NAS & Time Machine & Lion & Homeplug

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Hi all,

I have been reading for days now about backup solutions for my iMac and I have reached the stage where after I have a lot of information now floating around my head, I need some actual advise from people in the know or have similar setups.

Essentially, for security reasons (fire & theft) I am planning to buy an external network storage device and locate that in my cellar. I live in a 6 story apartment complex and the cellar is completely separated from our apartment. The hope is, that if there is a fire or a theft, it will be one or the other rather than both.

In order to reach the cellar, I plan on using a Homeplug solution, i.e. ethernet over the power cables. As the cellar electricity is billed to us, I am assuming it is over the same circuits as our apartment and thus this solution should work (I will be testing it before buying any networked hard drives of course)

My first question is this: Will there be any unexpected issues running Time Machine over this Homeplug solution?

Secondly, as I have a late 2010 iMac (now running Lion) with a 2TB HD + 256GB SSD, I need at least 3TB for the backup. The Time Capsule from Apple seems like a great piece of kit, with the exception that it is quite expensive for only 3TB and that it is only 3TB.

But, I have heard of many problems with people running third party NAS's with Time Machine, especially with Lion and potentially with the Homeplug. Am I misguided here?

Can anyone recommend a NAS, 3-4TB in size that is good value for money, low energy and works flawlessly with Time Machine over the network?

Has the 3rd party NAS issue with Time Machine and Lion been resolved?

Because my initial backup will be so large, I am guessing it would be best to do the first backup with the device directly connected into the iMac for time saving issues. So, I guess the NAS should also have a USB port or something.

I appreciate your advise. I know lots of people have asked questions about NAS's but they can get rather confusing, especially when taking into account the various issues that can crop with with 3rd party devices.

Likewise, if the honest answer is stick with the Time Capsule, let me know as well.

Thanks...
 
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2011 MacBook Air, i5 27" IMac, 2010 21.5" IMac, 2010 Mini, 2011 13" MBP, IPhone 4, Airport Extreme
Sounds like there would be no security for the drive your going to put in the basement. What's to stop some one from just walking off with it? Personnaly I use Carbonite for backing up online. I also use an external drive for Time Machine, but that is kept in my office. The online backup is for recovery in case of fire/theft.
 
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If you want to go the NAS route I would pick Synology or QNAP. I personally have a Synology DiskStation and I like it alot. They were one of the first to support Lion and Time Machine. They have alot of other options too and you can scale them up with several disks so you could run a RAID configuration if you wanted. They also support backups to AWS (Amazon Web Service) S3 so my important files are on my NAS and secure on AWS every day.
 
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Sounds like there would be no security for the drive your going to put in the basement. What's to stop some one from just walking off with it? Personnaly I use Carbonite for backing up online. I also use an external drive for Time Machine, but that is kept in my office. The online backup is for recovery in case of fire/theft.

The same security as the computer, behind a locked door. One is in the basement, the other is in the apartment. Of course, I would like the Time Machine in the cellar to be encrypted. Can Time Machine encrypt the files?

I would love to back up online but as my files take around 2TB of data this is not an easy option. It would take forever to make the initial backup. I know some companies offer to take a physical hard drive for the first backup, but this also requires purchasing a 3TB hard drive to cover everything just for that one off use. But then some of those services don't offer a Hard Drive for recovery. If my iMac was stolen, I wouldn't want to wait 6 months for the 2.2TB backup to finish downloading.
 
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If you want to go the NAS route I would pick Synology or QNAP. I personally have a Synology DiskStation and I like it alot. They were one of the first to support Lion and Time Machine. They have alot of other options too and you can scale them up with several disks so you could run a RAID configuration if you wanted. They also support backups to AWS (Amazon Web Service) S3 so my important files are on my NAS and secure on AWS every day.

Thanks for the Synology tip. Can I ask some questions here?
1) How easy is this to set up for Time Machine?
2) Hmmm, as a NAS, maybe I can use this also as my SqueezeCenter Media Center. I just checked and both the Synology and QNAP allow this. I am assuming that despite being at the end of a Homeplug, it would still be seen by everything else on my network?
3) Would I need to place two hard drives of the same size inside? I would probably get the 2 Bay system and don't plan on any RAID (I just can't afford a redundant RAID system). But I have a spare 1.5TB drive so I would like to add a 2nd 2TB drive which should give me enough. I know some NAS devices require both drives to be the same.
 
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It was extremely easy to setup Time Machine. You just go in and enable AFP which it has a manual on how to do and then select the folder or drive you want to put it on. They have a good amount of support on their forum that can help with any issues you might run in to. Using a powerline adapter won't matter because it still connects to your router which is on your network so no problem there. I don't think it matters what size the drives are and that you can vary sizes on the drives if you like. If you find a model though it should say in the specs or manual somewhere if that is possible or the Synology forums probably have the answer to that one. Synology makes a good product and I've really enjoyed mine.
 
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Don't know about the Homeplug, but I am running an Iomega StorCenter NAS for my Time Machine backups. Seems to work just fine.
 

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