Hi Will and group! @Will, long time observer of the videos, and really appreciate the work and the knowledge sharing.
I have recently been prompted to consider an update to my NAS and backup NAS setup, as my backup NAS drives are getting close to capacity. My primary has been a Synology DS212J since 2012, and then my backup NAS, a QNAP TS-231 since 2015. I’ve been running just a mirrored / SHR volume in the DS212J with the 2 3TB drives. I then started to backup to the QNAP, running each disk as separate volumes. Initially just a Hyperbackup rsync copy nightly, and then added a multi-version backup as well, running them both to each \ disk in the QNAP separately. I originally purchased the TS-231 so I could pop out one of the drives, and keep off site and rotate them periodically. Mostly worried about family photos / videos, but as a family NAS, we have the typical tax documents, medical documents, etc. I have also been considering cloud backup for an easier off-site backup. I was considering Backblaze, but I think for my amount of storage, it seems like Synology C2 might just be the easiest thing and cost about the same for under 2TB current storage, though the backups are approaching 2.5TB, and causing the need to look into larger drives.
As I’ve been looking for a better a solution to deal with the risk of total corruption or something like ransomware, I’ve become educated a bit on Synology Snapshots, in large part due to the great SpaceRex videos (thank you again!). So this has all caused a few realizations:
- I need 2 new Synology NAS’s that will support snapshots and their replication to a backup NAS;
- My current drives are ext4 so I need to somehow migrate the data to BTRFS formatted drives
- Be careful on the NAS’s to select from due to the 2025 push by Synology to force the use of their Synology hard drives. When I started researching larger drives for my QNAP backup NAS, I became sold on the Ironwolf Pro drives, with their 5 year warranty and 3 year data recovery coverage. So hoping to leverage those still.
- My backup NAS will need larger drive capacity to support the multi version hyper backups and also the snapshot replications.
- Intrigued by the use of Synology Photos and apps to centralize family photos for multiple family members, providing them access (possibly with quick connect for access from anywhere) and backup their various iPhone photos directly (maybe I can stop the manual iCloud downloads to put them on the NAS, clearing them off the phones); as well as backing up kids PC’s in the future when away at college (thank you “Synology for Families - Complete Guide” video)
So a few questions I need help with for this upgrade:
- Should I stick with the 2 bay NAS’s? Or look for something larger? Was thinking 12TB drives, which are 4x current capacity. Or better to consider a 4-bay / 5-bay for the primary NAS? Any Synology model suggestions?
- Considering multi-version hyper backups and snapshot replications. If I do 12 TB drives in primary, do I stick with that size in the backup, knowing it won’t be at full capacity right away, or something larger, as I may run into the same problem I am now where my backup drives are using more space then my primary?
- Does it make sense to continue multi-version backups alongside snapshot replications?
- Once I have new primary NAS, and format them to BTRFS, I can just restore from current backups to load my data onto them, right?