Local drive to backup three machines.

Local drive to backup three machines.

Author
Discussion

Zio Di Roma

Original Poster:

621 posts

44 months

Saturday 15th March
quotequote all

I've got 2 PCs and a mac. I'd like to backup all of the files from them.

What do I need in terms of a storage device?

Cheers.

Captain_Morgan

1,307 posts

71 months

Saturday 15th March
quotequote all
How much do you need to back up?
How often will you back up?
Is the plan to automate the backup or manually copy?
Will this be a full or incremental?
Are you planing to backup to - a network drive or direct attach storage?
What price did you have in mind?

BlackTails

1,081 posts

67 months

Saturday 15th March
quotequote all
A solution:

You need a NAS attached to your router. Map the NAS on each machine as an external drive, then use backup software on each machine to backup to the NAS.

Depending on whether your machines have wired or wireless connections to the router, and what else is connected to the router, you may need a switch between the router and the NAS. It depends on whether you have a spare port on the router and are happy having a NAS sitting next/close to it.

Edited by BlackTails on Sunday 16th March 13:19

GlenMH

5,309 posts

255 months

Saturday 15th March
quotequote all
Or Backblaze for a cloud solution.

wombleh

2,016 posts

134 months

Saturday 15th March
quotequote all
Not used them myself but synology boxes are well thought of for this sort of thing, looks like ds223 is the current one for home use.

Craikeybaby

11,031 posts

237 months

Saturday 15th March
quotequote all
Another vote for Synology - it doesn't even need to be a new one, anything from the last 8 years or so will run the latest operating system.

ATG

21,872 posts

284 months

Saturday 15th March
quotequote all
Without a bit more information than "all of the files" there's really no point suggesting solutions.

Zio Di Roma

Original Poster:

621 posts

44 months

Sunday 16th March
quotequote all
ATG said:
Without a bit more information than "all of the files" there's really no point suggesting solutions.
W7 machine with old word docs, excel and Jpegs.
W10 machine with some of the above. Onedrive account that I'd like to backup locally.
Macbook with some jpegs. I cloud account with lots of photos.

ATG

21,872 posts

284 months

Sunday 16th March
quotequote all
Test to see if I can post anything to this thread ... real reply keeps getting a blank screen with "would you like to translate from Danish?" prompt because Pistonheads forum software is ... special

Edited by ATG on Sunday 16th March 08:27

ATG

21,872 posts

284 months

Sunday 16th March
quotequote all
Ok, well I guess my reply contains some magic character sequence that the forum software can't handle, which is a bit silly.

One shiny pound coin says it's because I've used the word "data" a few times

Edited by ATG on Sunday 16th March 08:27

Griffith4ever

5,286 posts

47 months

Sunday 16th March
quotequote all
Synology is a good solution providing you can schedule the backups when you know your machines will be powdered on.

Synology NASs come with Active Backup for Business app on them. You create shares on your computers, then point Active Backup for Busines at them. I set each PC up as a "File server" in the app. Cant remember why but for me it worked better than the "PC/Mac" alternative.

Mime backs up every Thursday and I get emailed a report. If it failed I turn on the PC and then trigger the backup again as it was off when the backup ran, if it says "partial success" then I close outlook and trigger the backup again as I know it cant backup outlook.pst when outlook is open.

This makes it a partially manual process but it gets done, and the emails are pretty much reminders.

I do incremental and they take leas than a min. I backup all of my docs, outlook, photos.

I also auto run hyper backup (software Inc on the NAS again) to copy the backups to a small USB had which I take out the property when im away for over a week.

There are a miryad of ways to backup but this is one of them.

Captain_Morgan

1,307 posts

71 months

Sunday 16th March
quotequote all
As already asked, can you give some more data?

Captain_Morgan said:
How much do you need to back up?
How often will you back up?
Is the plan to automate the backup or manually copy?
Will this be a full or incremental?
Are you planing to backup to - a network drive or direct attach storage?
What price did you have in mind?

eeLee

908 posts

92 months

Tuesday 18th March
quotequote all
Synology + Syncthing
Syncthing on all three devices syncing data only to the Synology
Add Time Machine for the macOS machine.

Don't bother backing up the OS.

Condi

18,524 posts

183 months

Tuesday 18th March
quotequote all
Another vote for Synology, get a 2 drive NAS and then you have a backup inside your backup. (2nd disc mirrors the first, they do die occasionally).

Synology have their own photos app, which you can install on your phone, and automatically backup images directly to the drive from where-ever you are.

It's not the cheapest thing to set up, by the time you've bought some drives and the NAS it's a few hundred quid, but the peace of mind and no ongoing subscription are worth it IMO. Also quite powerful if you want to run other applications directly from the NAS, which might not appeal now, but in future could be handy.