Making backup work

Having read all the posts about backup configuration I thought I thought I would post experiences in case it helps others. Really annoying process which took many hours, but finally worked.

The scenario was changing NAS from WD My book live duo to synology. The WD had never performed well as A Mac backup device (sllllllooooooooowwww doesn't start to describe it) and eventually it just stopped (although Unitiserve backed up reliably). As it was a few years ago I have forgotten how I managed to get backup working (which was hard then) so this was a lot of trial and error.

These are the things that worked eventually:

• as in the other threads the share must be disabled to become a backup
• again as previously posted it seems to be better to use a guest account on the synology (which is not enabled  by default) and you must obviously give read/write access to the shared folder you create on the synology
• I also set permissions on the share to custom and turned on admin rights to the share. I doubt that this is necessary but with the problem below I wanted to give Unitiserve every chance to accept the backup
• what never happened was the Unitiserve ever automatically picking up the share so I had to put it in manually
• So the continuous problem was the "unable to convert share to backup" posted a lot in these forums. I must have tried at least 30 times. Do not (as also clearly stated in the other posts) put any files in the share or convert to a music store.
• after many attempts, even taking the synology back to factory defaults, deleting and adding the share multiple times I "think" this is what works
• • I started with a fresh share on the synology
  • add the share to Unitiserve if it is not picked up
  • got to the network shares menu and refresh all shares
  • go into manage all shares and click refresh (which can take a while)
  • then disable the share and add it as a backup
• it all seems a bit tortuous, but my theory is that as missing out any one step gave the error I think it is the refresh in the manage shares area that was the kicker

I hope that helps. Now the opinion piece which I hope Naim will read. All in all the Unitiserve is terrible as a server device (note I do not mean anything to to with the music part of it). Here are the points

• the UI for the web dashboard is pretty but very cumbersome. technically it was a big mistake to use flash when pleasing UI can be built without it (synology's for example). The flash UI makes simple tasks like typing into fields stupidly hard and slow. As I would expect your average Unitiserve user to have a high end tablet too, that UI will not work for them - dumb decision
• I think the basis of the OS seems very micrsofty for example only supporting SMB as a file sharing protocol. This is a mistake. All the decent NAS drives use some form of Linux which provide so much more flexibility. Again because I would expect that the customer base will have a high proportion of Macs it would be much more sensible to have easy support for other protocols
• There are other downsides of Microsofts SMB file share protocol in such a home environment, like it is in advisable to use share names on your NAS with spaces if you want to use them say as a backup. Windowsy type systems require double quotes around UNC (\\servername\share) declarations but the stupid Unitiserve UI translates them into " which is a rookie developer mistake
• Basically in black boxing the Unitiserve to try and make things simple it has actually become harder because it does not behave to normally accepted tech rules and it does not make things that easy if shares are not picked up automatically. Naim you may be good at hifi but you aint at servers so learn from the pros in the NAS space and you will do better
• not being able to upgrade the software on it without a tech degree and some scary processes (I wouldn't dare do it) is a complete fail. All systems will have bugs be like normal software an enable updates over the internet. The bug on this one was a really poor indexing issue showing duplicate albums, tracks etc. Not acceptable you can't get an upgrade without a trip to the dealer.
• last thing if your hard disk starts failing it takes weeks to get it fixed. Not being able to do preventative maintenance on the system with normal disk checking utilities (within a simple easy UI) is rubbish.
• I don't actually see the point of the Unitiserve for the money (If you use is as a server). I am not a digital hifi expert or even a computer expert but it strikes me that if you rip a CD at full quality the sound will be the same no matter where it was ripped and when it is served to the Uniti amp using upnp that is all digital so it can add no value there. Is that right ? Admittedly the meta data storage and editing/presentation is great if you are fussy about those things but is that worth the extra £1700 ?

All in all a truly annoying bit of kit, glad it's not mine (I only help an owner out).