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I run trains! |
Question for the computer folks. I would like to set up a networked hard drive(s) for storage at the house. Right now we have a Window's desktop with a 1 TB hard drive that is the family computer; mostly a mix of Word files, family pictures, etc. My personal computer is a MacBook Air with 128 GB drive. The MacBook Air is what prompted the question as it obviously doesn't have the capacity that the desktop has; I have a lot of pictures and music that I want to keep. iTunes currently manages the music, but the files themselves are mostly MP3 as I purchase it as downloads from Amazon. My thought (if it's even possible) would be that I'd like to have a HD that both computers could store to/access, with a second HD that the first backed up to each night. I see that there are are HD enclosures that basically allow you to add a number of drives, but again I have no idea if this would meet my needs and even then how to go about setting up what I'm after. I've searched around and read several articles/threads about this, but I'm not necessarily techie enough to know if I'm looking at the right stuff. Can anyone assist or help point me in the right direction? Not trying to break the bank on this project, just want to ensure I have storage for my personal data with a relatively reliable backup system (will likely incorporate a battery backup as well). Thanks! Success always occurs in private, and failure in full view. Complacency sucks… | ||
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Do you have Ethernet cable running between the rooms you want to have networked? I have our computers wired to two NAS systems; a 4-disk QNAP (RAID 6) and a 2-disk WD My Cloud (RAID 1). Both are running WD Red 4TBb drives. All connected by Netgear gigabit switches. They weren't difficult to set up. _________________________________________________________________________ “A man’s treatment of a dog is no indication of the man’s nature, but his treatment of a cat is. It is the crucial test. None but the humane treat a cat well.” -- Mark Twain, 1902 | |||
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eh-TEE-oh-clez |
For cheap, get a 1 bay NAS enclosure from Synology or Qnap. The Synology DS120j is right around $100 bucks on Amazon. Add a Western Digital RED hard drive in whatever capacity you need. For your purposes, 4tb or 6tb hit the price sweet spot. Then, buy an 8tb Western Digital Elements external USB drive. Install the loose disk into the NAS. Plug the NAS into one of the spare Ethernet ports in your router. It does not need to be plugged into your computer. If your router is out of ports, buy a Netgear 4-port gigabit switch and add it to your router. Plug the USB drive into the spare USB ports in the NAS. On the software side, log into the NAS using the default IP address, and set up some shared storage containers and permissions. You can set up unshared storage containers as well, if you want the contents private from the other computers in the house. Map each of those containers as network drives to your computer. Now your computer will see the containers as attached hard drives. You can now drop files into the containers and use them as storage, or point periodic backups to it. Now, go back to your NAS control panel. In there, download the recommended backup software from the NAS's app store. It should be free. There, use the backup software to create a backup scheme to your external USB. Daily incremental, then full backups every two weeks or one month. Try to keep at least two full copies of backups on your USB drive. You can scale all this up as budget allows. A 4 bay NAS will allow faster access times and better up-time because you can have the drives set up so that one or more of them have to fail before the data is lost. You can also increase the size or number of drives on the USB backup to accomplish the same. Good luck! | |||
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Nullus Anxietas |
I agree with everything Aeteocles wrote, save this:
For something like this, where you're going to be storing files that, if lost, would be gone forever, I would get a two-bay NAS and run the drives in RAID 1 (mirroring). That way: If a drive fails, and they all do, eventually, you can simply follow a procedure to take the drive off-line in the management tools, remove it, replace it, and add it back into the RAID 1 array, after which the NAS will automatically rebuild the mirror. Nothing lost. No downtime. You'd still want an external backup, though, for if the NAS, itself, goes Tango Uniform, in case one of the connected computers gets 0wn3d by ransomware, or for should a file or directory get accidentally permanently deleted or otherwise trashed. And put the NAS on a UPS. I don't know about Qnap, but Synology even has support for UPS connectivity for many UPS', so it can be gracefully shut down if the UPS becomes exhausted during a power failure. And, yes: Doing all this the "right way" (in my book) costs a bit more, but what value to you place on your irreplaceable electronic documents and memories? "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system,,,, but too early to shoot the bastards." -- Claire Wolfe "If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living." -- Seneca the Younger, Roman Stoic philosopher | |||
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| I run trains! |
Thank you to everyone for the suggestions. To answer a few additional questions, no the house is not wired with Ethernet cables so everything will be wireless. The 1 TB drive on the current computer is only about 10% used even with all the music, pictures, etc. so I would think a 2 TB network drive as primary would suffice just fine right? I went looking on Amazon for components just now. Would this list of items work well for my application? Success always occurs in private, and failure in full view. Complacency sucks… | |||
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Member |
For NAS folks, are there any issues with using the same drives to write from Macs or Windows computers? ie: filesystem issues? ...let him who has no sword sell his robe and buy one. Luke 22:35-36 NAV "Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves." Matthew 10:16 NASV | |||
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Member |
Yes. Macs can't deal with NTFS drives. The native file system on older Macs was HFS+. Newer Macs use APFS (Apple File System). Neither is compatible with Windows. exFAT has worked well as a go-between file system. You can't truly call yourself "peaceful" unless you are capable of great violence. If you're not capable of great violence, you're not peaceful, you're harmless. NRA Benefactor/Patriot Member | |||
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quarter MOA visionary |
While you don't have to deploy a NAS device to have file access ~ it is probably the best method without having some advance network skills. The Synology unit would be just fine although I am a QNAP partner ~ they tend to be more advanced and hence more expensive. The nice thing about the NAS is the "apps" that can do some other functions if so needed beyond simple file sharing/access or backup function. One more thing if you do use it in an advance function say for a media server ~ be sure to attach another USB drive to backup that drive (backup for a backup). | |||
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| eh-TEE-oh-clez |
Your list is good, but I encourage you to get the 4tb WD drive as it's a better value. $80 for 2tb, or $20 more for double the space. NAS drives have long service lives, so if $20x2 today gets you an additional year of use before you run out of space and have to upgrade (say, replace on year 5 instead of year 4), it would be worth while. Also, with the additional space, you'll have plenty of room to do full computer backups of your two computers, in addition to just media server and file storage duties. I always look for the price "sweet spot". | |||
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| I run trains! |
^^^Thank you for that. As to lkdr1989's question, am I going to encounter issues sharing files to/from my MacBook? Success always occurs in private, and failure in full view. Complacency sucks… | |||
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| eh-TEE-oh-clez |
Also, since you are considering a 2-bay NAS with 1 drive of fault tolerance, I would change the backup scheme to the external USB Rather than leaving the USB attached to do incremental daily backups, I would instead UNPLUG the USB drive and only plug it in to do Weekly incremental backups, and Monthly full back up. Unpluging between backup creates an AIR-GAP in case of a ransomware attack. Daily backups aren't AS necessary anymore, because you've got the the second NAS disk for fault tolerance. It's not a substitute for a true backup, but the additional AIR-GAPPED protection of an unplugged USB backup is worth the risk of relying on the RAID1 mirror for up to 5 days at a time. | |||
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| I run trains! |
Ok, good to know. Success always occurs in private, and failure in full view. Complacency sucks… | |||
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| eh-TEE-oh-clez |
Possibly. I have no experience. However, my bet is probably not. There is no shortage of companies and people who use MAC and WIN in a shared NAS environment, so there must be workarounds in place if it automatically doesn't just work outright. The NAS itself is running its own Linux/Unix based OS, so making sure file structures are compatible is probably all part of the process. | |||
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| Nullus Anxietas |
Once again I am in agreement with Aeteocles' recommendations, re: Air-gapped, offline backups. "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system,,,, but too early to shoot the bastards." -- Claire Wolfe "If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living." -- Seneca the Younger, Roman Stoic philosopher | |||
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| eh-TEE-oh-clez |
 Also, your external USB can be moved to the safe for fire and flood protection if you are just doing weekly and monthly air-gapped backups. Even better if stored off site. 3-2-1. 3 copies, 2 storage devices, 1 in a separate location. | |||
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Optimistic Cynic |
However, the NAS is exporting its own file systems via a network file system stack that appears to the client computers as a standardized "network volume." So it doesn't matter how the NAS OS actually formats the drives, the clients never see this detail. Of course, there can be conflicts with file naming limitations (e.g. putting a slash "/" in a file name), but this is usually handled transparently via a two-way translation that is invisible to the user. In fact, the only time I have ever seen this become a problem is naming Excel-running-on-a-Mac spreadsheets with slash-formatted dates in their names, where the server software translated the slashes to colons in the file names in the actual file system on the hard drives themselves. The software used to backup the file server choked on the colons. Changing the "/'s" in the file names to "-'s" before saving from Excel worked around this particular issue, but I can see the possibility of similar if one insists on using problematic characters in file and folder names (punctuation, foreign characters, multi-byte characters, emoji, etc.) However, encountering this kind of problem is very unlikely in practice. Apologies for getting outside the scope of the original post, the advice of a turn-key NAS previously posted is sound, and following long-understood best practices for multi-generational backups and RAID storage is always prudent. I am always impressed by the high level of expertise and experience demonstrated by the network professionals infesting SigForum. | |||
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| I run trains! |
Thank you to all! Looks like I have next week's project(s) lined up. Just found the driver's side sway bar linkage all chewed up on my truck...at least that one I understand.  Success always occurs in private, and failure in full view. Complacency sucks… | |||
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Member |
With your MacBook Air, you can (1)purchase a 2TB external SSD (thunderbolt connection) (2)partition the 2TB into two 1TB drives (3)set up your Time Machine on one of the 1TB (4)put your Photos, Music, etc libraries on the second 1TB drive. This keeps the small SSD on the MacBook Air loaded with OS and applications, while the larger library files are OFF the machine. You can "point" the application such as Photos or Music to the external SSD library quite easily. And, the Time Machine backs it all up. ------- Trying to simplify my life... | |||
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