TM Drive for MacBook...NAS or Portable?

[davidg4781]

I was looking for a portable external drive to use as a Time Machine backup for my MacBook, but thought it might be less expensive and easier to just get a NAS drive instead.

I normally use my MacBook at home and only take it out when I go visit family every couple of months or so. The only problem I can see using a NAS is it's at home, so if the place burns down or something, there goes my backup. Although, my old TM drive was sitting at home on the counter or end table anyway.

And just to make sure, TM can backup to a NAS drive? It would be connected to a Linksys router via ethernet.

 

[blevins321]

It's not less expensive to get a NAS. They cost a noticeable amount more compared to a local external. I've had great luck with Synology if you go this route. I have a 4-bay (4 internal drives) enclosure that I use as my entire repository, and I've never had problems with it. It does Time Machine quite well, and can have user quota for it so that TM doesn't take up the entire volume. Here is a link to a review I wrote for the 4-bay. It uses the same internal firmware (and thus the same capabilities minus 1-drive redundancy) as the 1-bay option that they offer, which is linked Here.