Resolved Suggestions for a 4TB HDD 2.5" for Time Machine backups

[Alpha Centauri]

My experience is the opposite. TM works fantastic for me on Synology NAS for several years now. However, while it's never disappointed me, I don't rely solely on it for backups. See earlier post about what I think of as a near complete backup solution involving basically 3 targets: Synology for TM and 2 rotating HDDs also for TM, with one of the latter always stored offsite. I also sync mostly recent work files between desktop and Mac so that is an incomplete but additional backup for the recent stuff for my own worst-case scenario (which would be a loss of all local backups the morning when I would be going to rotate the off-site drive (thus it would only be up to date about 30 days ago).

Since our opinions cancel each other out on Synology for TM, perhaps others will chime in for OP and/or online reviews for this purpose may share some additional insights.

Hi, I'm the OP. First off, apologies for not replying to your detailed response (I did read it). There were so many points I was planning to address within..and then all got lost with the direction I was going to take.

A: I was flip flopping between choosing a Synology NAS for both TM and clone (using Super Duper) OR
B: using a couple NVMe for onsite/offsite for SD clones AND a 4TB SSD for TM, attaching them during a scheduled regime. I have no desk and use the MBP on the couch, balcony or kitchen.

So here's the latest of the (I guess) indecisiveness/ concern:

I had just completed the order for various well matched drives and enclosures (option B) but once again started getting cold feet. Why? Because I asked myself if I would consistently and regularly attach all those drives at given times.

So I'm once again finding myself re visiting a 4 bay Synology NAS - DS923+ as I could automate the backup schedules somewhat. As I understood it, I can successfully use SD to clone and also do TM backups. But here comes the reliability and unknown bit. Buying a Synology would only interest me if those backups could be made from the MBP over my WiFi network, to the Synology. Do have good (or bad) experience with this? Will it work?

The above mentioned model (2.5" or 3.5") also has 2 slots for NVME m.2 BUT in the case of non-Synology branded drives, only for caching purposes.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Synology doesn't care if you connect with wired or wifi, so yes that will work as long as you have reliable wifi. And even if you don't such that some TM backups get derailed by some wifi conks, TM backs up every hour, so it will "fix" any failed backups at the next opportunity. I have multiple Macs backing up with TM to Synology and my MBpro also back ups almost always over wifi. No problem at all.

My best opinion from experience and from what I know of your situation:

• Synology will be great for your default TM backups (don't need to do anything but leave TM turned on- it will basically take care of itself when you are on your home network).
• I like Super Duper just fine. The main use I've ever had for it was cloning a boot drive to a new boot drive (such as in an HDD upgrade scenario, which no longer works with Silicon Macs). A secondary use is an external boot if the internal conks. Unless you have a burning reason for it, I wouldn't bother with SD backups. Instead I'd use 2 cheap drives (for me, HDDs) to also backup with TM, storing one offsite and rotating with the onsite one regularly (for me, that's approx monthly... or just before I'm going to be doing any travel beyond a few days).

So net: you would use the near brainless TM to auto-backup to 3 "drives": Synology and the HDD at home. With some regular frequency, swap the HDD at home with the copy stored offsite and then it takes over the HDD TM backup at home. Your singular "hassle" will be that regular rotation process of swapping drives. Just put it on your calendar (a recurring entry) and go swap the drives when prompted. One offsite that is pretty up to date almost guarantees you can recover from any event- particularly total loss in fire, flood, theft, etc. that may take Mac + Synology + HDD backup at home.

Synology has a RAID-like option for multiple drive volumes, so it can back itself up without you having to think about it should any one Synology drive conk. If that happens, you replace the drive, Synology rebuilds (and you can continue using it while it does) and then it is again self-backed up (for 1-drive loss). I think some of them have a 2-drive loss option too but I have a 12-bay and the 1-drive loss setup has never been an issue. It will buzz loudly when a drive conks (think battery backup buzz), so you don't have to check until your ears alert you to an issue. You can also have it prompt you by text or email when it needs your attention.

I think I recall seeing that you've paid for Super Duper and thus want to use it. But from what you've described, you don't need to use it. If you are burning to use it anyway, allocate a drive to backup with SD and update it with a manual update regularly. Again, a (cheaper than SSD) HDD will be fine for this too. But if you have the above, this will be overkill... though someone could argue that having too many backups is better than having too few.

Unlike the general rule of choosing drives that are 2X-3X+ bigger than the total capacity you want to backup, the SD drive could be exactly the same size as the drive you want to (super) duplicate.

I have never given a thought to trying to SD clone to Synology. If you found something online that says that will work, great. Based on my experience with SD, I'm strongly conditioned to think that is iffy at best... and that if you want to use SD, you should get a same-sized external disc as the one inside your Mac and SD to that. I doubt Synology can be a SD boot drive in an emergency (conked internal boot drive). An external drive could be a boot drive backed up by SD. With Silicon not easily allowing storage replacement, that seems like it would be the MAIN purpose of a SD backup going forward. Based on my long-term (but not much attention last few years) SD knowledge, I'd stick with what SD does very well (or at least did well back when I used it).

Ask more questions if you need clarifications. The above should be a pretty thorough backup solution for you, likely cheaper than the SSDs, even with the 1-time cost of the Synology + a few starter HDD drives. A NAS can do many other things for you too, so you don't have to think of it as only a TM tool. A chunk of it can be that and the rest can do all kinds of other things. For example, my Synology is my personal "Cloud" too (with no fees to anyone), a whole home, nearly unlimited capacity DVR for all the televisions, whole home security monitor, etc and may take over as my business web server and email provider (vs. paying someone else) soon.

All that shared, your option B will work fine... but it will require you to be quite active about manually executing backups regularly. If you have doubts about that, option A is the better option of your two.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

>Synology doesn't care if you connect with wired or wifi, so yes that will work as long as you have reliable wifi. And even if you don't such that some TM backups get derailed by some wifi conks, TM backs up every hour, so it will "fix" any failed backups at the next opportunity. I have multiple Macs backing up with TM to Synology and my MBpro also back ups almost always over wifi. No problem at all. <

The ISPs signal to the modem is rock solid. The master mesh connected to it drops 1-2 x/month, restart fixes it so I suppose it's doable.

>My best opinion from experience and from what I know of your situation:

• Synology will be great for your default TM backups (don't need to do anything but leave TM turned on- it will basically take care of itself when you are on your home network).
• I like Super Duper just fine. The main use I've ever had for it was cloning a boot drive to a new boot drive (such as in an HDD upgrade scenario, which no longer works with Silicon Macs). A secondary use is an external boot if the internal conks. Unless you have a burning reason for it, I wouldn't bother with SD backups. Instead I'd use 2 cheap drives (for me, HDDs) to also backup with TM, storing one offsite and rotating with the onsite one regularly (for me, that's approx monthly... or just before I'm going to be doing any travel beyond a few days).<

I come from a 13yr old MBP and SD was gospel as I also had some corrupted TM backups back a decade ago. That's why I figured wit 4 bays I could dedicate 2 for SD, and 2 for TM HDD. Still amazed I haven't lost data spanning from 2005 with years of also running a patched OS. But also as I thought having different drives/different backups additionally, in there also would be beneficial.

>So net: you would use the near brainless TM to auto-backup to 3 "drives": Synology and the HDD at home. With some regular frequency, swap the HDD at home with the copy stored offsite and then it takes over the HDD TM backup at home. Your singular "hassle" will be that regular rotation process of swapping drives. Just put it on your calendar (a recurring entry) and go swap the drives when prompted. One offsite that is pretty up to date almost guarantees you can recover from any event- particularly total loss in fire, flood, theft, etc. that may take Mac + Synology + HDD backup at home.<

My internal is 2 TB. So you'd recommend buying (perhaps 6 or 8TB) 3x 3.5" ? Two in the Synology and the third being cycled for off site. Did I understand this correctly?

>Synology has a RAID-like option for multiple drive volumes, so it can back itself up without you having to think about it should any one Synology drive conk. If that happens, you replace the drive, Synology rebuilds (and you can continue using it while it does) and then it is again self-backed up (for 1-drive loss). I think some of them have a 2-drive loss option too but I have a 12-bay and the 1-drive loss setup has never been an issue. It will buzz loudly when a drive conks (think battery backup buzz), so you don't have to check until your ears alert you to an issue. You can also have it prompt you by text or email when it needs your attention.<

Will this only do it if using Synology branded drives?

>I think I recall seeing that you've paid for Super Duper and thus want to use it. But from what you've described, you don't need to use it. If you are burning to use it anyway, allocate a drive to backup with SD and update it with a manual update regularly. Again, a (cheaper than SSD) HDD will be fine for this too. But if you have the above, this will be overkill... though someone could argue that having too many backups is better than having too few.

Unlike the general rule of choosing drives that are 2X-3X+ bigger than the total capacity you want to backup, the SD drive could be exactly the same size as the drive you want to (super) duplicate.<

I did, it didn't cost much. But my logic there with an 2TB SSD was also partially to keep noise and heat down. The NAS will be open in the living room and I had forgotten how loud 3,5" HDDs can be.

>I have never given a thought to trying to SD clone to Synology. If you found something online that says that will work, great. Based on my experience with SD, I'm strongly conditioned to think that is iffy at best... and that if you want to use SD, you should get a same-sized external disc as the one inside your Mac and SD to that. I doubt Synology can be a SD boot drive in an emergency (conked internal boot drive). An external drive could be a boot drive backed up by SD. With Silicon not easily allowing storage replacement, that seems like it would be the MAIN purpose of a SD backup going forward. Based on my long-term (but not much attention last few years) SD knowledge, I'd stick with what SD does very well (or at least did well back when I used it).<

I'll concentrate on TM but will try SD later. I should be able to see quite quickly if it even shows up.

>Ask more questions if you need clarifications. The above should be a pretty thorough backup solution for you, likely cheaper than the SSDs, even with the 1-time cost of the Synology + a few starter HDD drives. A NAS can do many other things for you too, so you don't have to think of it as only a TM tool. A chunk of it can be that and the rest can do all kinds of other things. For example, my Synology is my personal "Cloud" too (with no fees to anyone), a whole home, nearly unlimited capacity DVR for all the televisions here, whole home security monitor, etc and may take over as my business web server and email providers (vs. paying someone else) soon.<

Thanks. Yes, I'll check options later of other uses, the expandability option is a reason i chose the 4, not the 2 bay model.

>All that shared, your option B will work fine... but it will require you to be quite active about manually executing backups regularly. If you have doubts about that, option A is the better option of your two.<

I know. Back in the day I had SD calendar alerts but you know..one gets lazy with them.

Do you recommend the new Synology branded HDD's HAT3300 from the new Plus Series? They're only 5400rpm but priced similarily to the Seagate IronWolf. I guess their main feature is the in-device firmware capability and verification. Though probably not verification of the backed up TM content. What do you use and do you think for an 2TB internal, 6 or 8 TB drive be a better proposition. Lastly, with some large drives, would fitted NVMe's in those slots of that model help with cache or is it a wast over a) WiFi or (b) TM speed?

 

[ignatius345]

You can backup to a Synology or other NAS via TM, Carbon Copy Cloner, etc. I have never gotten TM to work reliably however.

Are you talking about the "old" Time Machine under HFS+ where it was a rat's nest of symlinks -- or the APFS version which is snapshot based? The newer version is much less complex.

Not sure exactly what the issue was, but I ran into some serious lagging trying to use CCC for my offsite backup. I'm backing up 3 drives (my internal, a media drive, and a general archive drive) onto one big portable HDD. I've been doing this for a long time and it's always worked pretty well -- prior to APFS. Setting it up this time, CCC documentation pointed to my formatting the backup drive as APFS and then making three volumes on the destination drive and backing up each of my drives to one volume. Well, I tried it and it took AGES to progress. I have a total of maybe 4TB of data and it was dragging on for many many days with very little progress. CCC documentation also warned about HDD slowness, and I gave it a good long while, but after nearly a week I pulled the plug. Maybe I should have reverted to good old HFS+, but frankly I was running out of patience.

I reformatted the drive and tried again -- this time I set up the drive as an encrypted Time Machine disk, plugged all three drives in (Media, Archive and the Offsite Backup) and let it rip. Happy to say, Time Machine did the trick. It took a couple days, of course (it's 4TB of data after all) but it moved the whole time. I took the drive to my office and a month later I brought it home and ran it again -- again, flawless and quick. And I find recovering files is with T.M. is a lot more intuitive than rummaging through that CCC Safety Net folder. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Been using CCC for years, but it just failed to work for this task and I've moved on for this particular use.

Bootable clones are an entirely different issue.

I think bootable clones are a fool's errand these days. I say this as someone who's made and used them quite a bit over the years. At this point, it's barely supported, and it's a hell of a lot easier to recover your system off a recovery partition than it was back in the bad old days. I just don't see the point, personally.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

I come from a 13yr old MBP and SD was gospel as I also had some corrupted TM backups back a decade ago. That's why I figured wit 4 bays I could dedicate 2 for SD, and 2 for TM HDD. Still amazed I haven't lost data spanning from 2005 with years of also running a patched OS. But also as I thought having different drives/different backups additionally, in there also would be beneficial.

Hmmmmm, Synology can allocate drives as separate volumes so that "2 for SD and 2 for TM" may work. I just pool all the drives for one big volume, so I haven't tried it that way. My knowledge of SuperDuper is a bit aged but if it still works as it did years ago for me, I believe it wants LOCAL storage for the dupes, not NAS storage. Someone else needs to chime in to confirm or refute if a single drive NAS allocation can be a Super Duper target for backup... AND boot. I really doubt the boot but the backup copy seems at least a bit more plausible to me (leaning on older experience).

If me, I'd be thinking NAS for non-SuperDuper stuff and maybe an HDD dock for bare drive HDDs hooked directly to my Mac when I want to use SuperDuper. Then store the bare HDD in a plastic sleeve made for it (search on amazon). OR, for SD purposes, maybe your 2 drives to "rotate" offsite are 2TB SSDs. There's a bare dock for that too or all kinds of fairly cheap m.2 enclosures.

I wouldn't see the Synology as one big multi-purpose enclosure for both. But again, that's based on how I recall using Super Duper from maybe 4+ years ago and backwards in time. Maybe things are different with SD since about 2018?

I very much like the "one big volume" in my Synology. For TM setup, you can pick how much space in that big volume to allocate for TM. For example, if you start with- say- 10TB, you could allocate 6TB of the 10TB to TM and have 4TB for other things. Later, you add another drive in bay 3 to have 10TB + XTB (new drive) - the 6TB you allocated for TM. Still later, you add another drive to bay 4: 10TB + XTB + YTB (new drive) - the 6TB for TM. When TM storage fills up the 6TB, the oldest stuff in the backup will get auto-deleted to free up new space for new TM backups.

My internal is 2 TB. So you'd recommend buying (perhaps 6 or 8TB) 3x 3.5" ? Two in the Synology and the third being cycled for off site. Did I understand this correctly?

2 about 6TB (or bigger) drives (each) for the non-Synology drives you attach locally for TM backups with one stored offsite.

And then at least a starter 2 of ANY size for the Synology, which you can- optionally- eventually grow to 4 drives pooled together or keep 1 or 2 separate.

Will this only do it if using Synology branded drives?

No. I've got a mix of all kinds of drives in my Synology, ranging from 3TB from when I first got it to 18TB in the more recently added ones.

I did, it didn't cost much. But my logic there with an 2TB SSD was also partially to keep noise and heat down. The NAS will be open in the living room and I had forgotten how loud 3,5" HDDs can be.

This can be a thing. I suggest locating the NAS away from public areas. Along with being able to hear some hard drive sounds, they have fans too. Mine is basically stored in what doubles as a pantry: Various tech on one side and canned goods, etc on another.

I'll concentrate on TM but will try SD later. I should be able to see quite quickly if it even shows up.

Thanks. Yes, I'll check options later of other uses, the expandability option is a reason i chose the 4, not the 2 bay model.

Good thinking. It is helpful to use their own variation of RAID and then growing storage as you need it. Even when it is "full" (all 4 bays), you can replace smaller drives with bigger drives to expand the storage without having to start over. But key to this is pooling the storage with their version of RAID. Your thinking about allocating a couple of bays as single drives would NOT be pooled storage, nor backed up by their RAID-like pooled drive approach.

I know. Back in the day I had SD calendar alerts but you know..one gets lazy with them.

Again, you can set Synology to text or email you when it needs your attention.

Do you recommend the new Synology branded HDD's HAT3300 from the new Plus Series? They're only 5400rpm but priced similarily to the Seagate IronWolf. I guess their main feature is the in-device firmware capability and verification. Though probably not verification of the backed up TM content. What do you use and do you think for an 2TB internal, 6 or 8 TB drive be a better proposition. Lastly, with some large drives, would fitted NVMe's in those slots of that model help with cache or is it a wast over a) WiFi or (b) TM speed?

Synology pushes their own drives but I find that anything I put in it works. I don't have brand-based recommendations. Mine has Hitachi, WD, Seagate drives in it. Rarely any problems with any of them. Some are probably 5400 and others are faster. No problems with that either. They all are functioning as independent drives behind the scenes and Synology simply presents them as one big shared pool.

Some Synology's have a m.2 slot as a kind of buffer for speedier R/W. It acts as a kind of "middleman" storage to then- behind the scenes- shift some files more quickly stored to it onto the HDDs. Mine is old and doesn't have that option but I've never had any sense of frustration about R/W speeds. TM doesn't need super speed R/W after waiting out the first big dump of backing up everything (which can take a LONG time, even with a local drive attached). There's just not that much to Write after only any given hour of Mac usage.

So, again, I wouldn't allocate any bays to SSD and instead load each with a big HDD. If the model you are choosing has an m.2 slot for that "middleman" (faster writes buffer) purpose, you could potentially judge the system for a while with only HDDs and then add the m.2 later to speed up R/W if it proves to not be fast enough for you.

Make no mistake, it is NOT super fast R/W. But it is plenty fast enough for TM, whole home DVR, whole home security, etc. with good capacity to spare. Locally attached M.2 on Thunderbolt would run R/W circles around it... but NAS purposes used by individuals are rarely about tasks that need super-speed.

When I need high-speed R/W from something stored on it- such as a backup of a FCPX library- I transfer that library to local storage m.2, do my new editing locally over thunderbolt, then send the updated library back to "long term" storage on Synology when I'm done with it (to free up the local m.2 for other fast R/W tasks).

 

[Alpha Centauri]

I just pool all the drives for one big volume, so I haven't tried it that way.

>I very much like the "one big volume" in my Synology. For TM setup, you can pick how much space in that big volume to allocate for TM. For example, if you start with- say- 10TB, you could allocate 6TB of the 10TB to TM and have 4TB for other things. Later, you add another drive in bay 3 to have 10TB + XTB (new drive) - the 6TB you allocated for TM. Still later, you add another drive to bay 4: 10TB + XTB + YTB (new drive) - the 6TB for TM. When TM storage fills up the 6TB, the oldest stuff in the backup will get auto-deleted to free up new space for new TM backups.<

I think this pooling concept is interesting but I'll have to get my head around it first. I've never used Raid1 but thought that's how I would go with the Synology: For my 2TB internal and TM, buy 3 x HDD (6TB or 8TB each). Two in the Synology as Raid1 in case one lunches itself, and the 3rd as offsite. Is this best practice?

>This can be a thing. I suggest locating the NAS away from public areas. Along with being able to hear some hard drive sounds, they have fans too. Mine is basically stored in what doubles as a pantry: Various tech on one side and canned goods, etc on another.<

Unfortunately with power points, location of the master mesh router, I've no choice but to have it in the living room with me. Yes, the DS923+ even has 2x fans, apparently with option to fit silent fans also. This noise part will be a little "unknown" and why I briefly flirted with the idea of using 2x 4TB 2.5" SSDs (i.e. EVO870) in there. Oh, if I understood pooling, this option could give me 8TB for TM out of two SSDs. Perhaps a bad idea?

>Synology pushes their own drives but I find that anything I put in it works. I don't have brand-based recommendations. Mine has Hitachi, WD, Seagate drives in it. Rarely any problems with any of them. Some are probably 5400 and others are faster. No problems with that either. They all are functioning as independent drives behind the scenes and Synology simply presents them as one big shared pool.<

Yer they're really pushing propitiatory devices and appear to now limit some software functionality only to their own stuff. This range now only consist of home quality HAT3300 Plus Series (CRM, 5400rpm, possibly rebranded IronWolf, 3yr warranty) or enterprise grade. Nothing in between. Price appears competitive.

Some Synology's have a m.2 slot as a kind of buffer for speedier R/W. It acts as a kind of "middleman" storage to then- behind the scenes- shift some files more quickly stored to it onto the HDDs. Mine is old and doesn't have that option but I've never had any sense of frustration about R/W speeds. TM doesn't need super speed R/W after waiting out the first big dump of backing up everything (which can take a LONG time, even with a local drive attached). There's just not that much to Write after only any given hour of Mac usage.

It be wonderful if they'd open those 3rd party NVMe for storage also, not just cache. Both are reserved for their overpriced, small storage memory. I'll see how I go for speed on this model, it does have 4GB DDR4 RAM (expandable).

Waiting for those cancelled separate drives/ enclosures to arrive, so I can re-tour unopened. I'll order initially just the DS923+ and test with some old drives, noise, network, WiFi. It's interesting that my modem isn't on their list of supported (or not tested) devices. In any case I'll have to immediately fit a RJ45 switch from it, where I can hook the Synology, main mesh router, and 1-2 other devices that can go the Lan route. So with all that, I'm hoping it all should work the way I'm imagining it, then at least it's only one Amazon device (Synology) I have to send back. If it works, I'll order all the drives for it.


Also, I previously mentioned needing an RJ45 switch for more ports. For my use, would you say an unmanaged switch is preferential, minimal complications?

I haven't mentioned SuperDuper with NAS on purpose. Here is a screenshot of their answer to using SD over a Network. It's apparently doable with a work around. Really not sure I fully understand it.



Cheers

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

You should probably spend some time on the Synology site and maybe even go ahead and review the manual for that model to read up on using the device. Servers are towards whole computers on their own- not a Mac, not quite Windows or Unix, etc.

RAID 1 OR 5 or SHR?
While I think I recall RAID 1 is an option, their own RAID-like option is more like RAID-5. It is called Synology Hybrid Raid (SHR). Like RAID-5, one drive- the biggest installed- is fully allocated to maintain a backup of sorts for the rest of the drives, so you will have no capacity for your own storage on the biggest drive installed (if you use pooled storage like SHR or RAID-5). Unlike RAID-5, SHR lets you mix & match drive sizes, speeds, etc. So if your 4 bays eventually hold a 3TB, 6TB, 8TB and 10TB drive, the 10TB is the SHR "backup" and your capacity is 3 + 6 + 8TB (this assumes you pool all 4 bays, NOT allocate a bay or two as its own separate storage).

If any of the 4 goes down, you get an alert and must replace the faulty drive with one at least as large as the largest in the set (10TB in this example). You can keep using it until you replace it & while this new drive is integrated, but at that point the storage is unprotected in the event another drive fails.

If you later need more storage but all 4 bays are full as described, you can put a bigger drive in place of any of them. For example, you could pull the 3TB and replace it with a 10TB (or larger). Then you would have 10 + 6 + 8TB of storage with the other 10TB handling backup protection. If you install a drive larger than 10TB then it will take over as the backup drive and the other 3 will tally up as total available storage.

If me, given how well SHR works, I wouldn't even consider RAID 1, RAID 0, RAID 5 or similar. I just use SHR... mostly for the flexibility of drive sizes and easy evolution without rebuilding from scratch over time.

To plan your own immediate storage, use their calculator to install virtual drives in up to 4 bays to see what you net. You can also compare it to various RAID options at the same time. RAID 1 fares particularly badly with mixed capacity drives, so you will be pressed to buy bigger, same-sized drives right up front to both MAX capacity and Mirror it in RAID 1. SHR is much like what is called JBOD, except it can present to you as if it is one big drive (like RAID-0).

Pooled or Some Separate Drives/Volumes?
Perhaps it's just my own personal bias, but I would not want to use this in lieu of separate enclosures for as little as single drive usage. It can do that but that forgoes many benefits. If I want to use just one drive for anything, I'll do that with a DAS (enclosure) and a single drive. This is still how I would go with ANY SuperDuper usage so I have both an updated SD backup AND a boot drive. Else, I don't use SD at all in this line of thinking.

Noise in Living Area
My NAS has fans that sound about the same as a PowerMac circa 2002 or so. If you've been around long enough to know that sound, you will definitely hear them. Yes, fans can be turned down and/or off but jamming many drives in close quarters begs for cooling. Get them too hot and you can kill them or kill them earlier than they should conk. If you really have no placement choice (can the router not be moved to a more isolated place and then link Synology directly to the router), I'd probably shift back to using several DAS drives for backups and no NAS... even your plan with SSDs over HDDs.

I have good ears and this thing would definitely bug me in my own living room. I want dead silence tech in there myself. This is far from it.

Synology Pushing Synology Drives
I haven't paid much attention to very recent moves at Synology. I'm doubting their systems only work with their own drives (I haven't seen enough complaints if that were true) but no surprise they push their own likely with extra profit for them and then their own confidence about base platform in future customer service. If their newest enclosures up to require their own drives, you might want to buy an enclosure from a few years ago. Those can also be found new and likely cheaper if newer generations of the same are for sale now.

If Synology has gone all the way to forcing their own drives to be used exclusively, there are plenty of other NAS makers in the sea. Many Apple people like QNAP. And there are others. As we see with Apple Silicon, when you have only one choice of storage vendor, you get exploitation like $2200 for 8TB upgrade vs. $750 for 8TB retail. For a NAS, there's little need to chain our own hands in that kind of way if any vendor was trying to replicate the profit maximization of Apple.

Link to Router
Yes, get a fast switch and connect NAS and anything else that benefits from direct connection to Router. No particular recommendations here. I built my own home and have ethernet running everywhere in the walls & ceiling so I have a 24-port master switch and 8 and 16-port switches here and there too. My Synology has dual ethernet ports and I have both connected to 2 ports in the master 24 (to "aggregate"). But I had a few years where it was only a single ethernet cable connection until I came to realize I could get a little more out of connecting both. Even a single is fine for all of these intended purposes.

SD Can Backup to Network
So SD can store a backup to a network drive but that doesn't say anything about being able to boot from it (which I still doubt). Again, to me, key benefits of SD backups are:

1. copying the entire boot drive so one could replace boot drive with a bigger one, copy back, and then have an expanded internal boot drive (no longer an option with locked-down Silicon) and
2. copying the entire boot drive to an external drive so one could boot from that just in case the internal drive fails.

Yes, it can also do periodic backup updates too like a manual Time Machine process. But TM does that well and needs no attention, hookup, actions. So again, I probably do NOT use SD for your purposes if it was me.

All this shared...
If the noise worry concerns me- and it would if it was "living room or bust" placement- perhaps I toss this entire concept and receive and use the stuff you've already ordered... with which SD can play a major role. On a minimal scale, I use SD to maintain backups to the 2 sticks of SSD with one always stored offsite and regularly rotating with the one at home. For probably overkill, I also have one HDD in a DAS enclosure that I plug in regularly for a TM backup too. Net: I have 2 backups that are both pretty fresh and one that is as fresh as my offsite rotation schedule. I'd be able to recover from worst case like fire/flood/theft that takes out Mac and all backups stored at home with that one drive stored offsite, losing only the very new creations since I last executed the swap. An option here might be to store the most recent creations between swaps in a Cloud service (which is, in effect, an offsite backup too that survives fire/flood/theft/etc.). When I swap offsite with onsite, I clear the Cloud storage so that doesn't get overloaded (and thus I'm paying Cloud rentals forever).

The NAS + TM-centric approach I use is continuously backing up with no manual intervention. I don't really have to do anything- it's just backing up on its own. However, if I was pressed to put the NAS in my living room, the noise would continuously bug me to the point of dumping this super-easy option and switching to probably manual backups with DAS attached drives as just described (I'd probably still use TM to DAS vs. SD to DAS but the latter would certainly work too).

However, I worked for YEARS with that old Power Mac making similar sound and ears do adjust to the steady sounds of anything in the environment (for example, in-wall/window A/C or the jet engine sound for a long flight eventually fades into the 'norm' background even without any noise-cancelling phones/buds). So maybe it still works in your situation. TBD with your own ears if you like.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

>You should probably spend some time on the Synology site and maybe even go ahead and review the manual for that model to read up on using the device.<

Thank you, I will. Have only watched countless YT reviews of the various models and ended up from a basic 2 bay, to consideration of the DS923+ I mentioned. The rabbit hole eventually had an end.

>RAID 1 OR 5 or SHR?<

That's a great explanation and I've heard the term SHR whilst looking at the hardware. Very understandable, detailed reply. Cheers

>Pooled or Some Separate Drives/Volumes?
Perhaps it's just my own personal bias, but I would not want to use this in lieu of separate enclosures for as little as single drive usage. It can do that but that forgoes many benefits. If I want to use just one drive for anything, I'll do that with a DAS (enclosure) and a single drive. This is still how I would go with ANY SuperDuper usage so I have both an updated SD backup AND a boot drive. Else, I don't use SD at all in this line of thinking.<

That's how I understood the 4 bays to work but yes, it's not a segmented, independent solution as I incorrectly assumed.

>Noise in Living Area
My NAS has fans that sound about the same as a PowerMac circa 2002 or so. If you've been around long enough to know that sound, you will definitely hear them. Yes, fans can be turned down and/or off but jamming many drives in close quarters begs for cooling. Get them too hot and you can kill them or kill them earlier than they should conk. If you really have no placement choice (can the router not be moved to a more isolated place and then link Synology directly to the router), I'd probably shift back to using several DAS drives for backups and no NAS... even your plan with SSDs over HDDs.

I have good ears and this thing would definitely bug me in my own living room. I want dead silence tech in there myself. This is far from it.<

Unfortunately only the current placement is available. It's a small apartment in DE, Altbau it is called. Pre war concrete walls with high ceilings, steel girders and all kinds of off stuffing within the walls. I'm lucky to have ceiling lights. Interestingly sound from neighbors even travels from multiple levels above via the walls.

Actually, I was happy once I found a lowboard for my AVR but off course stumbled into a heat problem. The solution was a dedicated product placed on top of the AVR that had 3 fans running. Now, that took a bit of getting used to as they cut in and out.

Phone line and power points are limited and modem and mesh routers are already placed to have best reception throughout, and around the thick walled apartment. So location will have to be limited to the current (small) living area.

>Synology Pushing Synology Drives
I haven't paid much attention to very recent moves at Synology. I'm doubting their systems only work with their own drives (I haven't seen enough complaints if that were true) but no surprise they push their own likely with extra profit for them and then their own confidence about base platform in future customer service. If their newest enclosures up to require their own drives, you might want to buy an enclosure from a few years ago. Those can also be found new and likely cheaper if newer generations of the same are for sale now.

If Synology has gone all the way to forcing their own drives to be used exclusively, there are plenty of other NAS makers in the sea. Many Apple people like QNAP. And there are others. As we see with Apple Silicon, when you have only one choice of storage vendor, you get exploitation like $2200 for 8TB upgrade vs. $750 for 8TB retail. For a NAS, there's little need to chain our own hands in that kind of way if any vendor was trying to replicate the profit maximization of Apple.<

Sorry, perhaps I worded it wrong. They have a growing list of 3rd party "supported drives", probably more that all will work but they themselves haven't tested. What many reviews have highlighted in the last years, is that some software functionality is only available with their own hardware.

The best example is the ability of HDD Firmware making it's way directly via the enclosure. Also that although models have a bay (or more) for NVMe, it's only Synology's blades that offer caching and pooling. 3rd part stuff only has caching. Actually, it's probably the same with ram upgrades only being propitiatory. The one I was looking at can have 28 additional GB ram added. Having said that, it's an assumption of mine that RAM has to be Synology branded..but likely.

>Link to Router
Yes, get a fast switch and connect NAS and anything else that benefits from direct connection to Router. No particular recommendations here. I built my own home and have ethernet running everywhere in the walls & ceiling so I have a 24-port master switch and 8 and 16-port switches here and there too. My Synology has dual ethernet ports and I have both connected to 2 ports in the master 24 (to "aggregate"). But I had a few years where it was only a single ethernet cable connection until I came to realize I could get a little more out of connecting both. Even a single is fine for all of these intended purposes.<

that sounds fantastic.

>SD Can Backup to Network
So SD can store a backup to a network drive but that doesn't say anything about being able to boot from it (which I still doubt). Again, to me, key benefits of SD backups are:

1. copying the entire boot drive so one could replace boot drive with a bigger one, copy back, and then have an expanded internal boot drive (no longer an option with locked-down Silicon) and
2. copying the entire boot drive to an external drive so one could boot from that just in case the internal drive fails.

Yes, it can also do periodic backup updates too like a manual Time Machine process. But TM does that well and needs no attention, hookup, actions. So again, I probably do NOT use SD for your purposes if it was me.<

Not a bootable backup probably. I guess it's not such a thing with all being integrated on the logicboard. Main thing, my Data is all there and current I guess.

All this shared...
If the noise worry concerns me- and it would if it was "living room or bust" placement- perhaps I toss this entire concept and receive and use the stuff you've already ordered... with which SD can play a major role. On a minimal scale, I use SD to maintain backups to the 2 sticks of SSD with one always stored offsite and regularly rotating with the one at home. For probably overkill, I also have one HDD in a DAS enclosure that I plug in regularly for a TM backup too. Net: I have 2 backups that are both pretty fresh and one that is as fresh as my offsite rotation schedule. I'd be able to recover from worst case like fire/flood/theft that takes out Mac and all backups stored at home with that one drive stored offsite, losing only the very new creations since I last executed the swap. An option here might be to store the most recent creations between swaps in a Cloud service (which is, in effect, an offsite backup too that survives fire/flood/theft/etc.). When I swap offsite with onsite, I clear the Cloud storage so that doesn't get overloaded (and thus I'm paying Cloud rentals forever).

The NAS + TM-centric approach I use is continuously backing up with no manual intervention. I don't really have to do anything- it's just backing up on its own. However, if I was pressed to put the NAS in my living room, the noise would continuously bug me to the point of dumping this super-easy option and switching to probably manual backups with DAS attached drives as just described (I'd probably still use TM to DAS vs. SD to DAS but the latter would certainly work too).

However, I worked for YEARS with that old Power Mac making similar sound and ears do adjust to the steady sounds of anything in the environment (for example, in-wall/window A/C or the jet engine sound for a long flight eventually fades into the 'norm' background even without any noise-cancelling phones/buds). So maybe it still works in your situation. TBD with your own ears if you like.

Thanks for explaining. The ordered drives will arrive in a couple of days, 4 hrs seemingly too much time to entirely cancel the order. That's fine, I'll hang onto it once it arrives and ponder without pressure. I've still got an old 3.5" HDD with FW400/800 in an (albeit passive) aluminum enclosure. Just for kicks I'll write some to it in the planned Synology location, to be reminded of the sound.

Tbh I haven't entirely given up on the Synology idea. Part of me wants to order the unit, throw an old drive into it and see/hear real-life how well it all works, sounds. Return window should be generous enough for this. I really love the concept of me only having to rotate offsite backup..and that's it.

I was thinking, what if I just set an automated backup schedule when I'm actually at work and the Synology can make any noise it feels like! With my M2 MBP I guess this will only work if the CPU doesn't enter sleep. More so however the screen would have to remain open I guess. That's mainly my main concern. Atm it's parked in a sleeve but always out once am home.

Edit: Such a shame that SATA NAS SSD's are so expensive. As it stands, 2.5" 4TB SSD's are twice the cost per storage in comparison to 3.5" HDD's (8TB HDD = 4TB SSD). As per the Synology raid calculator, I would have traveled well using 3 x 4TB SSDs for a total of 8TB for TM with decent sata drives. The NAS SSD's appear to be quite more expensive on top of that. Going all in SSD's would have solved the noise and heat/fan issue. Admittedly a more expensive solution but ideal for my criteria.

Edit 2: Just for kicks I went to the Synology HDD/SSD drive compatibility list, typing in the DS923+. There wasn't one 2.5" drive under the heading 3rd party. Multiple entries however for Synology's own Enterprise class 2.5" SSDs.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

QNAP generally has better hardware, supports thunderbolt and 10 GbE on some models.

See:

NAS Compares

Simply passionate about NAS

nascompares.com

That's interesting and mirrors what many reviews on YT are also saying. Better hardware but not as user friendly software (for beginners). Does Qnap work in the same manner of data pooling amongst fitted drives?

But it appears that there's another aspect in terms of supported drives. Looking at Synology's compatibility lists for NVMe, HDD, RAM, etc they appear to be pushing more and more toward, giving the thumbs up to their own propitiatory drives only. Off course if unlisted, 3rd party stuff actually works without throwing warnings, is another matter.

I posted this also elsewhere in the thread when looking at listings for SATA SSD support. No 3rd party support listed, only their own enterprise class SSDs. Oddly it looks totally different on the Qnap listings, with even the lowely Samsung QVC SSDs appearing on there. I guess support is one thing but, battling with Samsung warranty over use in NAS is another matter if the drive lunches itself.

Caveat: off course I have no experience with either manufacturer or NAS for that matter. It's only my own general observation when looking at reviews and compatibility charts.

 

[Alpha Centauri]

You can get the Synology and fill it with 2x 4TB Crucial MX500 SATA SSDs.

Have you tried SATA SSDs in your Synology along the way? Looking at their compatibility lists, there's no support for 2.5" SSD for 3rd party storage. There are only Synology propriatory Enterprise class SSDs they support.

Any NAS classed SATA SSDs are quite expensive at this stage but I wonder if the MX or EVO SATA drives would through incompatibility/ error codes if fitted in the Synology? Or even if disc health validation is at all supported.

A further concern is if populating such drives (unsupported SSDs) in the bays, if SHR with DSM 7.2 would function as it normally would with 3.5" HDDs.

 

[HDFan]

Btw, what did you mean by "Bootable clones are an entirely different issue"?

There have been a lot of posts about the usefulness of bootable clones since Apple sealed the system volumes. CCC has a page which discusses it. You can make them with some extra effort, but it is generally better to just backup your data and reinstall the system volume.

Since our opinions cancel each other out on Synology for TM, perhaps others will chime in for OP and/or online reviews for this purpose may share some additional insights.

Some people have no problems, but there also a lot of reports from people who have had failures although less in number that reports of successful use. My problems with NAS backups (Synology, QNAP) even with fast connections (Thunderbolt, 10 GbE) were that they were so slow (taking > 6 hours for an incremental) that it defeated TMs' advantage of hourly backups since it prevented my local backups to HD from running. It may be that the size of my backups (>3TB) gives me a different experience.