How I Handle File Management and Backups: My NAS Setup

How do you handle all of your file management and backups?

This is awesome. I need to buy a new MacBook and I’m already cached out and don’t want to spend a million bucks on upgrading storage and I’m tired of all the cloud backup subscriptions I have for portfolio work and videos.

Such a great video.

nas dont bother you close to tv make noise

Hey Chris, are you using the NVME slots as SSD cache or a storage pool?

@chrislawely thank you. great video!!! I’m curious, have you tried using Backblaze as your backup? I’ve been paying close to 10 dollars a month for unlimited backup storage on Backblaze

I bought a 16 bay originally used to security but I use it in a professional studio setting that does music and video. I absolutely love it, sitting at near 200TB I think atm.

wow free stuff from synology

Hello, can i use NAS just for local storage (acting as an external drive)?

I have a few questions:

- Are there any good tutorials for setting all this up, say I were to get all 5 drives + 2 nvme ssd's for read & write cache, and I wanted to setup a source control shared folder (or something similar). What's a(or some) good tutorial(s) for this?
- What happens if I loose power throughout the house? Does it safely shutdown? This is assuming of course if I use a surge protector.
- If there's no tutorials, how would the read & write ssd's work, as in setup? Do I just do some one time setup, and then bam, it automates all that read & write caching for me?
- And lastly, what is the average lifespan of all the hardware together?

Have you tried the NAS with and without the NVME drives on the bottom of the NAS? Before i upgrade i would like to know how much smoother it may run?

Thanks for the Video. I originally started on a DS220J and recently upgraded to a DS923+ so i can access docker. Ive received mixed results with docker and i think it has some limitations. For example, i want to have calibre ebooks and tinymediamanager but if the media is on a different nas or, in my case, in an Orico 5 bay USB, it is impossible for a relative noob like me to utilize it. So i will stick to a dedicated windows 11 laptop instead. I really like active back up for business which allows full seamless and bare metal backup and its included free with unlimited devices.

Thanks for this video! I have a Synology
NAS and have been confused more than once about how to configure my storage.

One other good thing about Synology is you can run a VPN server on the NAS. I use this extensively to access my home network while I'm travelling.

Hey man, looks like there is some super tall iPad stand. Is that similar to the Moment one?

How about the noise of this beast? How loud is it in idle or in use?

This was awesome thanks so much! I am looking to set something up like this - this year! Ive been using smaller (portable SSD) mainly the Samsung T7 and t5 at the moment - but in desperate need of something like this!

I have a 4 bay buffalo nas. 4 - 4tb drives. Don't use it much for pc stuff. It's more for cell phone backups. Girlfriends phone only has internal storage. So I have it set to every other night to backup stuff.
Only problem with getting a nas is cost. Then drives. I should reach out to buffalo and see if I could get one to review

This was a great video! thanks for all of the info! I’d love to see a video breakdown on how you set up keyboard maestro and hazel shortcuts to actually work.

Why Synology doesn't provide a ZFS file system? I'm still looking for something like QNP and cheaper. Thanks

I’am using Icloud and Google

thank you for this! I've been pondering how to simplify & optimize file management & it's really great to see how you have things set up! it's really useful to hear yr use cases & benefits u reap!

I'm using a Windows 2016 Server with an OpenMediaVault VM running with 2 - 2TB disks formatted for Time Machine use. A M1 iMac (256GB) and a M1 MacBook Pro (512GB) are each mapped to a 2TB disk, run with a login script. The server has a Crucial 128GB boot/OS drive and 4 - 8TB drives using StableBit DrivePool software (software RAID). All drives are formatted NTFS and aren't dependent on a specific OS or piece of hardware. If one fails or I swap the motherboard, I can move the drives to new hardware without issue. It can be a pain sometimes throughout the years to get emulate a Time Machine drive, so far this has worked the best. But, I do like the built in "TM services" that most NASs offer.

Thx for the nice video. Good backup solution, but have you ever thought what kind of backup is the best in case of ransomware? The NAS at your brothers house would be also effected. In that case I have also a offline (cold) backup next to the offside backup. This is the 3-2-1 backup structure.

I have a synolgy Nas too confingured in Raid.

I don't make videos so i don't have the big files like you do so i actually use it to Mirror One Drive. I then have media and time machine separately. Photos and personal videos are in icloud drive for a secondary back up.

I have been searching for a way to automatically mount to a NAS depending on shortcuts so im going to look at keyboard Maestro. I did write a shortcut that detects wifi name and if the home wifi it disconnects but that cant be automated in any way.

Does lightroom catalogues work with photos stored in a NAS location?

If you're not using an UPS for your NAS, you should be

RAID is not a backup, you still need a second one to backup your first NAS. Or a big HDD to backup to, or maybe back blaze. It’s a bit risky to suggest to viewers that it is

This is good advise. I am ordering a 5 Drive bay system soon and I will set it up soon. Thanx for this video