Synology NAS question

[benoitgphoto]

Hi...I'm looking for some gurus on NAS drives for Mac. Here is my question :

I 'm actually at my second NAS drive on which I got some issues so I'm looking for another solution. Here is the story :

I bought a WD My Book World (white light) edition and tried to use it with Time Machine backup. I got reliability issues : Very often, the backups were not performing and TM stating that it was not able to perform the backup (I don't exactly remember the error message). Being unable to find a fix, I got a refund.

Then, I bought a Seagate GoFlex Home edition. Was working great for 1 month, backing up 1 Mac wired to the router and 1 Mac over wi-fi. But a few days ago, the drive was not able to perform any backup on the computer that was wired. After a few trials to fix the issue, I decided to bring it back under satisfaction garantee.

So, I'm looking for a new NAS and for those who know Synology (DS110j), how is the Time Machine backups on that, Is the system stable and reliable ? Is the set-up simple ? Is it a good choice or is it about the same poor performance of the WD or the Seagate ones ? Would you recommend another NAS ?

Thanks for your help.

 

[balamw]

Would you recommend another NAS ?

A shame that the WD/Seagate devices didn't work for you.

I don't have any direct experience with the Synology units, but I have been running an HP MediaSmart EX490 server as my primary Time Machine drive for about a year and it has been solid. It requires a small piece of software running on the Mac to mount the Time Machine backup volume.

At this point, however, I would not recommend any Windows Home Server units. HP has exited this marked and Microsoft has basically turned WHS into a plain old server and eliminated many of the features that made WHS different (Single Instance File Storage, Drive Extender, ...).

B

 

[mpovolo]

I have the Synology 211j and it's great. The only thing I am trying to figure out now is how to restrict the space time machine uses. I know it's possible just want the simplest way to do it. Other than that, I highly recommend it.

 

[benoitgphoto]

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Would you recommend another NAS ?

A shame that the WD/Seagate devices didn't work for you.

I don't have any direct experience with the Synology units, but I have been running an HP MediaSmart EX490 server as my primary Time Machine drive for about a year and it has been solid. It requires a small piece of software running on the Mac to mount the Time Machine backup volume.

At this point, however, I would not recommend any Windows Home Server units. HP has exited this marked and Microsoft has basically turned WHS into a plain old server and eliminated many of the features that made WHS different (Single Instance File Storage, Drive Extender, ...).

B

Thanks very much for the info. As for the WD/Seagate, unfortunately their forums are plagued with those connectivity issues. That's why fir the next one, I'd like to do my homework first.

Thanks again

 

[dimme]

If the sole use is for time machine backups, you may want to look into time capsule or a usb drive attached to a Airportbase station.

 

[benoitgphoto]

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If the sole use is for time machine backups, you may want to look into time capsule or a usb drive attached to a Airportbase station.

Thanks for the info but it won't be for backups only even though TM backups will be the main use.