NAS Suggestion?

[kevang]

Shopping for a NAS that will accept Time Machine backups from 2 machines (an iMac & a MacBook Pro), plus allow for external storage of large image files from both machines.
Cloud access isn't really a factor, strictly local access.
Ideally a 2-drive unit that i could simply assign one drive to each computer, but allow for sharing or read/write permissions between both drives.
8Tb total would be lots
Don't need RAID
Thanks in advance for your suggestions

 

[Raz0rEdge]

What as your research brought up as contenders so far?

Unless I'm mistaken, NAS' will always be RAID'ed and you wouldn't assign a specific drive since that becomes a single point of failure. Any decent NAS will support Time Machine.

I had a Netgear NAS for a number of years which I've replaced with a Synology NAS that does everything you want and more. There are NAS' with a minimal 2 bays to 16 or more. I've got a 4-bay system.

 

[kevang]

Just reading up thus far I've narrowed it down to the Synology DS218, the Buffalo 220D, or absolute last pick the Western Digital EX2. I've had horrible luck with WD in the past, so i'm leery going that route.
Synology says their multiple drive units can be configured to operate each drive in RAID or independently, but it's a pricey option. So i was just wondering if anyone has specific suggestions.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Ideally, you'd want to go with the RAID option, less for the total space you can access but for the fact that the data exists on multiple drives, so should a drive fail, you can just replace that drive without losing all of your data. Backing up your Mac's drive to a single drive on a NAS doesn't give you the benefit of doing the backup.

What is your budget? Synology, IMO, has excellent products.

 

[kevang]

I'd like to keep the whole thing under $600 if that's practical. Just been reading up more on a couple of the Synology units, but i'm not finding an answer to whether or not i can use the same drive to back up multiple computers... that's why i was thinking of using the two drives independently.

 

[kevang]

Just to explain in a bit more detail ... my wife & i are both photographers, both use medium format DSLR's that produce rather large RAW files (my Pentax cranks out 250Mb files, her Mamiya creates files that are over 300Mb sometimes). So we need a solution we can back up to, and store/share image files (i do the editing for both of us)

 

[Raz0rEdge]

The following article shows you the instructions to setup Time Machine on the Synology NAS'. The assumption is that it's meant for a single Mac. But what you would do is name the shared folder in the first part with a unique name (like your computer's name or your name) and then when you create the user in the second part, give it the same name and give it access to just the shared folder you created previously. Repeat this process for the other Mac and now you have 2 sets of username/passwords accessing folders unique to it.

Within each Mac use the appropriate credential to enable Time Machine and backups will happen to appropriate folder across the RAID so you have a built-in backup.

I have 4 2TB drives in my NAS and have a collective 5.4TB of space available. You'll want to think about 2 use cases here. One is an ongoing Time Machine backup of your files from the 2 Macs. The other is quick access to files you don't want to keep on the Mac itself through a mounted folder that you can delete/manipulate as you see fit, more like Dropbox/iCloud.

With the file sizes you are dealing with, I'd recommend that you go down the hardwired Ethernet route between the Macs and the NAS to not spend a ton of time waiting over WiFi.

 

[kevang]

That's exactly what i needed! Thank you!!
Your advice about separate folders for each backup makes perfect sense. Then just use the 2nd drive for storage?
I was thinking the same about hardwiring the NAS, lots of real estate where the router is sitting anyway

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Don't worry about specific drives, use the NAS in RAID mode and have as many drives as you can plug into it (depending on what you choose) and then create the shared folders in the collective space that will be created.

 

[kevang]

Done! Just ordered a DS220+ with a pair of Toshiba drives ...

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Excellent choice.