Do you get good wifi speeds when you map the nas? I am getting Horrendous speeds (2-4mbps) but then when I jump into Windows via Bootcamp I get 70mbps via wifi. Cannot work it out..?
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What’s a good NAS and NAS software for home use with almost all Apple devices?
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That doesn't sound right. MacOS, Windows, or otherwise, if going over WiFi, you'll be limited to the speed that your router negotiates for WiFi. at 802.11b speeds, you'll be limited to 11Mbps, regardless of the device. at 802.11g speeds, you'll be at 54Mbps. At 802.11n speed, you'll be at roughly 300mbps.
Now, that has nothing to do with the speed of the NAS, because more than likely you will have connected the NAS to your router via ethernet. If so, then depending on if you're using a Gigabit or even 10Gigabit router, you're going to get faster speeds over ethernet than you will over WiFi.
For me, since I'm on the mid-2011 MBA, the best I'm going to get is 802.11g speeds, which puts me at that 54Mbps range, and I'm directly under the router, so I know I'm going to get slower speeds than what the NAS will have when I map a share from it, especially compared to my Windows PC, which is over Ethernet. What doesn't make sense is that you'd be getting faster speeds on your Mac running Windows, and on WiFi. What is showing you the speeds you're getting on Windows?
BL.
Yes I cannot for the life of me figure it out. Black magic disk speed tests are the tests I’m doing on both Mac OS and windows. Even without running the disk speed you can automatically notice a difference in speed when opening folders between the two operating systems. One folder on the Mac takes around 50 seconds to open and the exact same folder when on windows takes less then 5 seconds to open. Both via wifi, mbp in exact same spot. It’s baffling.
if I could get the same speed over wifi on Mac OS as I am via windows then id be a happy man. That’s all I’m asking to happen, but I just cannot sort it.
I run a small NAS (WD My Cloud) as well as Raspberry Pi acting as a file server.
Both have SMB, AFP and NFS protocols running and shares assigned via those protocols.
My network is wired at 1 Gbit/s. I also have wireless, but that is only used for phones and tablets.
I have found that using the native file sharing protocol for the operating system gives me the best results.
I check the transfer speeds using the little file transfer window that pops up when copying a file, as well as the System Monitor for the OS.
Are you connecting to your NAS via AFP from your Mac?
Both have SMB, AFP and NFS protocols running and shares assigned via those protocols.
My network is wired at 1 Gbit/s. I also have wireless, but that is only used for phones and tablets.
I have found that using the native file sharing protocol for the operating system gives me the best results.
- Linux - NFS - 1 Gbit/s file transfer speeds
- Windows - SMB - 1 Gbit/s file transfer speeds
- MacOS - AFP - 1 Gbit/s file transfer speeds
I check the transfer speeds using the little file transfer window that pops up when copying a file, as well as the System Monitor for the OS.
Are you connecting to your NAS via AFP from your Mac?
Your best thing is buy the snology drive of your choice especially if your into pictures, video or mega files! The Snology can also be used as VPN Server so you could access it VPN from your smart phone! Then buy a decent NVME drive bay and a good NVME drive size you want for speed! this would be super fast scotch storage for your NAS for achiving!
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I used a synology for many years, then moved to xpenology to get a bit more grunt and ended abandoning that and going with unRAID. Fantastic community, you can make it as powerful a machine as you like. Super-simple parity system, caching disks etc to make things go fast and it runs dockers, VMs etc as a super all-in-one appliance. I can thoroughly recommend it. I have had a gaming VM running on an NVMe drive with graphics card passthrough to it. Also ran MacOS VMs easily as well. oh...and it works well as a NAS 
Another vote for Synology DS218+ (2 drive bays). Bought about 2.5 years ago, and it's been great, no issues. I did upgrade the anemic 2GB of memory to 10GB as soon as I got it, but other than that, it's been stock. I've outgrown the drives at least once already - went from two 4TB mirrored Seagate Ironwolf drives, to my current two 10TB drives, still Ironwolf.
My next NAS drive is going to be Synology again, but I may move to a 5 bay system next time, and I'll probably move to a RAID striping backup, which would allow for drive failure without bringing the whole system down. (Actually I can already lose 1 drive on my current setup, since they're mirrored.)
My next NAS drive is going to be Synology again, but I may move to a 5 bay system next time, and I'll probably move to a RAID striping backup, which would allow for drive failure without bringing the whole system down. (Actually I can already lose 1 drive on my current setup, since they're mirrored.)
Another vote for Synology. I have the 2011 2 bay model that has been running for 10 years now. It is time for me to replace it since Plex Server cannot be run on it anymore. I use it as a server for my music & photos. I also have a 2010 Mini that also houses my music and photos. I used to run an even older Synology server (2009?) that would would be rsynced to the 2011 model. That worked like a charm. I have kinda of retired the older one because my stuff is backed up in 3 different clouds and local USB devices now.
Two disparate questions:
1. Having had two Netgear NASs for years, the older of the two just died (probably a power supply but at 12 or 13 years old not worth fixing). Looking for a replacement and considering Synology, QNAP, and ASUSTOR. Can anyone recommend a useful unbiased comparison site?
2. After years of using the Microsoft Office suite, several years ago Word began to fail when accessing Word Documents on the NAS (either one). It would only open them Read-Only. This didn't happen with any of the other Microsoft Office suite of products. It also didn't happen when connected to the NAS via AFP, only SMB. When the same doc was copied to the Mac it opened normally; when put back on the NAS it would only open Read-Only. I worked with people at Microsoft for a long time to no avail. (The Netgear folks were not available to help at all.)
I remained hopeful that a new release of something would solve the issue.
Whenever Microsoft had a new release of Office and whenever Apple would update its OS, after carefully removing all the parts of Office I'd try to install it again, but the problem remained.
So, I'm wondering if the problem might be with the Netgear OS and if by moving to a different NAS (such as the ones listed above), the problem might be corrected. Has anyone experienced this issue on Synology or any of the other NASs?
Thank you for any help you might have.
1. Having had two Netgear NASs for years, the older of the two just died (probably a power supply but at 12 or 13 years old not worth fixing). Looking for a replacement and considering Synology, QNAP, and ASUSTOR. Can anyone recommend a useful unbiased comparison site?
2. After years of using the Microsoft Office suite, several years ago Word began to fail when accessing Word Documents on the NAS (either one). It would only open them Read-Only. This didn't happen with any of the other Microsoft Office suite of products. It also didn't happen when connected to the NAS via AFP, only SMB. When the same doc was copied to the Mac it opened normally; when put back on the NAS it would only open Read-Only. I worked with people at Microsoft for a long time to no avail. (The Netgear folks were not available to help at all.)
I remained hopeful that a new release of something would solve the issue.
Whenever Microsoft had a new release of Office and whenever Apple would update its OS, after carefully removing all the parts of Office I'd try to install it again, but the problem remained.
So, I'm wondering if the problem might be with the Netgear OS and if by moving to a different NAS (such as the ones listed above), the problem might be corrected. Has anyone experienced this issue on Synology or any of the other NASs?
Thank you for any help you might have.
While I have not seen the problem you describe...I would think it is most likely one of two issues:
1. File system limitation(s). All file systems have some limitations with regard to interacting with different OSes, as well as different connection protocols (SMB, AFP, FTP, etc.) Most NAS OSes and file systems are pretty flexible and cross-platform, so this seems unlikely.
2. Permissions. This seems more likely, again with platforms having their own quirks regarding setting, inheriting, and changing file-level permissions, as well as each connecting OS handles or interacts with said permissions. Mac OS X, back about 10.5, added Windows compatible ACLs, in addition to the default Unix-flavored POSIX permissions, greatly easing the use of Macs with Windows (and Win compatible) file servers. The downside is...two levels of permissions is more complicated especially considering ACLs are functionally invisible on Macs!
With the above info in mind, I suggest that any NAS that needs to work well with Macs, especially in a group setting (not just for 1 or 2 users) needs to have a good, fairly easy way to manage POSIX and ACLs.
Synology does (in my opinion) provide a very good GUI to see, set, change, and verify permissions (both POSIX and ACLs). While the other options may do this, I can't speak for them. Others may have good experiences to share.
Having run Mac file servers since OS 9 days, I find Synology to be a better, easier, and more reliable system than Mac OS Server ever was regarding file permissions. A secondary Synology bonus is that both SMB and AFP (now finally retired...but still very useful on any Mac OS before 11) are fully functional and useful.
Thank you for your detailed reply. It seems that Synology is the go-to NAS and I'm leaning in that direction.
Since a NAS is not a backup, one of the most important functions for a new NAS on this network will be its ability to backup to the existing Netgear NAS using rsync. I've been reading over all the options in the Synology OS documentation. The amount of information is a bit overwhelming.
So, I plan to migrate all the data from the existing NAS to the new one. I know that once the system is set up to automatically perform backups it will be set-it-and-forget-it. However, in the past getting the configuration to back up from one Netgear NAS to another Netgear NAS took some time. Have you had any experience using rsync with your Synology?
Again, thank you for your help.
Since a NAS is not a backup, one of the most important functions for a new NAS on this network will be its ability to backup to the existing Netgear NAS using rsync. I've been reading over all the options in the Synology OS documentation. The amount of information is a bit overwhelming.
So, I plan to migrate all the data from the existing NAS to the new one. I know that once the system is set up to automatically perform backups it will be set-it-and-forget-it. However, in the past getting the configuration to back up from one Netgear NAS to another Netgear NAS took some time. Have you had any experience using rsync with your Synology?
Again, thank you for your help.
I have not been using rsync, as Drive has been working well for both client backups and folder syncing. It is a bit confusing that the single service/tool does both, at first glance.
I will also add, as it seems less well known...backing up over the internet is easy with Drive, using Synology QuickConnect, which is a great bonus. No IP info needed, no network or firewall tweaks, super easy.
Sounds like you know...rsync is a powerful and mature tool, but the challenge has been the user interface, or lack thereof (especially on the Mac side) can be intimidating and not at all easy. A lot of Mac users don't realize that many Mac backup tools are really just nice GUI front ends built to give easier access to its powerful capability.
And yes, the amount that one can do with a Synology is a bit daunting. The best advice I can offer is to focus on the features you need/want, and try to ignore the rest.
I will also add, as it seems less well known...backing up over the internet is easy with Drive, using Synology QuickConnect, which is a great bonus. No IP info needed, no network or firewall tweaks, super easy.
Sounds like you know...rsync is a powerful and mature tool, but the challenge has been the user interface, or lack thereof (especially on the Mac side) can be intimidating and not at all easy. A lot of Mac users don't realize that many Mac backup tools are really just nice GUI front ends built to give easier access to its powerful capability.
And yes, the amount that one can do with a Synology is a bit daunting. The best advice I can offer is to focus on the features you need/want, and try to ignore the rest.
Here is what you can do.
When you get into the blood and guts of it, everything that is running on a Synology NAS is running on top of a Linux build, so most unix functions/binaries will be there, including rsync and ssh.
With that said, when you get the Synology NAS, What you can do is:
- format your drives and create the volumes and directories as you see fit,
- create a user that is not the admin account (for security purposes; you can even give it the same privileges as the admin account.. POSIX and ACLs may apply, so you're good there),
- enable SSH (because I'm pretty sure you don't want to enable telnet... )
- exchange SSH keys between the Netgear and the account you created on the Synology NAS (if you want to go with passwordless ssh between them).. then
- rsync between the Netgear and the Synology, at the directory or directories you created in step #1.
If you're planning on keeping that Netgear around, I'd actually go ahead and use your Netgear NAS as a backup; to be specific, a hot backup. The Hyper Backup program in the Synology NAS has the means to back up your NAS to an external drive (ex. external USB drive), over rsync, or directly to another remote Synology NAS. In this case, you could copy everything to your Synology NAS, reconfigure your Netgear NAS to only store backups, and use Hyper Backup to schedule your Synology NAS to be backed up to your Netgear NAS. Schedule that frequently, and you'll have a hot backup that you can go to at any point just by pointing your clients back to the Netgear NAS in case the Synology NAS has a problem.
Additionally, if there is one available (not sure on how big a set of drives you'll be using) you can buy an external USB drive, plug that in directly to the Synology, and set up a different backup schedule than the one you have for the Netgear (for example, if you have a backup set to run every day to the Netgear, as Hyper Backup has versioning on it like Time Machine, you can schedule another backup to run monthly to this external drive), and take that external drive offsite.
The versioning is optional, so you can create a one-time backup that you can overwrite each time, or use the versioning functionality it has and have the full backup plus anything incremental since that full was taken, and have that as your cold backup in case both NASes fail. That way you're doubly covered with a hot and a cold backup.
BL.
TrueNAS
www.truenas.com
Runs on almost any x86 hardware or you repurpose an OEM x86 NAS or buy an appliance from them.
Just look at the relative CVEs
TrueNAS
Stay away from QNAP. Their security is atrocious.
WD is not much better.
Synology is not far behind
Netgear is not good either
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
Runs on almost any x86 hardware or you repurpose an OEM x86 NAS or buy an appliance from them.
Just look at the relative CVEs
TrueNAS
Stay away from QNAP. Their security is atrocious.
WD is not much better.
Synology is not far behind
Netgear is not good either
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elvisimprsntr, I had no idea what the CVE was and because of my ignorance I dismissed your post at first. Then I read through the information and it was a bit of an education.
I would like to expect that when vulnerabilities are discovered in any NAS device the company behind it will update their software to fix them. Hmm.
As far as TrueNAS goes, that too was new to me. Their boxes are considerably more expensive than the other brands you listed. And, because I have no x86 hardware, I will have to think about the decision to build/buy a box and put ZFS on it vs. one of the vendors in this category. There's something warm and fuzzy about going with a well-known company like Synology. OTOH, ZFS has some other appealing features.
Thank you.
I would like to expect that when vulnerabilities are discovered in any NAS device the company behind it will update their software to fix them. Hmm.
As far as TrueNAS goes, that too was new to me. Their boxes are considerably more expensive than the other brands you listed. And, because I have no x86 hardware, I will have to think about the decision to build/buy a box and put ZFS on it vs. one of the vendors in this category. There's something warm and fuzzy about going with a well-known company like Synology. OTOH, ZFS has some other appealing features.
Thank you.
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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.
Runs on almost any x86 hardware or you repurpose an OEM x86 NAS or buy an appliance from them.
Just look at the relative CVEs
TrueNAS
Stay away from QNAP. Their security is atrocious.
WD is not much better.
Synology is not far behind
Netgear is not good either
I will say this about some of the CVEs. Disclaimer: I'm a Linux sysadmin, DBA, and ISO. Have been for 28 years.
There is mitigation, and there is remediation, and those two are distinct and completely different when it comes to a NAS, and how that NAS is being used.
With the CVEs listed, especially those related to Synology, I know for a fact that the developers that work for Synology are on it when it comes to any vulnerability. In fact, they would already have the patch to the OS or the application available before the CVE is even announced, which is a good thing. We remediate those vulnerabilities with the patches they provide. That's all fine and dandy, but it should be stressed that having fewer CVEs listed does not mean that the NAS solution being used is more secure than another.. in fact, one could argue the exact opposite.
But that brings in a different issue at the user level, or with how the NAS is used.
A NAS is exactly that: Network Attached Storage. It can go onto a given network and be used throughout that network. But with some of the applications on it, one can use it as their own Cloud server, webserver, music streaming server, video server, etc. However, doing that to remote locations or having remote access to a NAS is its own gift and curse, because exposing the NAS to the Internet is what generates the problems that are indicated in the CVEs. All of that could be mitigated by not exposing the NAS to the Internet. I get it; different strokes for different folks.. Each person's usage is going to be different, but people also need to take into account what risks they may have with what they are trying to do. For home? If you're not exposing your NAS to the Internet, you're in good shape, as no remote user can get to your NAS without having access to your entire network first. If they already have access to your network, that is a different (a network security) issue altogether, and not the fault of any vulnerability on the NAS.
So for home use, you mitigate and remediate. Patch the bugs, and make sure that only then necessary access to the NAS is needed. For example, if your NAS can run SSH, turn it on, move that SSH access to a non-standard port on the NAS, open a port on your router (also non-standard port), NAT that together, and you're set.
If you keep up on things as well as secure it, you're good to go.
BL.
Agreed, do not expose a NAS from any manufacturer directly to the internet.
Set up a VPN server (OpenVPN, IPSec, WG, etc.) to access your NAS/LAN.
Yet uninformed people continue to expose their NAS to the internet, putting their data at risk.
TrueNAS
WD
Netgear
QNAP
Synology being the worst by several orders of magnitude at 3,066,753
Set up a VPN server (OpenVPN, IPSec, WG, etc.) to access your NAS/LAN.
Yet uninformed people continue to expose their NAS to the internet, putting their data at risk.
TrueNAS
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You cant go wrong with either Synology or QNAP - although I never use any of the remote features. Have all those services switched off so that my data stays within the internal network only.
Personally Ive been using this one for years alongside a 10GBe switch and it hasn't missed a beat (there are newer versions available now of course):
Personally Ive been using this one for years alongside a 10GBe switch and it hasn't missed a beat (there are newer versions available now of course):
Sure, if you don't mind hard coded credentials and vulnerabilities
Massive Qlocker ransomware attack uses 7zip to encrypt QNAP devices
A massive ransomware campaign targeting QNAP devices worldwide is underway, and users are finding their files now stored in password-protected 7zip archives.
QNAP confirms Qlocker ransomware used HBS backdoor account
QNAP is advising customers to update the HBS 3 disaster recovery app to block Qlocker ransomware attacks targeting their Internet-exposed Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices.
Qlocker ransomware shuts down after extorting hundreds of QNAP users
The Qlocker ransomware gang has shut down their operation after earning $350,000 in a month by exploiting vulnerabilities in QNAP NAS devices.
Sure, if you don't mind hard coded credentials and vulnerabilities
Massive Qlocker ransomware attack uses 7zip to encrypt QNAP devices
A massive ransomware campaign targeting QNAP devices worldwide is underway, and users are finding their files now stored in password-protected 7zip archives.www.bleepingcomputer.com
QNAP confirms Qlocker ransomware used HBS backdoor account
QNAP is advising customers to update the HBS 3 disaster recovery app to block Qlocker ransomware attacks targeting their Internet-exposed Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices.
Qlocker ransomware shuts down after extorting hundreds of QNAP users
The Qlocker ransomware gang has shut down their operation after earning $350,000 in a month by exploiting vulnerabilities in QNAP NAS devices.
Fortunately didn't affect me at all. As I said, Ive always been fine and works perfectly well for me. I'm not trying to sell it on anyone else, just stating my own experience and opinion.
Wouldn't these threats only be possible if the NAS is exposed to WAN?Sure, if you don't mind hard coded credentials and vulnerabilities
Massive Qlocker ransomware attack uses 7zip to encrypt QNAP devices
A massive ransomware campaign targeting QNAP devices worldwide is underway, and users are finding their files now stored in password-protected 7zip archives.
QNAP confirms Qlocker ransomware used HBS backdoor account
QNAP is advising customers to update the HBS 3 disaster recovery app to block Qlocker ransomware attacks targeting their Internet-exposed Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices.
Qlocker ransomware shuts down after extorting hundreds of QNAP users
The Qlocker ransomware gang has shut down their operation after earning $350,000 in a month by exploiting vulnerabilities in QNAP NAS devices.
Or to use the nomenclature from the great post above...can't a user mitigate these threats by not exposing the NAS to the internet?
Not exposing a NAS to the WAN mitigates the external threat. Does nothing to protect against a threat initiated from the LAN side if a user downloads an infected payload in an email or from the internet. Given the historical track record of most OEM NAS vendors, who's business model is based solely on the initial acquisition purchase, there is no incentive for OEMs to provide long term software support even when vulnerabilities are discovered, except the potential impact on reputation and future product sales. Just read any OEM NAS vendor Limited Liability Warranty.
Potential Legacy Risk from Malware Targeting QNAP NAS Devices | CISA
Synology warns of malware infecting NAS devices with ransomware
Taiwan-based NAS maker Synology has warned customers that the StealthWorker botnet is targeting their network-attached storage devices in ongoing brute-force attacks.
Top 5 ways ransomware is delivered and deployed | Infosec
If your computer has not yet been affected by ransomware, odds are it could soon be. With ransom payments averaging more than $80,000 in Q4 2019, the coveted
How ransomware spreads and how to stop it | Emsisoft
How does ransomware spread? We discuss the most common ways ransomware propagates and how you can prevent ransomware from infecting your system. ✓ Click here!
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I have been running a mac mini as my "server" for 6+ years. I like that it has more functions that a nas. Having a TB hub connected with 8 4 TB drives connected. So are backup drives and I only turn them on once a week for backup. Another plus for this system is there is no one point of failure. If the mini dies I can move one or any drive to a mac to access the data. I also have 2 VM running Pi hole and VPN software to name a few.