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Comment by reducesuffering | Hacker News Reader

My parents actually use this Western Digital MyCloud as a local backup because of concerns about data being exported out to cloud servers a la Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc. Are there any recommendations for good local backup solutions for middle aged people not great with tech?

Edit: Needs auto-backups, so it has to be more than a USB or old computer.

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Synology NAS. Synology does a pretty good job updating their software, and it's a core part of their business.

With WD it's like they just wanted to bolt on some NAS features on the cheap and the result was the current mess.

Synology is a totally different price range though. You'd pay the same for the empty NAS as you'd pay for the WD with the drive included :)

But then again it's clear that you get what you pay for.

A two bay disk-less filled with ~2tb drives is only slightly more.

I've waffled between 2-bay and 4-bay for personal use. Currently on 2-bay, but semi-regretting - I feel like 4-bay would offer more notably more flexibility with drive expansion options. (Assuming single parity drive and SHR-1 in either case.)

Synology. QNAP is good too but Synology is probably the easiest to use and they have very strong and long-standing software support.

Edit: QNAP has had some security issues too. I’ve had Synology gear for close to a decade, interspersed with DIY servers and homelab stuff and really, really like it. If I were getting my parents a NAS/backup system, that’s what I would get.

I've thought about that exact scenario - getting my parents a NAS/backup system - and I'd go for Synology if my parents were within driving distance, but they're across the country, and I don't feel like it's quite at the point where it would be free of maintenance to the degree I'd want.

(Especially considering the covid situation, where I haven't been able to see my parents in a couple years now due to quarantine requirements.)

I own a Synology, but I'm still not opening it up to the internet. I use a Wireguard VPN on a RPI to access it.

It's a minor inconvenience, but I can sleep sound at night knowing my NAS isn't being wiped by a zero day.

Many home routers include an option to plug USB storage into it. From there you can just mount it on the computer and use the OS's built-in backup software: they all have some, automation included.

Edit: Seagate doesn't seem to make the option I mentioned for them. Removed.

A simple external USB drive will work though: Windows 10 has built-in automated backup capabilities. Actually it's been possible since at least XP.

Home routers aren't exactly known for getting regular firmware updates or being super-secure either.

Internal devices are typically isolation from the world though, unless you have NAT punch a hole through it. It doesn't matter (as much) if the router has security holes if a hacker can't get to it from outside the network. I don't recall hearing of any hacks that have pushed through the ISP's modems, down to the router, and into local devices without ports punched through NAT to the outside world.

An Intel NUC style computer with openmediavault, or other easy to use open source NAS solution is what I would use in that case.

If you don't care about the small size of a NUC, an old office PC with a couple hard drives should do well.

Sadly keeping a general purpouse server OS consistently secure and patched up is not realistic for "middle aged people not great with tech". I wonder if there are good affordable ways to outsource this...

Agreed. GP reads like the famous Dropbox comment. That just isn't realistic for people that aren't very tech literate.

If only the OS was simple to use and updated itself...

I have a gigabit connection and am disgrunted that I can't self-host most services I need without turning it into a 2nd job

I run Debian on a small file server in my parent's house. Granted I had to set it up for them, but after configuring unattended upgrades, I only needed to work on it to upgrade from Debian 8 to 10 because it was getting close to being EOL. I keep SSH open to the internet in case I need to troubleshoot something. Their computers automatically run weekly incremental backups and it's transparent to them.

It's not the best solution, but it works reasonably well with little maintenance on my part. On Windows you can set a smb drive to mount automatically at boot and it'll behave like a normal drive. So it was easy to explain to them that you can access that folder from both machines simultaneously.

I agree that this is not a good solution for someone that has to set it up themselves. In that case I'd recommend something like a Synology unit.

I'm surprised people recommend OMV. It's very "Web 1.0" with its user interface IMO.

I use it myself heavily but that's because you can install it on top of regular debian. So you get a NAS that you can customize to the wazoo. Which I do, it runs a lot of custom scripts. I basically use OMV only as an easy GUI for adding shares, changing out drives etc. I could do it all by hand and perhaps next time I will.

However I wouldn't choose to run it if I didn't have that requirement. There's much more modern options out there.

What made you choose it yourself?

A USB stick works well, or a USB drive if more space is needed.

The go-to standard for quite awhile. Unfortunately, it doesn't come with the convenience of auto-backups and runs the risk of being lost along with all the memories and data it contains.

Make a copy of your parents' backup and keep it yourself.

I have a friend whose grandparents took tons of film of him growing up. Then their house burned down, all lost. Give a backup to an offsite family member.

Those cloud service companies have better security than your parents' house. Especially if you use them with a backup tool that encrypts with a key only you have.

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