Then select a good remote backup solution for a cloud backup. I've been thinking about using Arq.
I'm not sure what you mean by "backed up to iCloud." If you are planning on using Apple's "Photos.app" for storage, yes, you could turn on the "iCloud Photo Library" feature to have them all copied to iCloud servers (and synced with other devices using the same Apple ID, if desired). If you are not going to put them into a Photos library, though, I don't know of any way to use iCloud to back them up, short of copying them to iCloud Drive.
Just my thoughts.
Arq can also backup any attached drives, although it is not as fast as CCC. It also makes it easy to backup to the cloud with your favorite provider.
Some Synology users reported if you make folder that can expand to certain size and name TimeMachine (see YouTube videos on it) on how they did time machine on their Synology NAS!
I have been using a Synology NAS for many years now to store Time Machine (TM) backups, and it works very well. Basically a separate volume specifically set up for TM backups with credentials for each Mac on the NAS.
Same here, with the exception that I just use a folder in the same volume and set a quota to it.
If it were me, I would get a decent, mid-range Synology for default storage, and then back up to a second external drive or array...depending on the total size. Cloud is great for reliability but can be slow and costly for massive data sets. You might consider Amazon Glacier for a lower-cost spot to archive data for safe keeping or disaster recovery.
No need to get stuck on TM, plenty of good (better) backup solutions out there.
No need to get stuck on TM, plenty of good (better) backup solutions out there.
Just to give you an another idea. My setup:
QNAP NAS - stores data from all members of the household, as well as a manual backup of my documents on my mac.
Direct attached drive 1 - Manual TM Backup
Direct attached drive 2 - Manual CCC Clone
I can use the NAS as a TM destination too, and it works quite well, but I prefer a locally connected drive since it would make the restore process much easier following disaster recovery. My thinking is I would want a restore to be as simple, and as quick, as possible, without having to attach to network drives etc. Hence a locally connected external drive is the best way to do this [for me anyways].
QNAP NAS - stores data from all members of the household, as well as a manual backup of my documents on my mac.
Direct attached drive 1 - Manual TM Backup
Direct attached drive 2 - Manual CCC Clone
I can use the NAS as a TM destination too, and it works quite well, but I prefer a locally connected drive since it would make the restore process much easier following disaster recovery. My thinking is I would want a restore to be as simple, and as quick, as possible, without having to attach to network drives etc. Hence a locally connected external drive is the best way to do this [for me anyways].
Complete restore over wifi is too damn slow for me, even using 1gb wifi6 and a fast NAS read speeds. I usually just copy the TM file to a usb external ssd, then plug it into to my mac to restore quickly.
Backups and restoring specific files over wifi is not an issue.