Best way to manage data for non technical user

[Newc]

TLDR - what's current best practice to store important data for non-technical users ?

We have a family NAS with all the important files on it, which get a cloud backup, plus media. One of the Newcettes has moved into her own place, and wants something similar but absolutely does not want to be faffing around with the tech. While I am happy to set things up initially it must be something where all breakdowns can be fixed by 'have you tried turning it off and on again'.

There won't be any need to re-sync her stuff back into the family datastore. She uses Apple laptop, Android phone. None of the data will interest the NSA but it does have personal info in it so some kind of encryption for anything online would be welcome.

Are these the options ?
1 - move her entirely into cloud, Apple / Google, etc. Simplest user experience but lot of redundant storage of media files. Not encrypted unless individual files are before upload ? .
2 - replicate existing setup, Synology and automated cloud backup. Great till something goes wrong.
3 - weekly backup to memory stick. Needs user interaction, can't automate.
4 - split the stores. Media files and anything disposable sit on a cheap NAS with no backup, and all her data sits in the cloud.

Any fancy new approaches which I am not aware of ?

[Mr Pointy]

Sync says it's E2E encrypted:

https://www.sync.com/

[bitchstewie]

For normal people who just want to get on with life pick one of Google Drive or Dropbox (wouldn't go with iCloud unless you're really into the whole Apple ecosystem) and get on with life.

Copy/sync to an external drive as often as you think you need to.

[ARHarh]

Just give her external access to your NAS. There has to be a way to do that, never used an off the shelf nas but I can do it with opensource stuff easily enough.

[the-norseman]

Just use Google Drive, make sure her Google account as 2FA on etc.

[Captain_Morgan]

We use OneDrive and have a business set up but I suspect this could be done with most other options.

Set the data folder to be both on the cloud and locally on the device.

Then we backup via Time Machine.

We also have the data store shared to myself and my wife so it s present on 3-4 machines with 2-3 Time Machine backups.

I m assuming she could share her data with yourself and allow you to hold a local copy and also back that up via your nas device.


You could also consider syncthings and replicate to a google drive or drop box and also Time Machine the device.

It really depends on how much data is on the phone only

Edited by Captain_Morgan on Sunday 27th July 16:37

[Newc]

Thanks all.

I'm not confident enough in my own abilities to open up my NAS to outside connections, so I think that's out.

Collective advice seems to be cloud store, so I will head off in that direction.

[Harpoon]

Unless you are going to use something like Tailscale (free for the base Personal tier), I would NOT be exposing a NAS to the Internet. Lookup ransomware such as Qlocker which targeted QNAP NAS units to see the potential for really bad things to happen.

[drmotorsport]

Fancy new approach would be to print it all off and store in a filing cabinet in a room guarded by a Jaguar.

Or just keep it all in a cloud storage account with MFA and hope that said company doesn't go bust.

[Newc]

Thought I would come back with what we did eventually, in case useful for anyone else.

I installed Synology's Cloudsync onto the NAS, and pointed it at a specific folder.

The NAS logs in to my GDrive account, where I have created a new folder, and two-way syncs the two locations.

I gave the daughter's gmail account read/write access to the GDrive folder.

She then runs Google Drive Desktop on her laptop, and points it a specific folder on her Mac.

The GDrive desktop two-way syncs the Mac and the GDrive folders.

Anything put into the specific folder on either the NAS or the Mac appears in the other location in pretty much real time.

She also has a WD external hard disk on her desk, with a one-time copy of the NAS. Obviously that will not keep in sync, or be backed up, but that doesn't matter.

No tech support needed after the initial set up, all very easy.

Thanks again for everyone's suggestions, was very helpful.