also RAID is not backup. :)
also related: https://www.jwz.org/doc/backups.html
> RAID is a waste of your goddamned time and money.
Backups are important, since they protect against most problems, whereas RAID only protects you from exactly one thing:
On RAID, when one disk has a hardware failure, the system keeps on running. In many cases, if you take appropriate precautions, you might even be spared a reboot when you unplug the failed disk and plug in a new, working disk. Otherwise you’ll simply have to shut down, quickly unplug the failed disk, plug in the new, working disk, start up and it’s all good again. You can even put off this downtime to a later, more appropriate time of the day. When the new disk is in the machine, the sync to the new disk can be done while the system is running, and the only system downtime is for physically exchanging the disks.
Without RAID, the hardware failure means that you:
1. Lose all files and changes since your last backup, and
2. Have significant downtime while you restore from your last backup. If done over the network, this could take a very long time, but even if restoring from local disk, copying takes a lot of time. While copying, your system is down.
Whether this means that RAID is a waste of your time and money depends on your personal tolerance of points 1 and 2.
This is true, but it's so worth noting some sync products (e.g. Seafile) can keep a history of changes, allowing you to restore deleted files.
Sync is not backup though, as you allude to.
I can even get the B2 URL and share a file anytime I want from inside my NAS.
Is it as easy as Dropbox? No, but I haven't missed using dropbox. I just mount my NAS to my RDP sessions when I need files "synced" between my various computers.
</rant>
Got a favorite NAS that works well? Without the risk of the vendor's cloud deciding to delete your data? I haven't yet picked one, beyond "what if I just used a Pi and some USB drives..."
If I was going to do it over again, I would get one of their commercial grade NASes/ They are a bit more expensive but have a decent CPU and RAM in them and can run VMs/containers/etc and be your own little cloud.
They also have some cool features like, the ability to link 2 remote Synology NASes together and sync back and forth as well as backing up to any backup service you want.
It can do anything the big consumer NAS can, and a lot more. If it fails, it uses off the shelf components.
The only thing that could have been done better is ECC memory (for some people that's a dealbreaker). In which case, one can get a server from ebay for a pittance which will fit the bill.