NAS or cheapest way

[Tech198]

Hi all..

Thinking of getting an external drive (as a possible solution) and the cheapest... looking at 2TB for Mac.

I also have a PC networked in the other room to a router i'd also need to backup too..... I came to the conclusion which way i choose, the drive (or backup device) would need to be connected to the network, and be automated backup.

so, which would be the way, and cheapest, way to go ?

A big external drive for myself and a 1 bay NAS (not sure if they exist), or possible something they would allow me to connect a 3.5-inch hard drive to a router.... ?

Or would a 2-bay NaS be the way to go from QNAP ?

I don't need "over-the-top" protection.

Suggestions?

 

[aloshka]

QNAP is great, but I'll warn you, it does not do TimeMachine backups very well or at all most of the time unless you are running an old version of OSX.

Also, with the PC you will need some software to backup to the NAS as windows has no software that will backup to network share automatically (you can make it work with some scripting though).

So I do recommend QNAP, but you will still need some software on both to make it work.

 

[Penn Jennings]

Synology devices do work with with Time Machine backups and Windows systems.

I had a DS 213 for a few weeks. I was using it to backup 3 Macs to a 3 TB drive. The Synology took 11 hours to format the drive. After that setup was pretty easy. It did take a little playing TM to get it work the way that I wanted it but after that it worked fine. I have 2 other complaints though.

One, the backup speed was only peaking under 50 MB per second. This was between systems that were directly connected on a gigabit network. Backing up between Macs peaks at over 65 MB per second to an external drive. if you are happy with 45ish MB per second then this is not an issue for you. BTW, the reviews that I've read indicate that Windows shares perform better than AFP on Synology devices.

Two, this probably only applies to me but the DHCP server function only work with RFC 1918 address. That made the DHCP server almost useless. I ended up manually getting DHCP to work with public address but that was a lot of work.

Because the DS213 is $299, half the cost of a Mac mini, I just went ahead and got a Mac mini. I get better performance, a useable DHCP server and an iTunes server for the 3 Apple TVs that we have. Having said all of that though, you can get a cheap, single drive Synology for $149 on Amazon if you don't need speed and it should work fairly well.

 

[aloshka]

Can a Mac mini be a target for time machine?

 

[Penn Jennings]

Can a Mac mini be a target for time machine?

I installed server on it (Mac OS X server is $20). It has a Time Machine option that allows it to be the target for any Mac on the network. I backup 3 Macs to a 2012 Mac Mini with a 3 TB external USB 3.0 drive. It has worked easily and flawlessly so far.

 

[aloshka]

Didn't know that was an option. Thanks!!

I'm running server at work for our creative department and it would be perfect to back it up to this machine as well. Big thanks!!

 

[veda kruthi]

Upto my knowledge is concerned I will suggest to go for QNAP or wifi these both will be suitable for your concept. but for these two you should have to install relevant software's for efficiant work.

 

[SpinalTap]

For TimeMachine backup I use a Negear ReadyNAS NV+.v2. Currently, you can opt for 4x3Tb drives. You choose the amount of space allocated for TimeMachine duties. The remainder is for general storage - such as storing your music, movies and photo libraries.