Backup strategies for musicians, advanced topics: Network Attached Storage (NAS)
π¨ WARNING: DENSE / HIGHLY NERDY POST ALERT π€
Apropos of our recent discussion about automated nightly backups, our friend Leigh Harrison sent me the below post (originally here). Itβs next-level backup strategies for highly technical people!
Ten years ago I looked seriously at Network Attached Storage for the first time. After researching options I bought an entry-level Synology NAS with a single hard drive slot. Six years later I upgraded this to a four drive unit to allow more storage and provide redundancy in case of a hard drive failure.
Both NAS devices have the same operating system, a Linux-based proprietary product Synology calls DSM. This means that the backup scenario I'm going to outline will work with any recent Synology NAS, whether new or secondhand.
Backing up local devices
Synology has backup software called Synology Drive for macOS, Linux, Windows, Android and iOS. After creating an account for each device on the NAS, download and install the appropriate Synology Drive software on your laptop, desktop, tablet or phone.
When you first run the software you're prompted to select which drives and folders you want to back up. After doing this the Synology Drive software will start automatically when you use your device, and back up files in real time. The software is lightweight and has no impact on performance once it's copied all the existing files to the NAS. But be aware that the first session can be quite a load.
Synology has guides on the internet to help new users through the setup process, and there are excellent user forums as well.
Accessing backups
You can access your backed-up files by logging into the NAS from the web interface, and if you set up remote access to your NAS you can do this from anywhere in the world. Remote access is easy to set up, and Synology has step-by-step guides online.
While you're on your home network you can also access the backed-up files by mapping the NAS drive from any device. This is very useful if, like me, you want to access music you're producing on a different computer.
Additionally, Synology has an app called DSFile with versions for iOS and Android, which makes it easy to access any files stored on the NAS. Again, if you've set up remote access you can seamlessly use this app anywhere in the world. Forget to download that demo track you were working on before you went to band practice? No problem; you can use DSFile on your phone to listen to it or download it.
Backing up your backups
NAS backups are great because hard drives are relatively cheap and there's no subscription fee. But what if disaster strikes? A house fire or a burglary could lose you all your backups as well as your music studio.
Thankfully every Synology NAS can set up Cloud Backups. These operate in a similar manner to local device backups. You enter the destination for your backups, select which NAS folders you want included, and set the time of day you want these cloud backups to happen.
I back up selected folders from our NAS to a Dropbox account, but you can choose almost any provider. At 2:00am every morning the NAS connects, and copies files to Dropbox. We include the important folders from all our devices; they're already backed up to the NAS, so it's simple.
Choosing a NAS
There are many reputable NAS providers, and most of them offer similar features. I've stuck with Synology and it's served us well, but they're not the only game in town.
From experience, I'd suggest a couple of things to consider when choosing a unit.
Two hard drives are better than one. While modern hard drives are extremely reliable, mechanical failure can happen. Putting two drives into your NAS in what's known as a RAID array means you'll suffer no data loss even if one drive becomes completely corrupted.
A slow processor is frustrating. Our first NAS backed up all our devices. It also recorded television shows and streamed video and music around the house. But while it was capable, it was slow. It had a Celeron processor with 2GB RAM, and accessing it was sometimes glacial. It's worth avoiding that sort of frustration if you can afford to. Our current NAS is blindingly fast; the i5 processor, 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD cache were good investments.
Leave room for growth. I've upgraded our hard drives once already, from four 4TB drives to four 8TB drives. The data we store keeps growing, and it's likely I'll upgrade the drives again at some point.* Alternatively, Synology has extension units that would allow me to add additional drives. When choosing your NAS, finding a unit that has a straightforward growth path is a good idea.
* Because we have our NAS drives configured in a RAID array, upgrading to larger drives is a simple plug and play process, one drive at a time. The NAS operating system manages the data replication.
Thank you so much, Leigh! β jamie