Synology Remote Backup Options

visibleman

visibleman

visibleman

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I'm attempting to find a standalone (don't really want to have another system running a client that backs up a network share) solution for regularly (scheduled/automatic) cloning around 300GB, increases roughly 50-100GB per year, of data to remote/'cloud' storage but it seems the Synology NAS boxes are a bit limiting in this area.

The only options i see are to either use the built apps Stratos or Amazon Glacier (the 'app' is flaky at best and costing is highly unpredictable from my testing a few weeks back; granted it's cold-storage but i was charged nearly a quid a GB and i'd hate to see the bill for recovering the whole 300GB+); replicate the hardware at another location, apart from initial cost it seems to be the most straight-forward option at the moment; or roll-my-own solution and use a provider that offers WebDav/SFTP etc but apart from Box.net/Dropbox, i'm struggling to find a (well priced) provider that offers those options.

Have i missed any options or is the above essentially the long and short of it when dealing with remote storage on Synology boxes?

Any advice is much appreciated :)


Edit - Forgot to mention that i have seen a lot of users talk about using CrashPlan and it does seem pretty reasonable, but am i right in thinking the Synology client won't backup internal drives rather the client acts as a central storage server (which in turns punts the data to CrashPlan's remote servers) for CrashPlan clients on the network?
 
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I have heard some good things about Carbonite but if I remember correctly you can only backup one local disk from $59.99 a year so if you have a 4TB drive it could work out quite cheap.

I don't think it would work with a Synology NAS though maybe if you created a iSCI disk it may trick the software and give you a bigger size disk.

I haven't used it myself yet though but have been looking into it, there is a 15 day trial which could be used for testing if it works or not. I also am running Synology so if I have time to test it working I will let you know.
 
Thanks for that but do Carbonite do a solution for Synology NAS boxes(if not a client that runs on the NAS box, WebDav or FTP access etc)?

I've looked at Catbonite in the past and it points towards it not being a standalone solution rather I'd need to leave a computer on running the Carbonite client which would essentially backup a network share; which is what I'm trying to avoid.
 
They do have an option under the pro section for NAS but not sure how it works but it does look expensive ($499.99) and I think you only get 250GB space and then have to pay for additional storage in 100GB chunks at $99.99

Where as the personal plan seems to be limited only by the space on the local drive so looks like a cheap option.
 
Crashplan user here, initial sync took ages 350gb took 21 days ::eek: as the speed was pants, despite having a great upload speed normally, apparently that's down to them having poor peer links. Can't fault the price though!
 
Paul/Chief - So the CrashPlan Synology app allows you to select a local (to the Synology Box) directory for backup without any continuous interaction from a client app running on another system? And the CrashPlan desktop app is purely for setup?

And what's the situation with regards to restoring data - do you have access to individual files or is it similar to Glacier where you have to download the entire container/backup?

Is there any scheduling support to restrict the uploading to 'after hours'?

And i'm guessing you didn't have issue signing up for an account and paying with a UK debit/credit card or using a UK address?


As said, i did look into CrashPlan previously but people on forums were mentioning the use of a desktop client and so i just assumed it was some bodge-job of a solution.
Cheers though, will have another look at it :)
 
Yeah you use the client to configure the nas, so you reconfigure it to point at the agent running on the nas, then it sits there and runs in the background (on the nas) - desktop client can be fired up to add directories / monitor. Mine runs in VMware on my mac, so I only fire it up occasionally.

You can retrieve individual files and I can view them through the app on my iPad/iPhone too.

I'm not aware of a schedule option, but it was leaching 800kb of my 16mb up :( I think that's a combo of my synology being an arm chip and low on ram, intel atoms are better apparently. But also I heard that crashplan have poor peer links which also doesn't help.

No issues signing up, just saw a $ transaction on my CC bill :)
 
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Shame about lack of scheduling, would have been nice to not have it gobbling up the upload during the day but if it's as slow as Glacier (which is incredibly slow) then i guess it shouldn't be much of an issue :p

On another note, have you had any issues with the headless client at all?
Just reading the Synology forums and there's a few users complaining of updates and rebooting causing issues and the client not being able to 'adopt' previous backups - which is a little worrying.

Cheers again though Chief, might grab a months subscription and see how i get on :)
 
As per what Chief said really.

I've not had any problems with the headless client myself - I'm using an Intel based Synology and I can't seem to find the details now, but think these issues affected the ARM based machines?!?

The Crashplan client is just used to interact directly with the NAS box. In fact, you can safely stop the Crashplan service on the PC and it will still work fine.

It's a continuous backup though - no scheduling as already mentioned, but you can limit bandwidth and processor usage if I remember correctly in the client (haven't got access to the box currently to check).

Not tried the beta of DSM 5, but interesting to know that they are finally including support for other cloud services.

EDIT
You get 30 days free online backup with Crashplan if you want to give it a try! :)
 
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