All Synology Backup Methods Explained and Which One is Right For You?

Cloud sync sucks, tops out at 20k # of files by default, 100k max # of files is max. Not worth mentioning this third-party plug-in.

Back dat NAS up

Hey dude, i just had a question. Would it be possible for me to backup an 8 TB synology NAS to two external 4 TB hard disks?

Have u tried Tailscale? No port forwarding required. Your videos are very clear and maybe one with that method ?

I love your videos! 1 question: What is the difference between the ShareSync to another external NAS and the Hyperbackup method to another external NAS? Should be even in price. What should I run on my private NAS (manly for photos, not that busy)?

Great video.. I was wondering. I have just bought a second NAS to back up my main NAS. What RAID would you recommend? Does the backup data need to be 'backed up' in a SHR RAID? I was thinking a RAID 0 is better as drives can be quickly replaced in the backup NAS should a failure occur?

I know this is an old videos and there are so many comments I don't know if anybody else has said the same, but as much as I love the ease of use, both active backup and hyperbackup have been absolutely unreliable crap for me. I have 6 of them (whatever rack mount models they are). My backup jobs total about 50TB at the moment. doesn't matter if the jobs are incremental or mirroring, doesn't matter if I spit the job up into much smaller sizes, they'll run for a week or two and then fail with the message "contact Synology support" who just seem like a waste of time.

Hello, thanks for all your videos. Helped me a lot with complete NAS settings.

I am now fighting with this situation though and I am not really sure if any of these apps would help.
Till now I've had all my photos on external disk. I copied all of it on NAS. So now I have exactly the same copy on NAS and on exetrnal disk.

Now if I create a folder in NAS, put there some photos, delete a photo from some older folder, rename another folder ... what I would like is that ... if I now plug in the external disk into the NAS, I would like all these changes happen also on the external disk. Without any of my assistance.
And vice versa - if I delete a photo on external drive, I would like the same to happen on NAS after I plug the disk in.

Is any of these apps capable of this kind of synchronization? Or is it utopia?
Maybe I'm taking the wrong approach. How do you guys deal with this?

My friend and I want to backup via hyper-backup to each others NAS. We are unsure about how to setup the drives. Would you recommend to use 2 volumes on each NAS, one for the backup of the friend and one for the own DSM? Or would it make more sense to just have one big volume?

Great content. Amazing detailed information about how to navigate a NAS. Thank you.

I have an OWC RAID5 System (DAS) with 98 TB backed up with Backblaze Computer backup that only backs up computer and connected drives (like my DAS) but not the NAS. I recently bought the NAS and while I'm waiting for it to arrive I'm wondering if there is a solution that I could backup my NAS to the DAS and this DAS would be backed up by Backblaze. Do you know if it's possible? PS: I'm kinda newbie. I'm just know a little bit more because of your videos which I'm very grateful.

Can hyperbackup backup to an external USB drive? Home user looking for backups for NAS and wanted to have 2 ext USB drives that I swap and one is offsite. But still not sure how hyperbackup would differ from USB copy in this scenario.

We use the iDrive now built-in. I've been using iDrive for 9 years without issues and never issues with filenames. And I HATE proprietary storage formats like .HBK. I like to see my backups as they are. I just rescued someone from a hacker encryption attack that killed their server and ext drive backup. But iDrive rescued fine. I can understand using the Hyper solution for deployments, that makes sense to me.

I moved all the files from my old PC over to my new (first NAS) so now I have a bunch of old PC HDDs I was thinking of using as offline backups. I don't really care about being able to roll back my files to previous versions I just want to be sure I won't lose my stuff if my NAS dies so would just using the USB thing (with my old HDDs in a docking station) suffice or what did you mean by it not getting everything?

What is currently the difference between backing up one NAS to another NAS using either Hyper Backup or Active Backup for Business?
RIght now they both seem to do the same for me...

Thanks!

Maybe good to mention bit rot when it comes to cold storage on flash or magnetic mediums

Great video, thanks! I'm upgrading my old Synology NASs, so I'm revisiting backup techniques. I have tens of terabytes of mkv files that I use with Plex running on an HP server. Currently, I use Hyperbackup's rsync (single version) to keep a backup of all mkv files to a second NAS. Once I've added an mkv file, chances are it will never change, so most deltas are addition of new mkv files and not changes to already added mkv files. I'm wondering if rsync is the best way to backup the mkvs? Or should I consider snapshot replication or ShareSync? No need to worry too much about down time for Plex use, although having to do a restore with this amount of data would take days.

Nice but for Active Backup for business I miss the really cool feature like backup virtual machines, file server, complete PC´s etc. That´s really one of the most valuable benefits it´s has. And what’s fantastic: You get it without licensing every machine you backup with it. So it´ s a real cool feature!

Is it possible to run Snapshot Replication and Hyperbackup from a source NAS to a remote destination NAS to get the best of both solutions? How about the same from multiple source NAS to a single offsite destination NAS?

my primary backup mechanism is HyperBackup but I also use Drive primarily to lower latency on many activities (such as photography). The one issue I constantly feel like I don't know enough about is whether I should have any "versions" saved on Drive if the drive share's directory is backed up on HyperBackup. My assumption is no but I can't help to think i'm maybe missing an edge case.

great content brother, keep it up.

Hey, thanks for the great videos, man! They've been super helpful.

I have an odd question for you. I have a personal NAS and a work NAS (both Synology), and I was wondering if it's possible to have a usb drive hooked up to each one that backs up the OTHER NAS. Basically, I'd like to have them both back up automatically, but also have the backup drive off-site so we can't lose anything at either location. Do any of these backup options give you the option to select where you save the backups?

Walter junior?

We use drive sync. It takes longer but there's no compression which means if we an entire cluster fails, we can get a backup up within minutes.

you put this together very well man cheers. the way i do mine is keep the main drive always big and organized and sync it to the NAS where it expands. Then have another local one that only turns on to add more files then switch it off when done. the always on one is the main drive that only sync to the NAS like i said, incase it dies no problem, turn back on the off drive and resync to the new drive. this works great for me, without getting crazy, there's a software called syncovery to deletes and copies all your main content to all your locations on the fly saves tons of time for offline and online organizing great piece of software.

Hi, my DS2116j seems to have a max volume size of a little over 16GB. Can I use two volumes as one?

My drives are currently configured in RAID 0 with two 16GB drives. I have this older NAS unit with the intent to use it to backup my primary 8bay has which has a little over 20TB of data on it. Is it at all possible to use any of the Synology backup solutions to set up a backup configuration to where my older DS2116j with two 16GB RAID 0 drives can back up my newer 8 bay NAS with about 20GB of used space.

I figured when I bought the 16GB drives and created a 30ish GB storage pool that this might work, but I've been having some difficulty getting this set up.

I currently maxed out the volume size to 16GB and then the other has about 14GB, so two separate volumes in the 30GB RAID 0 storage pool. Do you have any advice on how to set up a backup for my primary NAS? Any help or tips are appreciated!

Thank you!

update - issue for me with usb copy resolved with download of extfat -

thanks for this video it makes things clear. However, I have tried to do a usb copy backing up a directory onto a SSD USB drive and it appears to work but is EXTREMELY slow, to the point of being usless. I have seen forums about this noting that this has been an issue for some time - sorry but this is a basic function of a NAS which it should do without issue.

Assuming I am doing a daily backup, I understand that after the first time the subsequent backups are incremental. If this is true (?) how does retention works? Since restoring a backup requires the initial full backup plus all changes, then the initial backup should never be removed (by a possible rotation) !! Unless there is something that I do not "see", i.e. that every X days there is a new full blown full backup again thus backup before that can be safely be removed by the rotation.... please help.

As a new NAS prospect 😊 i cringe a little bit about having my backups in any proprietary “containers”.

Thats why i also hate Time Machine for example and any other type of software that wraps my backup files in their own “box”

I hate to have yet another point of failure and “what if”s (“what if the proprietary container becomes corrupted and can’t be browsed/restored ?”)

I just want my files written directly to the media (usb hdd / cloud) without any proprietary “packaging” involved.

I guess i am left with only Cloud Sync and USB Copy on Synology NAS.

Hi , Thanks for sharing your knowledge about NAS systems. I have a question and I would be even happier to have your answer. Is Possible to use "Active Backup for Business" for normal users or can just and only be used for admin level users?? the context is the follow: I would like my brother use the " Active Backup for Business"; he is using my NAS, but I have him as a normal user, I am the only administrator. NOTE. he have a Mac.

Dear Mr. S. Rex,
I really do love all your videos. I think you have TONS of experience with synology, and I do not believe you have any significant bias with Synology, other than you love their products. However, sir, I just cannot, cannot, CANNOT understand for the life of me how or why you can support "Hyper"Backup so strongly. Unless there is some type of group-stupidity for over half the users of Synology boxes (OK, I made that "statistic" up, but seriously, go online and see how many people have problems with "Hyper"backup). HyperBackup is (to this novice user) unusable: the speed is incredibly slow, so slow that it just isn't an option not just for me, but for many people (see Synology's user forums). Please do a video on how to make HyperBackup actually usable for regular users. Thank you!! (PS: seriously, your videos are spectacular. I'm just venting my frustration with Synology's HyperBackup product.)

Is there any reason to use synology drive client for backing up a PC over Active Backup for Business?

If you setup encryption can hackers still encrypted your data

Hey Rex!!! Quick question. Is there a way to use USB copy and only copy one folder inside of a shared folder? When I try to open it in the location option, nothing comes up. Only the main folder. Thank you for your help!

So I’m looking to use a external SSD to back up my music folder only, eventually maybe also family photos on another external SSD, so USB copy.
However, the folders are added to daily, I’d like to plug it in and start the Active backup if possible, I’m used to doing this with .bat files with xcopy on several drives.
I forget if I can mount the Synology NAS as a drive and place a copy of the .bat file - to only do a Delta update, is this possible?

So could I use the Active Backup Agent to create a whole image of the NAS as-is, then USB Copy that to an external hard drive so that in the case of needing a new NAS, I could just plug the external drive into the new NAS and restore everything like it had been on the old one?

I just setup Hyperbackup to sync to my QNAP NAS. It all connected and created the folder on the QNAP automatically. But then I had a change of mind. Unfortunately, it is now impossible to delete the folders that were created on my QNAP. I've used the QNAP file manager, changed permissions, tried my SFTP file transfer app, and I even screamed and cursed at both of them. Nothing works.

Few questions, if one was to;

1. Using HyperBackup to Google Drive - This is going to be in a single .HBK format right (multi-version)? Its purely an external backup, in order to restore data on your NAS.
2. Using HyperBackup to Google Drive - Assume if you rename a folder (keep the same ISO files inside), then it's going to re-upload the entire contents, as you mentioned?
3. Using C2 Cloud - Assume you can view/see the individual files inside the .HBK container? Unsure if it will re-upload the entire contents if a folder is renamed (where the contents remain the same).
4. HyperBackup to Cloud is to simply backup (offsite) in case of the NAS physically stolen / caught fire (along with external USB backup)
5. HyperBackup to USB is to simply backup (onsite) in case of the NAS hardware failure / hacked etc - Faster without the need to download the backup from cloud server.

Is the above correct? I think C2 Cloud makes sense if it doesn't need to re-upload the entire data if it's simply a file rename, that would save a ton of upload bandwidth. I just don't know where to find this information?

Guessing the way to go is;
- HyperBackup (onsite backup) - USB HDD
- HypderBackup (offsite backup) - Cloud
- Snapshots Replication (dual nas) - Main purpose is to avoid downtime if the main NAS fails. You mentioned its read only, does that mean users cannot save new files to it if the main NAS is down? Also, I'm assuming the secondary NAS needs to support BTRFS?

It would be fantastic if you could please do a video showing the recovery process from a backup too. I had both drives die at once on my DS 216j and it was quite a mission to get my files back, as I wasn't familiar with Hyper Backup's format (I had all files sent to AWS S3 Glacier).

So glad to come across this informative video. Excellent comparison.
I wonder whether the issue of deleting and re-uploading/downloading renamed files have been fixed or not?
If not, what is the best alternative to Synology in that regard?

Thanks , Q :: To view the files on another NAS using ISCSI with replication backup (active passive), do we need to stop the replication to view the files on the destination LUN as an ISCSI disk ?

Hello, can you please tell me if i can migrate from ds218 to ds923+ using hdd migration?

Thanks in advance

Good presentation. 19 years ago, I sold my networking business. I recall all the horrible backup systems that we deployed and all the trouble to setup systems with modern tech would be so simple, an so much more affordable too. I recently added a Synology NAS to my home network. I did this because I noticed that the Seagate Central NAS's install date of 2014 and it used a single disk that probably isn't anywhere as good as modern NAS drives. We use cloud accounts too so the Seagate failure would be a critical issue, it mostly has our DVD collection. Anyway, sorry for being verbose, your explanations saved me a lot of research on the plethora of options on the Synology platform.

@spacerex Can the back up to USB be both ways. If I make any changes to the External hardrive will it make them to the NAS

Informative video. I'd say to folks to think about your use cases as you allude to. I have seen people lose their life's photos or data because of no backups. My use cases are mostly photos and ripped music. Your advice on offsite is excellent. I actually backup locally with HyperBackup, then also do Active Backup for bare metal restore. I then backup the stuff done with HyperBackup offsite (in case something happens to the house and kills the NAS(s)). Given my RTO (Recovery Time Objective) is not super critical, all of that serves my needs. In the use case, think about your RTO, i.e. how long it takes to recover, and RPO (Recovery Point Objective), i.e. how far back do you need the data. I only keep transient data on my PC, so all of the permanent data is on my NAS(s) and triple-covered. While Active Backup is capable of restoring individual files also, Hyper-backup makes a lot more sense in that respect as you don't have to go through the portal or really even hunt for files in a funky file structure. Build your use case(s) before you decide what methods you will use. Yes, I know I'm a bit retentive on this, but hope this helps in addition to SpaceRex. I can always rebuild a NAS but I can't produce my data out of thin air.