Backing up the NAS drive
Posted by: Robert Daoust on 10 February 2016
Hi, I've been told by friends who have NAS drives that they will wear out eventually. Can a NAS be backed up on a normal external HD? Or will I need to buy the same one again with a mirror?
Posted on: 17 February 2016 by Mike-B
I was thinking along the same make/model HH - thanks. Mine will not be connected all the time, I will be storing it remotely but will run backup on a regular basis, probably triggered by new music purchases. I have been reading (refreshing) on the Synology backup info I it seems the set up will be the same as I have now only that I will need to tell it to do it NOW when it is plugged in.
Posted on: 17 February 2016 by Mr Underhill
I have a script that runs nightly and copies any new files to an external USB HDD. The script is included in a post I did a few years ago, assuming it is still on the site.
When the external HDD is full I take them to a friend down the road, so that my backup is offsite.
I have only had to use the disks once, when I moved from DROBO to Synology.
M
Posted on: 17 February 2016 by Huge
I use the same approach as HH.
Works a treat and the Synology even sends the power-down command to the external disk when it's not in use.
For offsite backups of the most critical data I use large USB sticks that I keep in my car.
Posted on: 18 February 2016 by AudioSavant
I have used both Seagate & WD, and I personally prefer WD, but when speaking with executives at Seagate & WD a few years back prepping for an article
I was assigned to write for a trade magazine, the common theme I heard was, “back up, back!”. It seems they know drives can die at any time.
USB is quick, easy to move around, swap in and out, use on various devices, and it is doubtful in normal use the read/write limits with ever be met.
The key to all drives is speed, stability, and speed during load with encryption. Think of amplifier watt ratings, amplifier watt ratings at 1K, ratings at full load w distortion,
and amplifier ratings, at full load, at full frequency, with BOTH channels driven. Most data at best is flawed, and usually skewed for marketing purposes. It is very hard to find
USB drive/key data, but it is out there, and the key is making sure you look at data that is relative to your use goals. As an example a drive might be blazing fast
transferring 1MB files, 100 at a time, but when the file size is 5MB and all files use 256Bit encryption, the unit could be crawling. Synology actually rates their NAS
units this way,
Posted on: 18 February 2016 by AudioSavant
Good Idea, that in hindsight, everyone should do from day one, but unfortunately it is when a user runs into a problem, and he or she has a thousand plus albums ripped
do they realize the depth of the issue. If you find the script again, it would be great to post, but presumably, only valid for the OS running, i.e., Synology, Drobo, Netgear etc.
They most likely are on Linux backs, with their own proprietary script in front. Anyway, can’t stress enough how important a straight backup is! NOT RAID in proprietary units.
Posted on: 18 February 2016 by Mike-B
How lucky can you get, working on video editing, my old back up NAS has started to get really loud & its now telling me its faulty. But yesterday (in response to this thread - thanks HH) I ordered a new WD My Passport Ultra 2TB USB-3. I bought it from John Lewis at £69 compared to PC & Curry's at £80 & Amz at £85.
............ the icing on the cake, it will be delivered tomorrow ...
Further to Huge's suggestion, I've got all my old CD's stored upstairs so that's the 2nd reserve backup. Now I'm in the process of copying all my purchased downloads to USB sticks, that'll free up that space on my PC & will be the 2nd reserve.
Posted on: 21 February 2016 by pixies
I use the same approach as HH.
Works a treat and the Synology even sends the power-down command to the external disk when it's not in use.
For offsite backups of the most critical data I use large USB sticks that I keep in my car.
Hi Huge. I am using same as you and HH. Is the power-down command something that needs to be configured? I have just set up a back up of my synology NAS to an external WD hard drive and assume it will stay powered unless I disconnect it.
Posted on: 21 February 2016 by Huge
I use the same approach as HH.
Works a treat and the Synology even sends the power-down command to the external disk when it's not in use.
For offsite backups of the most critical data I use large USB sticks that I keep in my car.
Hi Huge. I am using same as you and HH. Is the power-down command something that needs to be configured? I have just set up a back up of my synology NAS to an external WD hard drive and assume it will stay powered unless I disconnect it.
Hi Pixies,
The power-down command powers down the disk drive rather than the USB housing!
Posted on: 21 February 2016 by pixies
I use the same approach as HH.
Works a treat and the Synology even sends the power-down command to the external disk when it's not in use.
For offsite backups of the most critical data I use large USB sticks that I keep in my car.
Hi Huge. I am using same as you and HH. Is the power-down command something that needs to be configured? I have just set up a back up of my synology NAS to an external WD hard drive and assume it will stay powered unless I disconnect it.
Hi Pixies,
The power-down command powers down the disk drive rather than the USB housing!
Thanks Huge, but bear with me as your answer has only confused me slightly (not difficult in these matters!). By disk drive are you referring to the synolgy disc and by USB housing are you referring to the external hard drive attached to the synolgy? I was wondering how to power down the external hard drive but maybe that's not possible and this needs to be removed and kept safe after each back up session? My NAS is always left powered on.
Posted on: 22 February 2016 by Huge
Hi Pixies,
The Synology can optionally power down it's own disks, and they stop spinning and go into standby mode.
It can also quite separately send a "go to standby mode" to the disk in the external USB housing. That disk will then also stop spinning and go into standby mode. The USB interface remains powered at all times.
Does that make it clearer?
Posted on: 22 February 2016 by pixies
Thanks Huge. I will see if I can find some guide/instructions on how to do this.
Posted on: 22 February 2016 by hungryhalibut
If you work it out, please could you let me know? I've never been able to work it out.
Posted on: 22 February 2016 by Huge
\\Diskstation/webman/index.cgi
Launch Control Panel
Hardware & Power
HDD Hibernation tab
lower panel is for the external disk.
Posted on: 22 February 2016 by pixies
Thanks again Huge, much appreciated!
Posted on: 22 February 2016 by Mike-B
The external disc hibernation feature is all well & good, but I thought the idea of a backup was also to store it remotely away from the NAS. We were talking about the WD My Passport & its got a USB lead thats 40cm long, so in hibernation mode it will be parked very close to the NAS. OK if the NAS failure is a HDD crash, the backup serves its purpose; but if a fire or a robbery it will be lost. Or am I missing something ???
My brand new WD Passport (nice little thing, loads fast & easy to set up --- thanks again for the tip) has loaded the backup & is stored in another part of the house. It will get incremental backups as & when I choose.
Posted on: 22 February 2016 by King Size
I have just been through this process, with lots of help from MM and Huge and everything works perfectly. I keep the WD My Passport drive at work, bring it home on a Friday evening and connect it to the NAS, which is programmed to do a back up on Sunday morning at 3am. The NAS is also programmed to unmount the My Passport on completion of the back up after which I just unplug it and bring it back into work on Monday morning.
Posted on: 22 February 2016 by pixies
I agree with you Mike-B, however I have several external hard drives that backup my music in different locations. I just thought it a good idea to explore the option of having one attached to the NAS and which automatically backs up any changes made to the NAS drive.
Posted on: 23 February 2016 by Huge
And I use USB memory sticks for critical offsite backup in addition to my local backup of the NAS.
The reason I used a USB drive for the local backup was just because I already had one available.
Posted on: 23 February 2016 by rjstaines
My garage is my 'off-site' backup location. I invested in a second (Netgear) NAS and put it in the garage, where it didn't do very much until I dug up the path and extended my network into the garage. Of course I could have got a wireless repeater and gone wirelessly into the garage, but at what diminished speed I asked myself ?
Luckily the path wasn't concrete, so digging it up wasn't so much of a pain as it could have been, but the advantage of having a wired gigabit network point outside in the garage is well worth the pain of installing it.
The NAS in the garage, called strangely 'BACKUP-NAS', is a 4 drive version and copies both my music NAS (a 3 tb ReadyNAS Duo) and also my computer backup NAS (an HP Home Server) each (early) morning.
So if the house burns down, I know I'm OK.
But if the garage burns down, I'll have lost all my backups ...I'd better think about that one !
Roger
PS - please note, if you haven't got electrical power in your garage you may not have much success with this approach.
Posted on: 23 February 2016 by Mike-B
Spurred on by my new WD USB for NAS (music) back up, I had a peek into my PC backup ........... oh my 
what a mess !! I have this set to backup via a wireless link every night, but unbeknown to me while it gets all the new stuff, it does not do anything with moved, renamed or deleted files, it just keeps piling them in, one on top of another, it looks like a trash heap.
Also, I always bring music downloads & rips into the PC first, check/edit the metadata, then upload to NAS. So its got all this as well as I keep the downloaded/ripped files for a few days or even weeks until I'm satisfied the tags are OK before deleting them, So I've got all my downloads in this HDD & in some cases more than one copy in various guises names, .wav, .flac, alac & zips.
Whatever, the garbage heap - I'll rephrase that - the landfill that is my family PC backup HDD is having a spring clean, I've deleted all my stuff, including the downloaded music & am now defragging ......... & its a long slow process !!!
Then I will have my NAS (music) backed up in the WD & my reserve back ups as either original CD's or downloaded purchases/blags on USB memory sticks. My newly cleaned up PC will then get backed up into an empty Mike-PC HDD space & instead of backing up every night, I'll do it manually when I decide & when my PC is clean and/or when I've got something important.
Tidy ........... 
Posted on: 04 March 2016 by Mike-B
My brand new WD Passport (nice little thing, loads fast & easy to set up --- thanks again for the tip) has loaded the backup & is stored in another part of the house. It will get incremental backups as & when I choose.
Just to close this off - once the Synology backup profile has been paired with the WD Passport, its all ready to run incremental backups. Its just so easy, plug it in to the NAS, open the Synology webpage, open the backup widget, touch back up - when its finished press eject .......... Done. This really is so easy.
