Home User - Want to create a actual backup of my Home Computer of Data - Picturers - Videos and Mobile Devices De

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As a newcomer to Home Clouds, I recently purchased the DS224+ to ensure that, in the event of a catastrophe such as a flood or fire, my wife or I could quickly grab the unit if we have time. Alongside this, I plan to perform monthly backups onto a portable 10TB external hard drive, which will be stored at my daughter’s house.

My main objective is to back up the actual directories and files, including all images and videos—in a way that allows my family to have easy access and use them. Ideally, these backups should be compatible with both Apple and Microsoft computers so that family members can simply connect the backup drive to their own devices and immediately access the content.

There are several backup options available, such as Hyper Backup, Active Backup, Hyper Backup for Business, and Active Backup for Business… I find the various options somewhat confusing, but I see the immense value for households in having a simple, reliable backup for important family files, pictures, and videos.

In the future, I plan to access my files on the cloud while traveling, once I have everything properly set up and am comfortable with the Home Cloud technology.

While watching instructional videos has been helpful, I am still uncertain about the best approach.

Additionally, I want to utilize Synology Photos for managing family pictures, but I am unsure how this will work for my children.

  • Will my children need a Synology device on their computers to access features like timelines, facial recognition, and date organization for family photos?
  • Or should they use their own photo management software to create new libraries with backed-up photos?
  • Where does the Synology Photo App actually store its photo library—on the computer, on the NAS, or both?

I am eager to set up and begin using this Home Cloud system and hope to find guidance on the best way to move forward.

Thanks!

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If you’re only backing up to your local NAS, Active Backup for Business (ABB) on the NAS and Active Backup for Business Agent (ABB-A) on each computer you want backed up. If you intend to also backup the NAS itself off-site as a fail-safe, add Hyper Backup.

See this KB for more info on ABB: ABB FAQ. ABB can handle all of the tasks you want and the ABB Agent can work on many types of devices including PC/Mac/Server/File Server/Virtual Server. For more info on ABB-A see: ABB-A on a Mac. ABB and ABB-A are super simple to install on the NAS and PC’s. And for more info on Hyper Backup see: Hyper Backup

If you want to setup a local on-site backup for your NAS, or just a separate sort of backup for the end points (computers), you can plug a USB drive into the NAS and use Hyper Backup for that. It also covers backing up all of the NAS off-site.

Both packages are very easy to setup and use with the one exception being their Retention policies. These can get away from and start eating gobs of space, so planning out what you want to keep and for how long is very important. Also, the inferred number of backup that will be kept as read from an English speakers POV can be oddly different than what the programmers show on their UI. It’s best to start slowly, like leave the Keep all option blank. put a ‘1’ in for the daily and weekly’, then let it run 2-3 weeks and see if the number of backups available for restoring matches what you think they should, say ‘3’. You’ll probably find you have something more like ‘6’ as each value keeps the most-recent plus the value you set -ish.

If you decide to also backup to say, Backblaze B2, you’ll find it’s cheapest to do it maybe 1x/ day or less and set your Rotation to Enable backup rotation, (*) From the earliest version, and Max number of kept versions [ 1 ]. Assuming you backup all of the NAS data to BB2, it will keep one complete backup holding all of the NAS data and all of your backups of the devices in accordance with your versioning instructions which can be restored en masse online (probably slow) or via a drive sent to you for that purpose (pretty quick and not overly expensive for that need.

In case your house burns down, floods, gets burgled, or whatever and you lose your NAS and your local USB backup, you can use the BB2 backup to restore the NAS and get everything back to where it was before the disaster.

Others have different opinions, of course, and may recommend other solutions. However, most often all of those stars and such come from users who at most have had to restore a file or folder and not had a real disaster. Having used a ton of the things on the market for decades and been through multiple real disasters on the order of the type(s) to which you allude, this combination of apps+hardware+an off-site last resort at the lowest possible price, actually work — simply, efficiently, cost-effectively, and very well.

As to your questions:

  • Will my children need a Synology device

No, the only software they would need on their systems is ABB-A. All of the setup and scheduling is done on and handled by the NAS.

  • Or should they use their own photo management software?

Preferences don’t necessarily equate to best, actual easiest, etc.

  • Where does the Synology Photo App actually store its photo library

On the NAS