Reliable, Compliant NAS Storage For MacOS

[Gmouse]

Currently using a Seagate NAS that I bought 5 years ago for Time Machine and general backups (has 6 TB in RAID-5), but, have always had issues with Time Machine working right with it, and recently read that they don't use the right SMB (2 instead of 3 or vice-versa) that latest MacOS needs, and it's pretty-much dead-ended and not gonna be upgraded. Just bought a new 13" MacBook Pro and 2020 iMac, so looking for a NAS that's 110% compliant with MacOS both wired & wireless. About the same size works, don't need SSD or 10 Gb, and want to keep price down to $750 or less (if possible).

What are others using?

Thanks!

 

[wardie]

I’m using a 2018 MacMini as a TM server for multiple macs on LAN with some big USB disks hanging off it... Do you have an older Mac left spare? You could repurpose this as a NAS drive just by plugging a USB drive to it for the backups and enabling file sharing for it in preference. Then its just the cost of the hard drive, plus opportunity cost of whatever else you were doing with the old Mac.

 

[fivenotrump]

We are very happy with Synology NAS hosting Time Machine backups of several Macs over wifi and gigabit Ethernet

 

[Boyd01]

Also using a Mini as a file and time machine server. But you certainly don't need a 2018 model for this, mine is a 2012 quad core that I re-purposed after upgrading to a new 2018 Mini. I run it "headless" with a dummy HDMI plug (cost less than $10 on Amazon), so that frees up all 4 USB ports for disks. I have four 5tb hard drives attached, one for time machine, another for shared archival storage and the other two are clones that are automatically mounted/dismounted late every night with Carbon Copy Cloner. I get about 100MB/sec over gigabit ethernet.

If you want to use it for Time Machine, you also have to set it as a destination in the Sharing preferences. I couldn't figure out how to do this without googling.

How to set your Mac as a shared backup destination for Time Machine

Apple makes it easy if you know the right box to check.

www.macworld.com

 

[henrymyf]

Does anyone use Drobo?

 

[wardie]

Does anyone use Drobo?

I used to have one - an old USB one, like 2nd generation. Ended up throwing it away. My expierence = dreadfully slow and lots of bespoke weirdness / lack of configurable its versus JBOD / software RAID or standard NAS system RAIDs.

 

[BeatCrazy]

Also using a Mini as a file and time machine server. But you certainly don't need a 2018 model for this, mine is a 2012 quad core that I re-purposed after upgrading to a new 2018 Mini. I run it "headless" with a dummy HDMI plug (cost less than $10 on Amazon), so that frees up all 4 USB ports for disks. I have four 5tb hard drives attached, one for time machine, another for shared archival storage and the other two are clones that are automatically mounted/dismounted late every night with Carbon Copy Cloner. I get about 100MB/sec over gigabit ethernet.

If you want to use it for Time Machine, you also have to set it as a destination in the Sharing preferences. I couldn't figure out how to do this without googling.

How to set your Mac as a shared backup destination for Time Machine

Apple makes it easy if you know the right box to check.

www.macworld.com

Curious - what’s the purpose of the mount/dismount action as part of your backup strategy?

 

[Boyd01]

No reason to keep drives mounted that aren't in use. And if you are subject to a ransomware attack, any mounted disks are at risk. The two drives that are unmounted are only clones of the two active disks on the server. They only need to be mounted during the cloning process that occurs once every night.

 

[lowendlinux]

I use an old Mac Pro with a bunch of drives in RAID 10

 

[rjtiedeman]

My office has been using a DROBO 5N since 2013. Has been working great until last week the boss installed a new eero router. It still works but the DROBO control software Drobo Dashboard will not see see or control our Drobo. Don't buy with out buying Drobo care. DROBO TECH WILL NOT HELP YOU....... Tech support stinks for this product. I have it working by connecting directly thru finder but I can no longer service the DROBO until dash board works again. We are buying a new Drobo 5N2 just to get tech support. The wifi in the office is great but the router wiped out the drobo and the epson plotter.

 

[jerryk]

We have a Synology NAS (DS918+). Works well with the Macs (file sharing and Time Machine), Windows, and Linux machines we have.

 

[BeatCrazy]

Also using a Mini as a file and time machine server. But you certainly don't need a 2018 model for this, mine is a 2012 quad core that I re-purposed after upgrading to a new 2018 Mini. I run it "headless" with a dummy HDMI plug (cost less than $10 on Amazon), so that frees up all 4 USB ports for disks. I have four 5tb hard drives attached, one for time machine, another for shared archival storage and the other two are clones that are automatically mounted/dismounted late every night with Carbon Copy Cloner. I get about 100MB/sec over gigabit ethernet.

If you want to use it for Time Machine, you also have to set it as a destination in the Sharing preferences. I couldn't figure out how to do this without googling.

How to set your Mac as a shared backup destination for Time Machine

Apple makes it easy if you know the right box to check.

www.macworld.com

So I'm taking up your advice, but running into one issue with using my Mac mini (Late 2014 running 10.15.6), I can't see/access all of the files from a secondary machine.

Things I can access:
Remote desktop into the machine via the Screen Sharing app
Files on the internal drive in the Movies/Music/Pictures folders

Things I cannot access:
Files on the Desktop
Files on attached HDDs

Please see attached picture, seems like my Sharing preferences are set up correctly?

 

[Boyd01]

Not really sure what is wrong. Interesting that you can use screen sharing, since it is not enabled. This is how mine is setup. I am explicitly sharing disks and not the computer itself, so maybe that is the difference?

 

[BeatCrazy]

Not really sure what is wrong. Interesting that you can use screen sharing, since it is not enabled. This is how mine is setup. I am explicitly sharing disks and not the computer itself, so maybe that is the difference?

Possibly the Screen Sharing functionality is separate from the Screen Sharing macOS app? I realize that sounds counterintuitive. Regardless, that shouldn’t make any difference, I imagine.

 

[chabig]

Things I cannot access:
Files on the Desktop
Files on attached HDDs

Look for Desktop files in MacMini2014 > Desktop. Note: I’m assuming the username of your Mac Mini account is “MacMini2014”. If it’s not, then you should add your Home folder to the Shared Folder list as well.

Files on attached HDs aren’t visible because you haven’t shared them. If you want them you need to add those HDs to Shared Folders.

Screen sharing works because you’ve enabled remote management. That’s normal.

 

[BeatCrazy]

Look for Desktop files in MacMini2014 > Desktop. Note: I’m assuming the username of your Mac Mini account is “MacMini2014”. If it’s not, then you should add your Home folder to the Shared Folder list as well.

Files on attached HDs aren’t visible because you haven’t shared them. If you want them you need to add those HDs to Shared Folders.

Screen sharing works because you’ve enabled remote management. That’s normal.

Good idea about adding the HDDs (and the desktop folder). I'm able to add them both, and see them from the remote machine. But when I try to access them, I get the error:

"The operation can't be completed because the original item for "my HDD" can't be found"

And I can see the Desktop folder when I access the username path, I can click on it, but it looks like it's empty (it's not). Other folders/files in the same user path I can access just fine i.e. Movies/Music/Pictures folders. Just not Desktop.

I even try to right click on Users and Apply Permissions:

 

[chabig]

Does anyone use Drobo?

I use a Drobo 5D Thunderbolt DAS and it has been great. I’m expecting to retire it since I have no confidence that Drobo will ever update their software for Big Sur compatibility.

 

[chabig]

The operation can't be completed because the original item for "my HDD" can't be found"

Try logging out and back in. If not, a reboot might fix it.

 

[Boyd01]

Looking again, I can't access my desktop folder on the server either. Not an issue, since I have no need to access that or anything else in my user directory there. It's a server, all I need to do is access the external drives.

That being said, I think something must be different under Catalina. My media server (also a 2014 Mini) is running Mojave and I can access everything there. I don't recall doing anything different when I set that up.

 

[chabig]

Looking again, I can't access my desktop folder on the server either.

From your picture, we can’t see if you’ve shared your home folder. If you haven’t shared your Home folder, or explicitly added your Desktop to the Shared Folders list, then of course you won’t see it from a remote machine.

 

[BeatCrazy]

Try logging out and back in. If not, a reboot might fix it.

Tried both of those suggestions, no change.

Looking again, I can't access my desktop folder on the server either. Not an issue, since I have no need to access that or anything else in my user directory there. It's a server, all I need to do is access the external drives.

That being said, I think something must be different under Catalina. My media server (also a 2014 Mini) is running Mojave and I can access everything there. I don't recall doing anything different when I set that up.

Weird huh.

From your picture, we can’t see if you’ve shared your home folder. If you haven’t shared your Home folder, or explicitly added your Desktop to the Shared Folders list, then of course you won’t see it from a remote machine.

Yes, I've shared my Home folder, and even separately added Desktop as a Shared Folder. When I try to access my Desktop as a Shared Folder, I also get " The operation can't be completed because the original item for "Desktop" can't be found"

 

[Boyd01]

So, I tried explicitly sharing my home directory on the server and then I was able to access everything in it, including the desktop folder. But when I ejected it then I could not connect again. I had an icon for the home directory but it would not open. Rebooted the client machine and then it worked again. Ejected the folder(s) once again and now I can reliably access them.

Yeah, it is weird. There have always been some oddities with shared disks under MacOS however. Under Sierra, I saw examples where I could not connect to my media server too. A reboot of the client always seemed to fix it.

 

[Boyd01]

I also get " The operation can't be completed because the original item for "Desktop" can't be found"

Once I had an odd problem when I first setup this server with Catalina. Somehow, there were two icons for one of the external disks showing on the server's desktop. One of them was completely bogus and could not be opened or ejected. A reboot cured that. I wondered if it had something to do with Carbon Copy, since that disk was just a backup of another that is mounted/ejected nightly. I contacted CCC support and they had never seen that issue. Just shrugged it off, since it hasn't happened again.

 

[BeatCrazy]

So, I tried explicitly sharing my home directory on the server and then I was able to access everything in it, including the desktop folder. But when I ejected it then I could not connect again. I had an icon for the home directory but it would not open. Rebooted the client machine and then it worked again. Ejected the folder(s) once again and now I can reliably access them.

Yeah, it is weird. There have always been some oddities with shared disks under MacOS however. Under Sierra, I saw examples where I could not connect to my media server too. A reboot of the client always seemed to fix it.

Once I had an odd problem when I first setup this server with Catalina. Somehow, there were two icons for one of the external disks showing on the server's desktop. One of them was completely bogus and could not be opened or ejected. A reboot cured that. I wondered if it had something to do with Carbon Copy, since that disk was just a backup of another that is mounted/ejected nightly. I contacted CCC support and they had never seen that issue. Just shrugged it off, since it hasn't happened again.

Whoo-hooo I got it working!

Solution: on the destination machine (Mac mini), turn OFF file sharing, reboot. Reboot remote machine, too. Re-enable File Sharing on destination machine.
Now, everything works as expected.

 

[Boyd01]

Cool, glad you got it working! FWIW, this would be a little easier to understand if you used the terms "server" and "client". In your example, I think you are calling the server the "destination" and the client the "remote"?