Getting My First Synology
After two weeks of attempting to fix Duplicati issues with BlackBlaze’s B2, I decided to get a Synology DS220+.
I’ve been considering getting a Synology for about two years but decided it was too much of an overkill. Between my org-mode Syncthing setup and an SSH/SMB file server, I was pretty much covered. Later on, I bought a double-bay hard drive docking station, mounted two 500GB HDDs on it with a scheduled weekly rsync from one to the other, hence creating a make-shift RAID 1 solution that way.
Last weekend Duplicati stopped working. I’ve attempted to fix things myself and asked for help on the forum, but there’s a limit to what volunteers can do with limited time and resources with an application they create in their free time. Duplicati is an excellent tool and it saved my files a couple of times. I had a hard time stopping troubleshooting and deciding to move on; not just because of the issue with Duplicati, but also because I grew out of basing my critical files backups on a raspberry pi and two used hard drives. It’s time to move on.
First and foremost, DS220+ is a reliable data backup solution, especially with BlackBlaze new S3 and Synology’s Hyper Backup. It’s basically plug-and-pay, and I believe it also performs faster.
Second, if I have any problems similar to the ones I’ve been having, I have Synology support to help me out. Rubbing my head and do a week-long troubleshoot is not something I want to deal with when it has to do with my critical files on the line.
Third, I will be able to provide OwnCloud to important people in my life who need something more friendly than running SSH in terminal. This will also make these files available on the phone which I’m planning to eventually wipe from any Google services.
Forth and not directly related to Synology, space stops being an issue. That’s because I’m planning to replace the 500MB hard drive with 6TB ones. Photos, important documents, music, and movies storage will simply be a non-issue.