If you needed to wipe your PC, you could just unplug the data drives first (it's generally best practice to just have your boot drive connected when installing Windows anyway). NAS power supplies are often cheap nasty wall plugs on the lower end models, so if it fails you might be waiting whilst you source a replacement.
What about on for example the Synology DS418? How is the PSU on that?
Buy a better case
Most cases nowadays do not have many drive bays at all. 2 at most. Especially to get one that looks how you want it to and be a good all round case based on reviews on professional review sites and have all the functions someone wants etc.
I didn't even realise these things existed - but turning drives on and off unnecessarily can't be good for their lifespan.
That's what happens with a PC.... It is turned on and off a few times throughout a day. Going down to make lunch etc.
No more of a premature death than any other type of hard drive
I have been told NAS drives will fail much faster than a desktop drive would if you use it in a desktop, due to on/off's.
No generally you wouldn't be able to move drives with data to/from a NAS without data loss. Now that you've said you are looking at a Macbook then yes a NAS probably makes more sense.
Undecided as of yet.
Can I get a NAS and connect it to either Mac or Windows or does it have to be formatted according to the target OS thus not being able to use it cross platform?
Because with large hard drives there is a significant chance that a second drive will fail whilst a first failed drive is rebuilding, losing all of your data.
Where are you getting this from?
https://unraid.net/
Yes
Why can't you?
I have no other place. I live in an apartment. We own a second property a 20 second walk away, but not sure how I would go around backing up my data onto external USB drives then storing them in some kind of travel case to and from this apartment to the house every single time. How frequently to do it, how to backup only the files that have been changed etc etc.
A second backup could just be a USB Hard drive that you manually back up to once a week (if you can then take it offsite, or even leave it in your car etc, then you are protecting against fire/flood/etc destroying your house and losing your data)
Flood would destroy the data in the car? A full on armed robbery would likely involve theft of the car too so .....
Having a NAS on your lan won't keep your data safe from hackers - all it takes is for your PC to be infected with something, and the data on your NAS could also be worthless.
What are your thoughts on this: https://www.zdnet.com/article/thous...-have-been-infected-with-the-qsnatch-malware/
and there are other articles about NAS hackers but can't find the one I found on my phone recently that involves all NAS drives.
A NAS also won't let you restore accidentally deleted files, corrupt files or anything else - by itself it isn't a backup
I know it's not a backup so how can I automate the backup process should I buy 3-4 10TB external USB drives?
Thanks
