Synology DS214 NAS Drive
I always wanted to get a NAS drive – as a way to ‘back-up’ the data (documents, movies, music and other files etc) that I don’t want to lose off my laptop, so I decided to succumb to the cost-effective way of achieving this, by getting a NAS drive.
I previously, did an adhoc data back-up, which resulted in buying standalone USB back-up portable storage drives, and using Norton Ghost or similar to create an image of the hard disk drive to the separate drive, but this has its own limitations. I didn’t do this often enough, and it was a bit difficult to access the files.
Whilst using a NAS drive, I would be able to connect it to my wifi and use the local network to store the personal files and data onto the NAS and then I could look to ensure it is saved with some level of redundancy (mirrored over 2 HDDs) and could then limit the storage on my laptop. In theory, I could also set it up so that I could access the documents from anywhere, securely. But at this time, I didn’t want to open up this function just yet.
I decided to get an Synology after a local electronics store suggested that this was a cost-effective personal storage device name that I could trust. Looking around, I decided to get the Synology DS214 – with a 2-bay storage – and I set it up to mirror across both – meaning that there is at least one back-up of the data each time it is saved. I decided to get two 3TB Western Digital drives – theoretically this means I can get 6TB of storage, but as I mirrored them, this means I only get 3TB storage but mirrored across both HDD for double protection – just what I need!!
I’m glad I did this now (albeit maybe later than i really should), and now should look to try to get the data copied across from my laptop. This should also ‘free-up’ the data on my laptop, and ensure I can clean-it up properly, as it is running quite slow with the limited amount of HDD available on it now.
Would highly recommend getting a NAS drive if you haven’t yet done so – and it’s easy to set-up and use 🙂
