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Want to set up a NAS and a backup system

One thing that has come up in my search is the CalDigit t4: https://www.caldigit.com/t4/

One major con is that it only comes pre-populated with CalDigit's preferred hard drives that they've tested. So replacing a failed drive sounds like it could be a PITA. But, I'm attracted by the fact that it can not only power my monitor, but charge my latop.... replacing three cables now (external hard drive, monitor, and power supply) with one integrated connection. It still comes in under budget... which is great. Seems a bit overpriced, but figured I would get opinions here. Drobos are sold out everywhere (or at least my budget level drobo is), so I'm just scouring for all options that fit and keep me at my budget at this point.

Thanks so much for all the help and patience everyone. It is much appreciated.
 
jrm27 said:
Drobos are sold out everywhere (or at least my budget level drobo is),
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I am on my 3rd Drobo 5D. 2 failed and were replaced under warranty/extended warranty. All are/were slower than the posted 550 MB/s R/W of the Caldigit Raid 5 (253, 193 R/428, 294 W).
 
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Drag! I had a 5c that seemed to be pretty solid. Yeah, I'm down to choosing between the CalDigit and the Thunderbay4 setup. pretty similar in price. CalDigit you sacrifice some of the hard drive flexibility, but gain some peripheral functionality.
 
Just ordered the CalDigit Setup... let's see how that works. Thanks everyone!
 
jrm27 said:
Thanks all. Appreciate the info, and the fact that I'm not the first person who wants to set up something like this. Thanks for the resources, as it gives me a great place to start!

I think what I'm looking for is something that is physically attached. Ethernet isn't really an option in this old house as it would require running some wires which is not a possibility at the moment. I'm running some ethernet adapters at for now to feed a second wifi setup in my office, ut the speed in my office is 20mb on a good day, and 300mb on a normal day out in the living room. So accessing by physically attached storage would be best for now. I'll take a look at those options. Thanks for the leads!
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Late reply, but look into MoCA 2.5 to run ethernet over coax. It works VERY well.
 
Cyprusian said:
My own experience of using Time Machine to back up to a Synology DS218j (disk configuration: Synology Hybrid RAID 1) has not been good. It ran for a few weeks then Time Machine reported it had failed after verification and the entire backup had to be deleted then re-created to then fail again. I've researched the issue extensively and have found that I am far being the only one to experience it. I've attempted several solutions such as AFP and SMB protocols, Wi-Fi and LAN connections, running Time Machine on a legacy iMac on High Sierra and a MBP on Catalina, etc. All, sadly, to no avail. I also have participated in more than one MR thread on this subject. So, I've had to adopt alternative backup strategies while clinging to an optimistic hope that one day a future MacOS update will resolve the matter......
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You might consider Synology Drive instead. While it has limitations and quirks, I find it much more reliable and faster than TM. You get a nice menu icon with quick info, and you can even easily backup over the internet via QuickConnect. Pretty slick. I use to for multiple machines, and won't go back to TM.
 
hobowankenobi said:
You might consider Synology Drive instead. While it has limitations and quirks, I find it much more reliable and faster than TM. You get a nice menu icon with quick info, and you can even easily backup over the internet via QuickConnect. Pretty slick. I use to for multiple machines, and won't go back to TM.
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Thanks for the tip. I gave it a try and it works OK. As you say, it's a wee but quirky, but it works. Then I noticed that the appearance of Time Machine has been cosmetically tweaked in Big Sur which led me to wonder if things had been improved under the hood as well so I gave it go and, what do you know, TM has been running perfectly trouble-free backing up to my Synology DS218j NAS and over Wi-Fi over the last two days. That being the case I'm sticking with Time Machine because I really like its functionality and simplicity.
 
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Cyprusian said:
Thanks for the tip. I gave it a try and it works OK. As you say, it's a wee but quirky, but it works. Then I noticed that the appearance of Time Machine has been cosmetically tweaked in Big Sur which led me to wonder if things had been improved under the hood as well so I gave it go and, what do you know, TM has been running perfectly trouble-free backing up to my Synology DS218j NAS and over Wi-Fi over the last two days. That being the case I'm sticking with Time Machine because I really like its functionality and simplicity.
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Fingers crossed.

In the past...TM would chug along happily for weeks/months, and then magically be corrupt. Might be wise to to keep a secondary BU for a good long while to see if TM stays happy.
 
hobowankenobi said:
Fingers crossed.

In the past...TM would chug along happily for weeks/months, and then magically be corrupt. Might be wise to to keep a secondary BU for a good long while to see if TM stays happy.
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Absolutely - I’ve always had a belt’n braces back up strategy.
 
pldelisle said:
Time machine on my DS1513+ has been running flawlessly for 7 years.
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How large are the source files, total size of the TM backup on the Synology? I'm wondering if size may be an explanation for my glacially slow and every-few-month corrupted TM backups.
 
I suggest a 4-bay Synology NAS. You connect to it by ethernet.

I'm running a (now old, Intel-Atom based) Synology DS412-Plus.
I'm fully loaded with 4-bays x 4tb HDD = 16tb Synology-Hybrid-RAID (RAID-5 with 1-disk fault tolerance) .
Currently on DSM-6.x . Support has been good over the years.
Windows and Macs connect to it equally well.

That yields about 12gb of usable storage. I could install larger drives but have no need to as it's only 60% full after all these years. Newer ones have better/faster CPUs. Swapping a failing HDD is easy.
RAID is not a backup. You can back-it-up to another NAS, the cloud, or I currently just use an inexpensive external USB-3 HDD.
 
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