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Best NAS for a file server Mac and PC

russell_314

russell_314

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I thought about getting a Synology NAS for Time Machine and to keep backup copies of iCloud files. I've seen a lot of security experts say don't let a QNAP NAS have access to the outside internet with the stock operating system because they get taken down like flies by ransomware.

The reason I haven't yet is because I'm doing a little more research first. I don't want to overbuy but I also don't want to buy something then six months later feel I need to replace it.
 
hwojtek

hwojtek

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Jan 26, 2008
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This lacks some in-depth analysis.
What is the expected support level for this solution? Self-service like a home user? Professional admin? What are the performance expectations of the customer? What is the budget? Is there a power consumption ceiling?

For my customers I've been through (most) NAS solutions and they are all underpowered home toys - apart from those which are actually servers in disguise. They are the most expensive, though.

If they want to administer the file server themselves, a NAS seems a logical way to go, nevertheless all those "SOHO" boxes are slow, especially in processing numerous concurrent file accesses. Ease of administration is a pro here, buggy software and mediocre performance the major cons.

I personally always suggest setting up a real server (have great experience with Dell R710 series). I buy them refurbished, with warranty, prepared by the refurbisher with latest BIOS/firmware etc. Load them with 8TB drives, hardware RAID10 'em. From there on, there are two routes:
- go full command line ninja and install a Linux (I prefer Ubuntu) with SMB. Pros: oh, the control, oh the flexibility. Cons: tricky to administer (but if your client really wants to do it by himself, a limited Webmin account will do), lots of unnecessary stuff to bother for a fileserver.
- go midway with TrueNAS - install it as the OS and it's fairly easy to administer (about as hard as a SOHO NAS).

Worth mentioning: I never install on bare metal, free ESXi first and virtual machines on top of it.
 
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hobowankenobi

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dimme said:
Besides the obvious file sharing benefits of a nas. I am curious what other features nas users use. I know RAID is not a substitute for a backup, so to me having a large nas creates a backup dilemma. This coming year I will need to update my Mac mini server, so I am looking at a nas, but as of now I will probably go with another (newer) mini as a server. I like the fact with the mini there is not one point of failure. If the mini goes down just connect the disk to another Mac, I drive enclosed goes bad, pop the drive in another enclosure. The mini server is messy with cables and power bricks galore. But the ease of making "Mac formatted disk" backups, and having off line backups is a big plus. I do have a linux machine I uses for some file archiving that I store for my job, but it's power hungry and my wired network is gigabit so moving terabytes of data is slow, Could I be happy with a nas.
Click to expand...
GB network is the bottleneck...unless you move up to 2.5GB or 10GB.

Beyond that, Synology pluses:
  • Easy disk redundancy
  • Super low power, always on
  • AFP and SMB are easier (in my opinion) to setup than on any other platform
  • Easisly expandable disk arrays (with Synology Hybrid RAID) without reformatting
  • Low cost enclosure compared to full Mac/PC and external storage
  • Hyper backup feature for versioned backups
  • Web Access feature for shard files and shared links
  • Web access for admin is easier than remote connections
  • Drive is a very good cross platform sync and backup tool
  • You can clone the volume contents to an attached USB drive, includint to an HFS+ drive
  • Lots of other services you can run beyond file sharing
I would add that for decent performance, don't look at the low end models. They are cheap, but under powered. Start with something like hte DS720+ or better, depending on number of connectoins and stoarge needs.
 
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max2

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Is it better to have a bigger NAS with more slots for hard drives or two smaller NAS ?
 
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Romain_H

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hwojtek said:
Worth mentioning: I never install on bare metal, free ESXi first and virtual machines on top of it.
Click to expand...
While I agree to your post in general, the piece above is imo not good advice. The OS should have direct access to the harddrives. Usually, it is adviced against doing that, in particular when using ZFS.

That said: ran a Synology some time ago. Now its a ZFS raid running proxmox on commodity hardware. Pretty easy to set up and reasonably priced as well
 
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max2

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Can you use a Synology NAS as a cloud backup (but locally in your home) like you would iCloud if you bought it from Apple ?
 
Apple_Robert

Apple_Robert

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Sep 21, 2012
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russell_314 said:
I thought about getting a Synology NAS for Time Machine and to keep backup copies of iCloud files. I've seen a lot of security experts say don't let a QNAP NAS have access to the outside internet with the stock operating system because they get taken down like flies by ransomware.

The reason I haven't yet is because I'm doing a little more research first. I don't want to overbuy but I also don't want to buy something then six months later feel I need to replace it.
Click to expand...
Checkout Synology DS220+. It is a very capable 2 bay model. I have (2) 10TB drives I use it for Time Machine and iPhone backup. I also have a DS920+ I use as a Plex server.
 
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russell_314

russell_314

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Apple_Robert said:
Checkout Synology DS220+. It is a very capable 2 bay model. I have (2) 10TB drives I use it for Time Machine and iPhone backup. I also have a DS920+ I use as a Plex server.
Click to expand...
I’ll check that one out. Is there anyway I could also set it up to back up things that are only stored on iCloud Drive? I have a feeling I’m going to end up buying a Mac mini for that purpose.
 
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hwojtek

hwojtek

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Romain_H said:
While I agree to your post in general, the piece above is imo not good advice. The OS should have direct access to the harddrives. Usually, it is adviced against doing that, in particular when using ZFS.
Click to expand...
Why would it? A VM works on an abstraction layer by nature and for a reason. The overhead from esxi is minimal and the whole idea of SAN is to present virtual hardware to the OS. Since ZFS is in no circumstances the fastest filesystem of them all, the performance penalty is negligible.

In a VM OS does not have direct access to hard drives, not even to a drive it is installed on, so you're negating the whole virtual computing idea? One server - one OS? It's a waste of resources.

Of course you may pass the drives directly to the OS bypassing VM, while this has some marginal advantages (the array is mobile and easily connected to another computer), any modern hypervisor does support barrier passing - on a physical level it will pass the same flushes executed by the guest OS to the underlying FS. In other words, no corruption is expected for important/durable writes (as the one used by the filesystem itself to update its metadata). In case of a malfunction all filesystems - XFS, EXT4, etc. will be exposed to serious corruptions as much as ZFS.

ZFS in VM environment is actually a go-to scenario most vendors recommend - HPE, Dell, even Huawei encourage ZFS as the storage FS within virtual machines deployed on their servers.
 
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thejadedmonkey

thejadedmonkey

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May 28, 2005
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dimme said:
Besides the obvious file sharing benefits of a nas. I am curious what other features nas users use. I know RAID is not a substitute for a backup, so to me having a large nas creates a backup dilemma. This coming year I will need to update my Mac mini server, so I am looking at a nas, but as of now I will probably go with another (newer) mini as a server. I like the fact with the mini there is not one point of failure. If the mini goes down just connect the disk to another Mac, I drive enclosed goes bad, pop the drive in another enclosure. The mini server is messy with cables and power bricks galore. But the ease of making "Mac formatted disk" backups, and having off line backups is a big plus. I do have a linux machine I uses for some file archiving that I store for my job, but it's power hungry and my wired network is gigabit so moving terabytes of data is slow, Could I be happy with a nas.
Click to expand...
You don't need to use a mini for that, and honestly your backup solution isn't that great. Backup needs to take care of 3 use cases. Un-deleting a file, restoring a previous version in case of accidental edit or corruption, and recovering from a total data loss do to e.g. fire.

I use a Synology NAS to host a TimeMachine target. That takes care of backing up my mac, as well as file-revisions. Important files (like photos) are stored outside of Time Machine, and automatically backed up to the AWS Glacier tier of S3. If there's a fire, I can re-create 95% of what's on any computer in my house by re-downloading from the cloud, or pulling from the AWS backup. What little I'll lose, like save game files, I'm OK with losing.
 
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hobowankenobi

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dimme said:
How do you backup an iPhone to a Synology NAS?
Click to expand...
While not a full backup...one can sync photos and files via iOS apps, like Drive and Photo.

Remote access can be setup easily with QuickConnect....no router or DDNS or any other network tweaks needed. You can use MFA on your phone to secure it. Performance is a bit reduced, but very handy for occasional access. Drive backup/sync can be used anywhere on the web (essenstially as a private cloud back up) via QuickConnect.

I have seen warnings of security concerns with QuickConnect, but no real evidence that is a bigger attack vector than any other web-based service (this was before Synolgy added the MFA function). Having said that, I only use if for non-sensitive data (photos, etc). A full VPN and/or other security meausres are needed for business/secured data needs. Secure documnets could be encycpted indivuallly for occasional/emergency access via QuickConnect.
 
dimme

dimme

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Apple_Robert said:
I am using iMazing to do the backup.
Click to expand...
I am using iMazing with a mini (used as a file server)and a usb drive. I need to replace my mini and I am looking and a new mini or a Synology NAS. How does iMazing work with the Synology NAS? Have you tried a restore?
 
Apple_Robert

Apple_Robert

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Sep 21, 2012
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dimme said:
I am using iMazing with a mini (used as a file server)and a usb drive. I need to replace my mini and I am looking and a new mini or a Synology NAS. How does iMazing work with the Synology NAS? Have you tried a restore?
Click to expand...
I haven’t tried a restore of my 14 pro with iMazing, yet. I am going to soon. The backups get made without any problems thus far, as far as the process itself to the NAS. It just takes longer on the WiFi.
 
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Niels Henrik

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Jan 25, 2023
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Hi all - just been reading this thread as I am responsible for the tech at our 30-years-old, 20 PAX advertising agency placed in Denmark. In short
- we used Mac servers or Mac Mini with MacOS Server and Promise Pegasus raid until 2021
- then migrated to Synology NAS (currently a 12 TB net volume DS1521+ in Raid5) that I am about to discontinue as we need more space and are planning to move to DS1821+ with 20TB net in Raid5

I have 2 questions
- our Mac M1 users are having huge opbstacles with reading but mostly writing from Adobe applications to external drives (in this place the Synology - but in a test also a colleagues Mac acting as a fileserver (shared folder). Is that a known Mac M-processor/Adobe/Synology issue and should I stay away from the planned Synology upgrade?
- should I instead buy a whole new Mac Mini, use it as a server and hook it up with a proper raid?

Thanks😊
 
dimme

dimme

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What obstacles are you running into. I have a M1 Mac connected to an Intel mini file server and have no issues with file transfer. However I do not save directly to the file server. I use local storage and backup to the file server hourly. Shortly I plan to upgrade the mini to a M1 or M2 mini. I was looking at a Synology solution but for my use case the mini may be a better fit.
 
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hobowankenobi

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Aug 27, 2015
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on the land line mr. smith.
Niels Henrik said:
Hi all - just been reading this thread as I am responsible for the tech at our 30-years-old, 20 PAX advertising agency placed in Denmark. In short
- we used Mac servers or Mac Mini with MacOS Server and Promise Pegasus raid until 2021
- then migrated to Synology NAS (currently a 12 TB net volume DS1521+ in Raid5) that I am about to discontinue as we need more space and are planning to move to DS1821+ with 20TB net in Raid5

I have 2 questions
- our Mac M1 users are having huge opbstacles with reading but mostly writing from Adobe applications to external drives (in this place the Synology - but in a test also a colleagues Mac acting as a fileserver (shared folder). Is that a known Mac M-processor/Adobe/Synology issue and should I stay away from the planned Synology upgrade?
- should I instead buy a whole new Mac Mini, use it as a server and hook it up with a proper raid?

Thanks😊
Click to expand...
Yes, there are some known issues that seem to be worse on new AS Macs. Some descriptions, clues, and possible help there, but no definitive fix.

Adobe has never supported working on network drives...likely because there are too many variables to troubleshoot.

Having said that, many companies have, but I have seen various issues over the years from permissions problems to corrupted files.

I would not assume that a new Mini used as a file server would solve this.

Things to check:

  1. SMB or AFP connction?
  2. If SMB, how is it configured on the Synology?
  3. What OS are the clients running now?
  4. You said read and write issues...can you give more details?
  5. How are permissions setup? Does each user log into the server with their own permissions? Are permissions set via a group, or individually?
There could be more to test and troubleshoot. Are the issues different when using the Mini as a file server, or the same?

It might be good to reivew why uses must work on network files. Lack of local storage can be one reason that is hard to solve. If space can be used locally, what about syncing files automatically, so the file gets edited locally, but synced shortly after? Not live, but can be a fairly short delay, with some added redundancy.
 
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hajime

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If using a silicon Mac as a file server, is there a function to check health status of external drives via some sort of smart?
 
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