OT: Home backup strategy - NAS, DAS, Time Machine

[weaponsgrade]

My 2-bay WD MyCloud NAS device crapped out on me. I'm working on trying to recover what I had and will probably make another post for help, but for now I wanted to check if my new backup strategy for network attached storage and direct attached storage will work.

I've got 4 Mac computers that need to be backed up. My plan is to get a NAS (looking at the Asustor Drivestore 4 AS1104T) to serve as a backup target for the 4 Macs. I then plan on backing up the NAS to an external hard drive. Asustor says one of the backup options is to an external hard drive.

But, does that mean I can simply take that external hard drive, hook it up to any computer, and see my files?

[C40_guy]

Maybe. Depends on how the backup is done. When I back up my NAS to my backup NAS I do a simple one way file update. The backup NAS is fully functional, has live copies of all my files and is just a small version of my 5 drive RAID NAS.

I use GoodSync to do something similar from my Macs to the NAS, then replicate between my Mini (desktop) and my Air.

And I run TimeMachine.

Overkill, yes, but I've been in tech for a long time.

A few key files - mostly photos - are also replicated to a cloud provider.

[shadco]

Time Machine to a Synology with mirrored drives. Synology to another Synology with a removable drive. Monthly swapping the removable drive with another that is kept in a safety deposit box at my bank.

.

[bigbill]

I'm writing a thesis and I do a manual backup at the end of each day to a Seagate External 4 TB SSHD. I have a smaller Imation 1 TB that I take when I travel.

[banananutz]

2nd the synology. Have a ds723+, and before that a 212+. Both have been without issue. Had a drive go bad, hot swapped a new drive and it rebuilt the mirror automatically.

Highly recommend.

[9tubes]

Time machine to a 2-bay Synology, plus Backblaze. Just in case of ransomware I also do a full drive clone twice per month to an external drive and then disconnect it.

[.RJ]

Originally Posted by 9tubes

Time machine to a 2-bay Synology, plus Backblaze. Just in case of ransomware I also do a full drive clone twice per month to an external drive and then disconnect it.

What does the cloud storage cost you?

[polyhistoric]

Also a Synology, 2 bay raid system here. Works fine with TimeMachine.

[9tubes]

Originally Posted by 9tubes

Time machine to a 2-bay Synology, plus Backblaze. Just in case of ransomware I also do a full drive clone twice per month to an external drive and then disconnect it.

Originally Posted by .RJ

What does the cloud storage cost you?

$100/yr unlimited storage as I recall. Check the site.

[tylercheung]

I had an old PC motherboard I put into a Fractal Design Node 304 chassis and installed TrueNAS OS and some drives on it. Kind of a convoluted way of getting to a Synology.

Offsite/online backups via backblaze

[Alistair]

Related question… I’m all iOS at home (no PC, no Mac). Is there a good solution for backing up photos and iCloud Drive to a NAS? Already have extended iCloud storage online, but would like to add something local.

[foo_fighter]

Depends how much experience you have but icloudpd in a docker container works well for photos. PhotoSync and Immich also work well for photos.

Originally Posted by Alistair

Related question… I’m all iOS at home (no PC, no Mac). Is there a good solution for backing up photos and iCloud Drive to a NAS? Already have extended iCloud storage online, but would like to add something local.

[Alistair]

Originally Posted by foo_fighter

Depends how much experience you have but icloudpd in a docker container works well for photos. PhotoSync and Immich also work well for photos.

Where am I going to run the docker container? No Mac or PC. Or would it run in the NAS (which means a more expensive NAS, but that might be ok)? The doc says it just does the photos library - is there anything similar to do the iCloud Drive (tax docs, etc)?

[Gsinill]

Originally Posted by shadco

Time Machine to a Synology with mirrored drives. Synology to another Synology with a removable drive. Monthly swapping the removable drive with another that is kept in a safety deposit box at my bank.

.

I do precisely the same as described in the first two sentences.

[spamak]

I'm new to the forum but meticulous about backups ...

Another vote for Synology via Time Machine, using something with mirrored drives (I have DS220j), which makes copying to external drives off the NAS unnecessary ... AND a separate service for cloud backup. I use Backblaze. It's a good strategy is to have backups in 2 different physical locations.