Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Home back up / server

I currently have I guess an 8 year old WD My cloud server / backup for the home network. It is slow and getting a bit temperamental. I currently also back up to a separate HDD every 6 months or so vital stuff.

What would you guys recommend as the latest kit to back up & store basic music, photos, videos & documents. We don't so gaming & don't run a business.

I use a Synology DS218j which will do everything you want plus act as a media server, web server, mail server, FTP server, and loads more. You can connect an HDD and schedule backups at any frequency you wish.

WD MyCloud EX2 Ultra for me. 4TB RAID, built-in support for Time Machine, iTunes, does all the usual stuff like media server and supports the installation of server side apps like WordPress. Cost me around £350. I also pay £7/month for 2 TB of iCloud space for off-site storage. TBH I don't use anything like its full capabilities, it just runs as a Time Machine backup for the laptops.

I have a Synolgy 2 x 2TB RAID as a server which acts as a local backup.

For a remote backup, I use Backblaze - US$60 per year and fully automated unlimited backup. Backblaze

I have tested file recovery from Backblaze and it works easily. I opened the account when I still owned a business and was so impressed with the value for money that I have kept it going into retirement.

My three Macs backup to the Apple Cloud, I also have a time machine that seems to work.
As Tim H commented, it is not expensive.
Other documents that I consider "important" I back up to a USB solid state drive every few months, but to be honest I start to wonder if it would really matter if I lost most of it.

John, I'm in a similar position. I have a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo which is at least 10 years old and out of support. I spent some time speccing up a replacement and if it helps I eventually selected:

Synology DS220j 2 Bay Desktop NAS Enclosure with 2 x Seagate 4 TB IronWolf 3.5 Inch Internal Hard Drive

However, I didn't buy them! I looked at the cost of cloud storage and decided to get 100GB of Google Drive storage for £16 a year. This easily covers the backup of the documents folder of my laptop, leaving the ReadyNAS as a dedicated media server. I have bought a couple of caddies with 2TB SSD drives (from old laptops) that I use to back up the NAS. I shall review it next October when the Google storage is due for renewal.

I notice you currently have a WD system. Over the years, for me, Western Digital HDDs have had the most failures.

I’ve been running a Synology 2 bay DS211 for the last 10 years and it has been brilliant. Hope I haven’t tempted fate now but I wouldn’t hesitate to buy another Synology server. Being a bit of a dinosaur I’m still struggling to embrace cloud storage.

You mention you backup your home network which is a little vague?

One or many machines
MacOS, WIndows anything else.
Amount of storage you need

Also backup can be used to recover your data (downloads, music, video directory, data) or also the core O/S to recover from a disc failure. Do you have disc failure sorted ?

Also do you have any old hard discs floating about.

Alistair,
3 PCs on windows
I use the current drive as a back up it has disc recovery in it.
I also back up every 6 months or so onto a separate HDD.
Currently there is c 1 TB of data on the WD

I have some spare 3Tbs if you need more storage. I have a case for them (WD USB3 cabinet) as well.
If you buy a 10Tb disc raw to go in a PC they want £300 for it, if you buy it in one of the external boxes it is only £200.

A cheap solution - If you have a spare machine you can fit the 3Tb into it and just use MS to share it and then the built in Windows backup software will use it (provided it is turned on)
you could fit the 3Tb into the spare box and just use it as a USB drive on them all.

I am retiring a selection of discs so am happy to pass them on for a suitably small fee if it helps. WD 3Tb RED 3.5inch.