Backing up Synology NAS

[clockworks]

I've got a Synology DS420+ with around 8TB of media files, in 3 folders (Video, Music, Photos).

I've recently replaced my iMac with a Mac Mini, and have bought new SSD external drives to go with it.
This leaves me with 3x 4TB external HDDs spare.

I thought I'd re-use these HDDs and backup all the media from the NAS.

I'm a bit stuck on how to do this though. I can connect a USB drive to the NAS, but the "USB Copy" utility only allows a single folder to be copied to an external drive.

In FileStation, I can select multiple folders, but it Moves them, rather than Copying them. Obviously I want to leave the original files on the NAS

The only way I can see to do it is across the network using Finder, with the USB drive connected to my Mac.

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Yes, running RAID, so losing a single disk isn't an issue.
I'm thinking more about a cabinet failure, and the old disks maybe not being compatible with a newer cabinet?

Since I've already got the USB disks, might as well use them for something.

The NAS is worked quite hard, as I'm using it for 3x CCTV cameras (Surveillance Station) and Time Machine, as well as a media server

Edited by clockworks on Sunday 13th April 10:13

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rednotdead said:

You can add multiple folders and 'jobs' to your USB copy app on the synology so when the specific USB drive is plugged in the NAS will run the jobs sequentially., just use the '+' at the top of the app to add as many folders as you like.

I have one 8TB USB that when plugged in the NAS copies movies and music

I have one 4TB USB that when plugged in the NAS copies over the home directories

This on top of the NAS->NAS backups and NAS->cloud jobs.

I'll have another look, see if I can do that

Edit:

Are you saying, add a second USB Copy task to copy a second folder to the USB drive that has already used the first USB Copy task to add the first folder?
I already tried that, and it complained about "insufficient space" on the target drive.

The first folder (music) used just under 1TB on the 4TB drive.
The second folder (photos) is less than 300GB.

It looks like USB Copy wants to allocate the entire drive for each task.
Is that because I chose "Incremental" as the option?

Edit:

Reading the Synology documentation, it looks like my problem might be due to not creating folders on the destination USB drive - "multiple tasks cannot copy to the same destination path".
That suggests multiple tasks to one drive can be done only if I create multiple folders, one for each task?

Edited by clockworks on Sunday 13th April 11:03

Edited by clockworks on Sunday 13th April 11:11

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Funk said:

I'd get something like this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Icybox-IB-3664SU3-Externa... and pop the disks in - keeps them nice and neat (and cooled) as JBOD. They do versions with RAID if you want to go nuts.

I have an older 10-bay version full of drives and as they all present as an external USB I'm able to back them up to Backblaze so I don't worry about RAID; if I lose anything I'll just pull it all back from the cloud.

The spare USB drives are all 2.5" portable ones. I'll just stick them in a box, and plug them in every now and then.

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rednotdead said:

Just checked my settings and yes - I have a separate folder on the usb drive for each task, e,g movies copies (incrementally) to /Movies, series to /TVseries etc.

I've also got the jobs set up to start when the USB is plugged in, the NAS beeps etc to tell you it's started and finished.

I've created folders on the drive, and I'm trying it again.

It's just beeped and failed after about 10 minutes, saying "insufficient space".
Seems odd with an empty 4TB drive?

Edit:

The USB disk actually had 2 partitions, one was very small. Only the first partition was recognised by the Synology.
I've now formatted the drive to EXT4, one partition. Trying again

Edited by clockworks on Sunday 13th April 12:16

[clockworks]

Having formatted the drive and created folders, I can now back up each folder separately, using individual "USB Copy" tasks.
That's the music and photos sorted.


I've got to do the Video folders backup again though, as the HDD wasn't quite big enough.
I've got 7 separate folders under the main "Video" folder.
Looks like I'll have to use 7 separate "USB Copy" tasks, one for each folder, and split them across 2 drives. A bit of a pain!

I could just split the 7 folder into 2 higher-level folders ("blu-ray" and "everything else"), but I'm worried that will mess with the media players as stuff will be on different paths.


If I bite the bullet and do it the hard way, and set each task to auto-run when the disk is plugged in, will all the tasks applicable to each drive run sequentially?

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Mandat said:

OP; what kind of speeds are you getting via the USB connection?

I can't imagine that copying TB's of data via USB is going to be a fast process, unless you're using the newest USB-C connection.

Video files are about 250GB per hour
Music files about 80GB per hour

Basically 2 days to copy just under 8TB of data.

Hopefully I'll only have to do it once - until the NAS dies.


The drives are USB3, but with USB A plugs.

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biggiles said:

Much as I'd want to "use" the external drives, the Synology cloud backup is SO cheap perhaps it's easier to sell the drives and just pay Synology a few euros to do it for you?

300 euros a year for 5TB backup storage.

That might be "cheap", but the drives are probably worth £100 for all 3

It would also take 3 months to upload on our 150mbs broadband....

Edited by clockworks on Monday 14th April 17:52

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Backup has now finished, so I won't have to touch the drives until I add more media files to the NAS.
I've set the individual USB Copy tasks to "incremental", so any updates won't take long - just need to plug in the correct external disk drive.

They are all portable drives, so don't take up much space.


This exercise has got me thinking though:

I like the Synology NAS, because it handles CCTV and Time Machine, as well as being my media server.
I don't like the fact that it's quite noisy with three mechanical drives thrashing away inside.

Wouldn't SSDs be ideal?
Being inherently more reliable than HDDs, probably wouldn't really need RAID at all - as long as a backup was kept up to date.

SATA SSDs are probably a dead-end though, as other forms factors like nvme are faster.
I wonder when Synology will bring out a consumer-level fully-featured NAS with nvme storage? Small, quiet, low power consumption.

[clockworks]

From what I've read, the nvme slots in my DS420+ are just used as cache, not part of the storage pool.
I suppose it might reduce HDD access a bit, so less noise?

[clockworks]

Is it possible to configure a Synology NAS to have two separate RAID storage pools?

Most of the usage is for Time Machine and Surveillance Station. These are the things that are generally running (with the attendant HDD access noise) while I'm in the office. Playing media files etc., I'm in a different room, so the noise doesn't matter.

If I can have 2 separate Raid 1 pools, I could use a pair of 4tb SSDs for backups and CCTV, and 2 of the existing 8TB HDDs for media files.

I could even get away with using just a single SSD for the backups and CCTV, as long as I get email alerts if something goes wrong with the drive.
That would be cheaper, and I could just keep the existing 3 drive array, and use the single SSD for backups and CCTV.


I've also seen that you can buy internal caddies that look like you can use two M2 nvme modules as a single SATA drive. That might be more future-proof than dedicated SSD SATA drive? 2x caddies and 4x 2TB M2 nvme is cheaper than 2x 4TB SATA SSD.

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Craikeybaby said:

Yes, you can combine different drives in different storage pools.

Thanks.

I've looked closer at the adaptors, and most state that they only work with M2 sata, not M2 nvme. I'm guessing that none of them will work with M2 nvme.

Might as well just get a single 4TB sata SSD, and use that for Time Machine backups, as well as CCTV.
No real need for redundancy for either of those applications, as I already have Time Machine alternating between the NAS and a local SSD.

So, is it worth paying getting on for £300 for a NAS-rated WD Red SSD, or saving £100 and getting a normal branded one?
Although there will be quite a lot of writing going on, I think it'll only be overwriting the same areas every few months. 3 cameras, two Macs.

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Craikeybaby said:

Surely for CCTV your best bet would be to get one of the CCTV specific drives, like the WD Purple?

The idea is to get away from using HDDs, to reduce noise.
My cameras are set up to only record when motion is detected.

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I realised I don't need that much space for Time Machine and Surveillance station, so I've ordered a 2TB WD Red Sata SSD for £120