Setup raid nas for mac software#
Setup raid nas for mac free#

Setup raid nas for mac free#

The advantage of using Time Machine is that it can automatically back up your Mac every hour, but if the backup target is not available, your Mac stores snapshots of all your files each hour (if you have enough free space on your computer).

Using a NAS with Time MachineĪpple’s Time Machine, built into macOS, is another useful backup tool, and many NAS devices can use Time Machine. If the folder on the NAS isn’t mounted, Personal Backup will mount it and run the backup.Īs with all backups, your first backup will take some time, depending on what you’re backing up, and subsequent backups will only write files that are new or have been changed, so if you are backing up a lot of files, it’s best to run this first backup overnight. For example, if you use Intego Personal Backup, which is part of Intego Mac Premium Bundle X9, select the folder you’ve set up on the NAS for backups, and Personal Backup will automatically back up your files at the frequency you choose to the NAS. So you can select that folder as a target for backups. When you have mounted a folder on your NAS, the Finder treats it like any other folder. Double-click a folder to mount it and access its files.

Setup raid nas for mac software#

You’ll see any folders that you have set up, and that are accessible to your user account, along with folders the NAS’s software created. Double-click the NAS, then enter your user name and password. Choose Go > Connect to Server, then click Browse to find your NAS.

To access your NAS, you mount its volume in the Finder. I’d recommend turning off AFP on your NAS, if it supports this protocol, and using only SMB it’s more reliable. AFP, or Apple Filing Protocol, has been deprecated, meaning that it still works, but that Apple doesn’t recommend using it. Your Mac can use two networking protocols: SMB and AFP. This process is different on different devices, but there’s a gotcha on Synology’s operating system: filenames have a maximum of 143 characters in encrypted folders, compared to 255 characters in normal folders. To set it up for backups, you should encrypt that folder, to make sure your backups are protected. When you set up your NAS, you create a user account, just like on your Mac. I have a Synology NAS, and here’s what I see in my browser: They either offer their own apps for configuration or you set them up in a web browser. NAS devices today are relatively user friendly. See this article to understand the different types of RAID. This allows extra data protection, and for backups, it’s a good idea to consider using a NAS with RAID. If you buy a NAS that holds two or more drives (for the most part, NAS devices use hard drives, but you can use SSDs as well, though they are much more expensive), you can set it up in a RAID configuration. While you can use a NAS for many tasks, I’m just going to talk here about backups. And some are just used for file sharing and storage. Others can be used as media repositories, with the ability to stream music and photos for example, you could store your iTunes or Music app library on a NAS. Many NAS devices are used to stream video, with software such as Plex, and have processors that can convert video on the fly. It uses little power, and is always on, so you can access it at any time. It’s useful to think of a NAS as a hard drive with an operating system, which allows you to create user accounts copy and manage files, and more. You could put a NAS in an out-of-the-way location such as a closet, for example, as long as it can connect to your local network. Some NAS devices have wifi, and some allow the use of wifi if you connect a dongle to a USB port on the device. Your NAS could connect to your Mac via an Ethernet cable, and could be in the same room as your computer or it could be in any location as long as it can access your network.

To set up and manage a NAS, you connect to it over a network. What sets a NAS apart from a small computer such as a Mac mini is the fact that it doesn’t need a display in fact, NAS devices don’t have video cards, so you can’t connect a display to it. It can be as small as a single hard drive in an enclosure, or it can be a rack-mounted device with a couple dozen drives or more. What’s a NAS?Ī network-attached storage device is a computer with one or more drives designed to store files. Here’s why it can be convenient and practical to use a NAS for backups, and as a personal cloud. You can use an online backup service if you have the bandwidth, but a practical way to back up your Mac locally is to use a NAS: a network-attached storage device. It’s easy to connect an external hard drive to your Mac to back it up, but if you use a laptop, you might forget to do this regularly. We all know how important it is to back up your Mac.