NAS

pp111 · 3 Dec 2018 at 12:23

I am looking for a NAS but this is something completely new to me.

I only require it to serve as a backup device so I really don't need any special functions. I just need drives to appear on the network same as Windows and all machines on the network have access to the drives without passwords. There must not be any software that is required on the PC's. Can anyone tell me what I need to do this?

ChrisD. · 3 Dec 2018 at 12:30

pp111 said:
I am looking for a NAS but this is something completely new to me.

I only require it to serve as a backup device so I really don't need any special functions. I just need drives to appear on the network same as Windows and all machines on the network have access to the drives without passwords. There must not be any software that is required on the PC's. Can anyone tell me what I need to do this?

What are you going to use to back up the PCs? A basic WD mycloud or something would work, but for true backup you need it offsite rather than locally.

bremen1874 · 3 Dec 2018 at 12:33

A cloud option would be the first thing to look at. It that's not practicable then you need to consider:

How much are you willing to spend?
How fast are you expecting it to be?
How much capacity to do want?

pp111 · 3 Dec 2018 at 12:38

Hi and thanks for the reply.
I currently use FileSync which does all I need it to do. It just syncs a backup disk that is located on the network in another PC. The problem with the system is that the backup PC is often turned off so I want to move the backup disk to a NAS that is always on. A proper NAS uses a lot less power than a PC that is always on. And yes, the plan is also to move it off site ( connected using an ethernet cable ) which is a lot easier if its a small box rather than an entire PC. But really it must not be complicated or it wont get used.
Speed is not important. Capacity will be small, but I will just add an appropriate drive.

pp111 · 3 Dec 2018 at 13:59

bremen1874 said:
A cloud option would be the first thing to look at. It that's not practicable then you need to consider:

How much are you willing to spend?
How fast are you expecting it to be?
How much capacity to do want?

I am not interested in using the cloud. Speed is not important, capacity is not important in that I was thinking I would just buy whatever drive I need. Simplicity is very important. No password is extremely important. I mean I have considered this before but the one thing that really puts me off is I don't want something complicated. I mean with a PC there are accessible network drives just there, and that's what I want. No special software, no passwords, no streaming, nothing. I just want network drives to be there all the time and accessible to all.

skyripper · 3 Dec 2018 at 15:55

pp111 said:
...No special software, no passwords, no streaming, nothing. I just want network drives to be there all the time and accessible to all.

The one thing I would say to this, is if you get a cryptovirus on a connected machine, with a wide open, non-password protected, non-snapshotted fileshare left permanently mapped, you might as well not have a backup at all.

I am currently mulling over how to protect against this myself, with my own requirement of anywhere accessible filestore including music, videos, photos, backups and personal documents on any device in my house and still keeping it safe from malware.

ChrisD. · 3 Dec 2018 at 16:22

skyripper said:
The one thing I would say to this, is if you get a cryptovirus on a connected machine, with a wide open, non-password protected, non-snapshotted fileshare left permanently mapped, you might as well not have a backup at all.

This, it's plain stupidity.

Fishman · 3 Dec 2018 at 19:21

If you set the NAS share to read only to network and use FTP/SFTP mode on your backup software using named account with write access that will work and be crypto virus proof.

pp111 · 3 Dec 2018 at 19:43

A virus is not an issue. This is non-critical data. It is inconvenient if lost but not the end of the world. It can all be replaced. Any truly critical data is stored off the network.

bledd · 4 Dec 2018 at 18:18

Synology

pp111 · 5 Dec 2018 at 15:24

Thanks for the advice. I will go with that. I am just trying to decide which one.

pp111 · 18 Dec 2018 at 15:05

Yep. Bought a Synology and have to say it's amazingly good. At the moment I have set it up as a backup but will be exploring what it can do and may well use it for more things in future.

bledd · 18 Dec 2018 at 21:54

I use Veeam Endpoint Backup for my pcs at home. I created a share on the NAS called Veeam, created a unique user on the NAS just for backups.

My own user, I give read only access to the backups, the Veeam user has read/write. In Veeam I set it to use the Veeam user to write to the NAS. This means of I ever get a bad virus that tries to delete everything, this Veeam backup would be protected.

Veeam Endpoint is free and easy to use

bremen1874 · 18 Dec 2018 at 23:02

The paid for home version has ransomware protection for its image files. I purchased the paid for version for other reasons, but it’s nice to have. Given the amount I’ve used the free version over the years I didn’t mind paying.

ChrisD. · 19 Dec 2018 at 09:06

Veeam is an excellent bit of software in enterprise.

bledd · 20 Dec 2018 at 21:08

bremen1874 said:
The paid for home version has ransomware protection for its image files. I purchased the paid for version for other reasons, but it’s nice to have. Given the amount I’ve used the free version over the years I didn’t mind paying.

££?

I have a paid version of Macrium