QNAP NAS & Backup Software Experiences

by László L. Lieszkovszky

I've been recommending QNAP for my clients for over 10 years, I've found them to be expensive but reliable devices. In this post I'd like to share some of my experiences with these devices. I've never had one die on my yet (keeping my fingers crossed!)

Backup + Ransomware Protection

I like to have two NAS-s, preferably one on-site and one off-site. Users are able to store their files on shared network drives set up on the on-site NAS. My backup strategy is as follows:

  • Key folders are synced to the cloud (OneDrive or Google Drive)
  • The on-site NAS has a RAID for redundancy in case one of the disks fail
  • Locally attached USB hard drive for continuous as well as versionned backups
  • Snapshot Shared Folders on the on-site NAS for easy file history
  • File replication from the on-site NAS to the off-site NAS in case the former is stolen/destroyed by fire/infected by ransomware.

I've tried various backup solutions and ended up using Macrium Reflect. You can buy a perpetual license and it has a central management console which makes management a breeze.

Other Positive Experiences

+ One of my clients had to split his operations across two physical offices. At that time we purchased two devices and used the built-in replication functionality to enable users of both offices to work with the same network shares as if they were on the local network. We also had VPN running for very specific tasks, but transferring over that was less responsive and slower than just using the local shared drives and then letting the NAS replicate the files.

+ We also use QNAP NAS-s as backup devices both for computers as well as smartphones. Although QNAP has its own software for this, after trying that out as well as other software solutions (such as Iperius backup, Xopero, and more) we settled on Macrium Reflect. It has its own set of issues but when it works it's fast and the central management console is great.

Issues

We Purchased a TVS-472XT recently for my home lab, this comes with Thunderbolt 3. Great, I figured it'll be a breeze to connect my girlfriend's laptop to it. Nope, not so easy. Read my post on the topic!

I'll keep this page updated as I can.

Thanks for reading and have fun!