Which NAS 1TB hard drive is Most Durable, Reliable for Time Machine?

[Alvin777]

Which NAS 1TB hard drive is the most reliable and more durable for non-NAS use for simple home backups (but w/ important files) like Apple's Time Machine? Or it's more durable and reliable to buy a 1TB SSD for backup (which brand and model is the most reliable, most durable but affordable- a sweet spot 1TB storage for Time Machine backup?). Other recommendations are welcome (non-NAS hard drive, brand and model, if it's cheaper than NAS hard drives).

Thank you.

 

[BrianBaughn]

If you don't mind having the hard drive connected to the iMac at all times a USB-connected hard drive would be the way to go. It would cheaper, easier and more reliable. From your post it doesn't sound like you need a NAS for anything else.

You don't say what model iMac you have (you did post in the iMac forum) or how much storage you're using or planning to use so personlized advice is hard to give.

In general, a USB connected old-fashioned spinner hard drive would be cheapest and is the choice if you, like most people, rarely use TM to restore a system and if needed can do it yourself. If you have to hire someone at a high hourly rate to work on your computer…in case of a major TM recovery…then an SSD might be the choice. The SSD would make the recovery much faster thus less money spent on a tech sitting there looking at your iMac's screen. Similarly, factor in what your own time waiting is worth if you plan to do it yourself.

 

[Steve121178]

As above, I did away with NAS Time Machine backups as they just take too long over time. I find a local USB connected drive is the way forward and has less corruptions.

 

[cthompson94]

Since it would just be for TM you could easily get something like a Samsung T7 which I saw is on sale for $99.99 for 1TB you could also look around for a T5, which will have a a little lower read/write speeds, but since it is for TM that really doesn't matter too much, but are SSD. To keep it out of site too you can get some 3M double sided tape or Velcro strips and put a little piece on the the back of both so it will stay out of sight (of course if you don't mind the adhesive on the iMac)

 

[MajorFubar]

'Non-NAS use', I presume you mean 'just plug it in'?
I've been very happy with the 4TB Western Digital My Passport HDD I bought last year for £120 (will be similar $ I bet). Sits there, does the job, zero drama. Don't buy just 1TB: MacOS will quickly fill that with its incremental timestamped backups in no time, so even if you think you don't need more space, you do. SSD = nice to have, but for backups, 100% not necessary, so spend the same money on a higher-capacity traditional hard drive, IMO.

 

[Alvin777]

'Non-NAS use', I presume you mean 'just plug it in'?
I've been very happy with the 4TB Western Digital My Passport HDD I bought last year for £120 (will be similar $ I bet). Sits there, does the job, zero drama. Don't buy just 1TB: MacOS will quickly fill that with its incremental timestamped backups in no time, so even if you think you don't need more space, you do. SSD = nice to have, but for backups, 100% not necessary, so spend the same money on a higher-capacity traditional hard drive, IMO.

If you don't mind having the hard drive connected to the iMac at all times a USB-connected hard drive would be the way to go. It would cheaper, easier and more reliable. From your post it doesn't sound like you need a NAS for anything else.

You don't say what model iMac you have (you did post in the iMac forum) or how much storage you're using or planning to use so personlized advice is hard to give.

In general, a USB connected old-fashioned spinner hard drive would be cheapest and is the choice if you, like most people, rarely use TM to restore a system and if needed can do it yourself. If you have to hire someone at a high hourly rate to work on your computer…in case of a major TM recovery…then an SSD might be the choice. The SSD would make the recovery much faster thus less money spent on a tech sitting there looking at your iMac's screen. Similarly, factor in what your own time waiting is worth if you plan to do it yourself.

Thanks again. The iMac is a Late 2015 w/ 32GB RAM, M395 GPU i5 Quad Core 3.3Ghz (thankfully I get to save money-proficient w/ Time Machine backups).

I think I'll go for and SSD for the Time Machine (unless that's a bad idea for 24/7 365 days operation and 24/7 hard drives are the one to go with).

Is there a category of SSDs that's built for 24/7 ON all the time (I think Time Machine powers down if there's nothing backup too- correct me if I'm wrong)? I'd like Time Machine mounted coz' Monterey has this bug whereby it's a hit and miss if it mounts external drives or not (and images like .dmg), I'm not sure why that's not yet fixed (macOS Ventura inherited this bug). It'll be ON all the time (I actually don't shutdown my computers, they're all always ON computers, coz' at the restart is when things go awry I noticed, not to mention the boot time) but there sleep and screensavers are enabled to save power.

 

[bradl]

If you are truly talking a NAS here, it all depends on what performance you want out of a drive. I mention that because it depends on how you want the backups to be written on a given NAS grade disk. There are different types of NAS grade disks, which is explained here:

CMR vs. SMR Hard Drives: What's the Difference?

There's a performance penalty with some drives that you need to be aware of.

www.howtogeek.com

Disks aside, especially when it comes to Time Machine, let alone anything with a NAS: Your write speeds will be limited to the slowest negotiated speed on your network. For example, if you have a switch or router that is 100Mbps or even 1Gbps, and the NIC in your NAS supports those speeds, you're great. However, if you are backing up your Mac via Time Machine to your NAS, and doing it over 802.11g WiFi, that connection is 54Mbps at the most, so your speed will be limited to the fastest that the Mac will use over WiFi. The second issue is that that speed will degrade the further you are away from the switch or router providing that WiFi speed, so your backups will take longer, and could affect the consistency of the writes of your backups, let alone writes to the NAS.

It is always best for that if you are hardwired (CAT 5/5e/6/6e/7) cable to your switch/router, and back up via that. That way, the speed of the writes will be limited to the speed of the switch/router. This is what I do, outside of connecting a simple USB SSD to my Mac and backing up my Mac to that disk via Time Machine. That actually may be more feasible and cheaper for you unless you already have a NAS set up.

I have both, so what I do is this:

1. Back up my Mac to an external USB SSD via Time Machine.
2. Back up my Mac to my NAS over Ethernet (CAT6).
3. Back up my NAS to an external USB SSD, and store that backup offsite.

That way if I upgrade my Mac, I can blow away my Mac, use a USB installer to lay down the new OS, and restore my data via Setup Assistant, which will use Time Machine as its source for a restore.

If a disaster happens and I need to restore data, I can either pull it from my USB SSD or from the NAS. If the TM USB SSD is hosed, I go to the NAS. If both are hosed, I can restore my NAS from its external USB SSD, then restore the data from the NAS back to my Mac via Time Machine.

it's a 3-2-1 setup, so my backups are layered, and leaving my only single point of failure to be my house; hence why that NAS backup is stored offsite.

But for simpler setups, I'd be looking at a USB SSD first, then a NAS. But For either one, make sure that you have at least 1.5x the full size of the disk in your Mac so it cam accommodate everything you need for backups. If you Mac's SSD is 1TB, I'd be looking at 2-3TB, just to keep room for any additional versioning or data needed, so you won't lose data by having TM backups roll off to conserve space.

BL.

 

[cthompson94]

Thanks again. The iMac is a Late 2015 w/ 32GB RAM, M395 GPU i5 Quad Core 3.3Ghz (thankfully I get to save money-proficient w/ Time Machine backups).

I think I'll go for and SSD for the Time Machine (unless that's a bad idea for 24/7 365 days operation and 24/7 hard drives are the one to go with).

Is there a category of SSDs that's built for 24/7 ON all the time (I think Time Machine powers down if there's nothing backup too- correct me if I'm wrong)? I'd like Time Machine mounted coz' Monterey has this bug whereby it's a hit and miss if it mounts external drives or not (and images like .dmg), I'm not sure why that's not yet fixed (macOS Ventura inherited this bug). It'll be ON all the time (I actually don't shutdown my computers, they're all always ON computers, coz' at the restart is when things go awry I noticed, not to mention the boot time) but there sleep and screensavers are enabled to save power.

The SSD of any reputable company shouldn't have any issues being plugged in 24/7 the wear of an SSD is writing to it. Now I would have the box under "Energy Saver" unchecked for the putting Hard Disks to sleep when possible as I am not sure if this affects SSDs differently, but I know sometimes there are issues with Mac OS waking the hard disk up causing it to unmount and in your case possibly not do the TM backup until you discover and unplug and plug back in the cable. Someone may have more recent experience with the latest Mac OS and a constantly plugged in SSD to see if this would be an issue, because I know I had issues with standard disk drives in the past.

Any SSD from like Samsung, SanDisk, companies like that have built in overheating protection into the SSD as that would be the only potential problem I could think especially depending on where you put the SSD that will stay plugged in ie. Velcroed on the back of the iMac, but the back is exposed to a window with sunlight that will add extra heat.

 

[bradl]

Something else to consider: Consumer level products versus Enterprise level products.

Consumers still will look for something COTS for their solutions, because consumers tend to err on the side of cheap and affordable than robustness and longevity.

When it comes to HDDs and SSDs, the situation isn't any different. While I could have opted to get a lower grade HDD which provided more space, because it is actually going into a NAS, availability is more required than affordability. I took the chance back at the time and spent the money for two 3TB Western Digital NAS drives. Those drives are still running in my NAS...

I bought the NAS and the drives back in 2013. They are getting a life cycle long enough to match my mid-2011 MBA. I've never had a HDD or SSD last me that long. But If going for something simpler, I'd go the portable USB SSD or USB HDD route. Just be sure to have multiple copies of your backups, because redundant copies will keep you more secure with your data.

BL.

 

[wilberforce]

After some research, I got this CMR drive

Western Digital 4TB WD Red Plus NAS Internal Hard Drive HDD - 5400 RPM, SATA 6 Gb/s, CMR, 64 MB Cache, 3.5" - WD40EFRX

Packed with power to handle the small- to medium-sized business NAS environments and increased workloads for SOHO customers, WD Red Plus is ideal for archiving and sharing, as well as RAID array rebuilding on systems using ZFS and other file systems. Built and tested for up to 8-bay NAS systems, ...

www.amazon.com

 

[bradl]

After some research, I got this CMR drive

Western Digital 4TB WD Red Plus NAS Internal Hard Drive HDD - 5400 RPM, SATA 6 Gb/s, CMR, 64 MB Cache, 3.5" - WD40EFRX

Packed with power to handle the small- to medium-sized business NAS environments and increased workloads for SOHO customers, WD Red Plus is ideal for archiving and sharing, as well as RAID array rebuilding on systems using ZFS and other file systems. Built and tested for up to 8-bay NAS systems, ...

www.amazon.com

Close to what I picked up. I went with their 3TB option, SMR. But both work and work well.

BL.

 

[richard13]

I have two Seagate IronWolf NAS 4TB HDs in my Synology NAS which I use for Time Machine backup storage and streaming.

EDIT: IronWolf is one word.