After recently loosing our NAS drive and important data on it, I’d like to get a more reliable replacement and use RAID 1 to mirror data.

Any recommendation for a simple, easy to use setup that will handle a handful of devices? Needs to be mac compatible and around 2TB.

Look for QNAP (http://www.qnap.com/uk/index.php?sn=5042&lang=en-uk)

We operate a couple at work in raid 5 and these replicate between one another for added data protection. Very easy to set up and use and I would highly recommend.

The Register NAS Review
Worth a read I recall, they did a 4 bay review later on I think.

I’ve had a 4 bay qnap unit for about 3/4 years now. It’s been very reliable, and large external (single) drives weren’t available at the time, but it was quite expensive and if I was buying again now I’d just get a couple of 2-3Tb external drives and set one to mirror on a nightly/weekly basis. If I was really concerned about my data I’d get a third drive to keep off-site.

With a Mac you have the option of FireWire or Thunderbolt which are both significantly faster than a NAS or USB drive.

Remember no backup solution is 100% effective, even a NAS drive. Multiple drive failures (unlikely but possible) will lose your data as will fire/theft etc if you have no other copy.

I have a DNS-325 with 2Tb of raid1 stored under my floorboards, with vitals backed up online and on DVD. No idea about Mac compatibility though.

Either synology or qnap… Both v good. Both Mac compatible. Raid 1 isn’t a real backup. All data you care about you need to have backed up somewhere else really..

RAID Explained with Pictures

RAID 1 will give you redundancy if 1 disc fails as the data is mirrored.

edit# anything that holds all the data in 1 box has a catastrophic failure issue (fire/theft/jug of coffee) if its very important it needs backing up to off site.

Yup exactly… I have raid 1 but also have an offsite copy updated every two weeks for photos and music..

Raid is fine but I would also do a a second physical back up, I have had a couple of raid failures over the years where we have lost two discs at the same time and depending on raid config that can be catastrophic, we relied on external backups to recover from those.

Have two separate copies of your data it will be cheaper than using a data forensics company to recover data if they can from a failed disk.

I’m not going to recommend a Qnap – I want to recommend 2 of them. In different locations, set to replicate from one to the other.

If you have a spare PC, all you need is a couple of 2TB disks and a USB stick (for OS partition)

NAS4Free (previously FreeNAS) is fantastic.

We use Synology. They work really well and are pretty robust – especially as we travel a fair bit with ours, so they get thrown around. We use ours with both pc and mac.

Got a Synology, is a great bit of kit and plays very nicely with OSX. As others have said, RAID isn’t a back up – my Synology automatically backs up to a USB drive every week, which I then take off site and keep in a bank vault leave exactly where it is.

I use a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo. Put in whatever size drives you want, RAID 1 mirroring and in the setup tick the “Time Machine” option and you can use it as a Time Machine drive as well as a NAS. It can also stream your music, videos and pics to your network out of the box as well. Works for me 🙂

Oh, and if you want super secure backup for some stuff, for a fee, the Duo will do off site backups. Not to storage of your choice though, to their service.

I was going to say Qnap or Synology, but others have beaten me to it 🙂

Thanks everyone.
I don’t need business levels of backup, so I think RAID 1 will be OK. Maybe back that up periodically onto another drive kept elsewhere.

Currently looking at the Buffalo Linkstation Duo. Or would it be better to get an empty NAS and buy the drives?

RAID is not backup.

It simply saves you time restoring data from your backup if a disk dies.

Either synology or qnap

+1

I’ve also used a Buffalo linkstation which was cheaper but I prefer the above

The problem with just using RAID is that if the RAID hardware dies it can be a real pain to get your data back – unless you want disk redundancy or some of the other fancy features of a RAID box then you’re probably better off plugging a USB drive into your router, or paying a small monthly subscription for an offsite backup service.