Synology + iCloud + One Drive

[PhoenixDown]

Hi Folks

Looking to get a Synology (not sure which) NAS for backing up my stuff and that from family.

Any experience with users backing up data to Synology over the internet?

How about from cloud storage? I use iCloud and One Drive and am wondering if Synology can download and backup directly from that rather than using a Mac or PC as a proxy.

Thoughts ?

 

[dimme]

Hi Folks

Looking to get a Synology (not sure which) NAS for backing up my stuff and that from family.

Any experience with users backing up data to Synology over the internet?

How about from cloud storage? I use iCloud and One Drive and am wondering if Synology can download and backup directly from that rather than using a Mac or PC as a proxy.

Thoughts ?

Did you ever get your question answered, I curious too.

 

[Apple_Robert]

It is not possible to backup iCloud to Synology. If you have a Mac or PC, you can backup iCloud photos to Synology.

Backing up iCloud Photos to a Synology NAS – Adrian Thomas

 

[convergent]

I just got a Synology DS1522+ and it works brilliantly with OneDrive. It also has its own Synology Drive that works very similar. The options are seemingly endless. I haven't seen any direct support for iCloud, which I'm guessing is an Apple issue since they seem to connect to nearly everything, and in some cases with multiple different ways of doing it. The articles you see about moving iCloud photos to Synology I think are mostly about exporting and importing to move them there, not a sync type thing I don't think. I don't use iCloud for photos. I've been using Google Photos, but looking to migrate to Synology Photos. I'm still figuring out if I like it all enough to try and get my wife to use it. Currently I'm moving old Apple Photos libraries from an old Mac to Synology Photos and that is going pretty well.

 

[dimme]

I just got a Synology DS1522+ and it works brilliantly with OneDrive. It also has its own Synology Drive that works very similar. The options are seemingly endless. I haven't seen any direct support for iCloud, which I'm guessing is an Apple issue since they seem to connect to nearly everything, and in some cases with multiple different ways of doing it. The articles you see about moving iCloud photos to Synology I think are mostly about exporting and importing to move them there, not a sync type thing I don't think. I don't use iCloud for photos. I've been using Google Photos, but looking to migrate to Synology Photos. I'm still figuring out if I like it all enough to try and get my wife to use it. Currently I'm moving old Apple Photos libraries from an old Mac to Synology Photos and that is going pretty well.

I have been going back and forth if I need/want a NAS. Thanks great you can backup to one drive. That is something I really would use. Do you think it would be possible to back up to two one drive account. Both my wife and I use one drive and if we could both back up to different one drive accounts that would be 2 TB of free backup.

 

[shardphoenix]

I have been going back and forth if I need/want a NAS. Thanks great you can backup to one drive. That is something I really would use. Do you think it would be possible to back up to two one drive account. Both my wife and I use one drive and if we could both back up to different one drive accounts that would be 2 TB of free backup.

Not sure if this is still useful for you.
My current setup on possibilities.
I perform one way sync actions from the cloud service or my MacBook to the home folder of my Synology nas AND (IMPORTANT) I make a daily back-up of the home folder to a disk or in my case another nas of a friend who lives in a different city.

1. I have Google Drive one way sync TO Synology home\Google Drive folder using Synology Cloud Back-up. I transform native Google Office suit files to conventional Microsoft Office files (setting you can choose during the sync setup on the Synology). This is only for Office like files. Reason is that Google Drive Office suit files only exist in the Google cloud. If you sync them, you are just synching hyperlinks. So I convert them on the fly so I at least have a physical and complete file on my nas. Also this is a live sync so delete a file on Google Drive, it get's deleted from the nas. I think you can change this but I like my nas folders clean and not cluttered with old junk. For this reason it is important to back-up the folder e.g. daily to always be able to retrieve a file or folder from the previous day/week/month back-up.
2. OneDrive sync works the same for me, but no file conversions is needed because OneDrive has complete files in the cloud which can be synced to the nas.
3. For iCloud I have to use my mac. I installed the Cloud Station Back-up tool which constantly syncs my
   \hd\users\[myname]\Library\Mobile Documents\com~Apple~CloudDocs\ <--- this is your iCloud root folder. Yes I know WTF is it hidden so deeply in a strange folder and not just directly under the users\[myname] folder...I don't know (depressing voice)...because someone at Apple is just being an ass I guess haha.

Again because these are all SYNC actions from the source to my nas all source actions are directly applied on the nas. So If I remove a doc from my iCloud it is no longer on my nas a few seconds later. This is because I want to keep things clean but that is personal preference. Also I back-up the synced folders, so I can always go back to the day/week/month before. You can set it up so it won't remove the files from your nas, but this works for me.

Sync actions 1 and 2 are directly from the cloud to my nas. I do not back-up the Google Drive and OneDrive folder from my mac which syncs to cloud using the Google Drive or OneDrive app. I tend to get conflicts with this.
So to summarize:

NAS <-- Google Drive cloud <--> Chrome browser on Mac (I don't use the Google Drive client - I hardly use Google)
NAS <-- OneDrive cloud <--> OneDrive client on Mac
Mac local iCloud folder --> NAS
Mac/iPhone/iPad <--> iCloud
OneDrive client installed on Mac --> OneDrive cloud

 

[AlekseyS]

I hope you already found the best setup for you, but a few notes how I see it can be used (some of options):
Note: you can not sync iCloud with NAS directly (but you can sync Google Drive, OneDrive and some more). It is a limitation by Apple for "security" as well...

1) You can backup TimeMachine to Synology
2) You can sync or / and backup some selective folders from your computer (PC, Mac) to Synology. Even between 3+ computers to have all in sync. It can be iCloud folders as well. But please select what you need smart, since some folders could be updated too often, choose if you need versioning. First of all it is important to choose what you want to Backup and what to sync. Save removed files or not. Keep edit history for some files or not.
3) for Most important things (if size is not huge) you can combine sync + Backup.
- sync from local Mac (iCloud folder could be as well) to Synology
- create regular snapshots for this folder inside NAS.
In this case you do 2 thing: have local actual copy at NAS + keep history for necessary length of time. The problem here: if you edit your iCloud file from another device, it would not be in sync with Synology till you turn on the computer where you sync from...
4) You always can remove automatically versions elder than X days (useful not to grow backups too much).
Good luck, device is good, I use them for 5+ years every day with several Macs as well. For better performance if you have sync tasks regularly - better to select model with SSD cache (even if you don't plan to install it now - maybe you would decide to add it later).