How do I back up a Synology NAS?

[#1]

I've just bought a Synology NAS and am trying to learn how to use it for best effect.

One of my concerns was to find out how to back it up, and, if necessary, do a restore after a hardware problem.

I've downloaded Hyper backup and backed up a shared folder to a USB drive attached to the Synology - I can see how to do a partial restore of some or all of the data - so far so good.

I then looked at backing up "the entire Synology NAS" and was surprised to see that there were only two options for destination - C2 Cloud or another Synology NAS. Looking at the full system restore options in Control Panel there were only 3 options - C2 Cloud, Active Backup for Business and Hyper Vault.

So, if I don't have a second NAS, and don't wish to pay for C2 Cloud storage, are there any other ways I can make a "full system backup" of the NAS and restore it to a bare metal unit later?

(Or is there a better approach?)

Thanks

Ian

[#2]

In backs up to usb HDD which I alternate

[#3]

@zpeterk Thanks for your input. Unless I'm missing something, that only works for shares and packages - not a "full backup" of everything including configuration, settings, how the storage pools and volumes are set up etc.

[#4]

These days with Servers and NAS boxes having extremely large disk storage sysyems it's unrealistic and uneccesary to do a "full backup".

Decide how important the data is, what you can afford to lose and what you need to keep . Decide what and how to backup your data and where to store it. The Synology box does have an option somewhere to backup device settings. 

[#5]

@IMM 

I have had a Netgear ReadyNAS home server for many years, and the question of how to back up all the settings always concerned me.

The only "solution" that I have come up with so far is to take screenshots of all of the relevant pages in the ReadyNAS's GUI and store them separately.

.

[#6]

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@Mr_Paul wrote:

@IMM 

I have had a Netgear ReadyNAS home server for many years, and the question of how to back up all the settings always concerned me..

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@Mr_Paul 

System/Settings/Configuration Backup ?

[#7]

@RobPN 

"System/Settings/Configuration Backup ?"

Thinking about it, I'm sure I tried to use that many years ago after I had to factory reset the system, (IIRC, the anti-virus stopped updating), but it didn't restore. I assumed at the time that the backup I had made previously was corrupt.

I don't think that there is any way to test the validity of a backup, other than to try using it to restore the system - is there?

I have found what appears to be a backup config file from 2018, and I have just taken the opportunity to create another - but if they both let me down, at least I now have my screenshots if needed!

.

[#8]

@Champnet Thanks for your input - I had wondered whether people used a different approach.

I suppose that means that I should change the question to:

In case of disaster, how do I restore my NAS - either with all new drives, or indeed, with all new hardware if that would be different?

For the purpose of this discussion, we'll assume that I have recently backed up all of my shares to a USB Hard disk using Hyper Backup and backed up the configuration from Control Panel to the same USB hard drive.

What are the steps to get back to where I was with the NAS before the disaster struck?

Thanks
Ian

[#9]

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@IMM wrote:

In case of disaster, how do I restore my NAS - either with all new drives, or indeed, with all new hardware if that would be different?

For the purpose of this discussion, we'll assume that I have recently backed up all of my shares to a USB Hard disk using Hyper Backup and backed up the configuration from Control Panel to the same USB hard drive.

What are the steps to get back to where I was with the NAS before the disaster struck?

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I have no experience with Synology devices but maybe this process would work for you.

[#10]

@TheRoadCrew Thanks for the link. The method is very similar to some of the Synology knowledge base articles on how to migrate from an old Synology NAS to a new one. 

A summary would seem to be:
Install DSM on the new NAS
Reload your configuration settings - (well some of them, some do not transfer)
Restore your data from the backup - (It's not clear to me whether the original storage pools and volumes are recreated - I think not)
Compare your old NAS and new NAS and then manually change any settings in the new NAS that have not been set by the migration process. (and install missing packages)

As in my "disaster recovery" scenario there is no working "old NAS" to compare with, it looks like I may need to resort to @Mr_Paul 's suggestion of a folder full of screenshots showing the current setup.

Whilst I accept @Champnet 's comment that for NAS with huge volumes of data a "full backup" and "Restore" is not practical, in my case the amount of data is fairly modest and would easily fit on an external HDD.

The backup and restore process for my old Windows home server was much more straight forward:
Use the recovery media to boot into windows PE
locate the backup files and restore all the files and settings to the repaired server
The server is then back to exactly how it was at the point the backup was made - no need to manually compare and change settings.

Thankfully I've never had to do it for the server, though I did use the method to restore my other half's PC when the hard disk died. It was all very easy.

Ian

[#11]

@IMM  How many drives have you installed and how have you set them up ?

[#12]

We have a couple of Synology NAS drives: they each have a USB drive connected, and we run a nightly task on the Synology to back it up to that USB drive.

[#13]

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@Champnet wrote:  How many drives have you installed and how have you set them up ?

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I have 4 drive bays - 1&2 have 6TB drives set up as one storage pool in Raid1. There is 1 volume of 2TB and the rest is, as yet, unallocated.

The other two drive bays are empty.

At the moment I'm just trying to understand how it works, how to back it up sensibly and how to ensure, so far as is reasonably possible, that I don't lose my data. I've only got one share set up with just a few files for trials.

@paul_blitz Yes, that's my intention, to have a USB HDD dock and back up to that on a regular basis. I was just a little surprised that I couldn't back up the "entire system" to it - only files and folders.

I'm still thinking about Off-Site storage in the cloud but that will probably have to be data only as I don't want the expense of several TB of system and computer backups. Trying to work out the pros and cons of Synology C2 storage Vs Backblaze or another.

Ian

[#14]

@IMM   Even using raid 1 you have some protection. Replacing a failed drive will auto rebuild rather than having to restore the data. I wouldn’t bother with multi volumes on a 'single' disk system. If wanting to segregate data consider using a directory structure.  I.E.Data for users & groups, Media for videos & music,

[#15]

I was thinking of having one volume for "Shares" and one for "Computer Backups", thus limiting the amount of space that I use for the backups. Following your comments, I can now see that I could achieve the same effect by using directories and giving them a maximum quota. This may be more flexible if I want to change allocated size in the future. Thanks for the pointer - I'll have a think about it.