Synology BeeStation evaluate: An effective way to begin getting actual about backups

Dropbox will not be backup. A conveyable exhausting drive will not be backup. Actual backup, skilled individuals have instructed me, begins with the 3-2-1 rule: three copies, two sorts of storage (or gadgets), and one copy is distant.

And but my information backup system stays precarious. I’ve tried many schemes, starting from “pay for Google Drive area and simply dump all of it there” to “multi-platform rsync/crontab-based headless system I attempt to construct out with assist from StackExchange.” I strive to not be the particular person in an informercial, insisting that there have to be a greater approach, however relating to backing up music, pictures, cloud-based e mail and recordsdata, settings, and extra, I’m certainly that particular person. There has to be a greater approach, and it will possibly’t simply be the heavy raise of organising a Synology NAS, proper?

Nicely, what if Synology itself knew that not all people is able to turn into a self-employed, single-client junior sysadmin? That’s how I take into consideration the BeeStation ($220 as of this writing). It’s simply sufficient backup to be approach higher than what most individuals consider as backup (praying {that a} big company by no means loses or closes their account), however it’s nonetheless only one gadget. It could additionally create a fairly easy ascent to full-on NAS if this little style of self-directed storage spurs your ambitions.

Synology’s major pitch is that you should use BeeStation on “Your Private Cloud Journey,” with machine-learning object and face recognition sorting for pictures and synced, versioned recordsdata for working. On this stage, I’m not as impressed, although some individuals will possible recognize these self-hosted alternate options to Drive, Dropbox, Google Images, and iCloud greater than I do. They usually’re definitely a great way to get extra use out of your backups.

The BeeStation’s greatest characteristic is the way it makes good backup habits computerized. Inside a few weeks of setting it up, I had each my and my partner’s Drive and Dropbox accounts synced and commonly backed up; my older music, film, and miscellaneous recordsdata stashed away; and our pictures commonly backed up from our telephones. All this was then backed as much as Synology’s cloud servers each week (for an add-on price), and every thing was accessible remotely and on the native community.

{Hardware}

In the event you’ve ever owned a tough drive that rests inside a powered, exterior closure, you’ve had one thing just like the BeeStation. It’s a black plastic field, it has one or two cables plugged into it, and it sits there and infrequently makes some spinning-up or entry noises.

Not many noises, although, until you’re doing an enormous backup or are utilizing it as an ersatz Dropbox to work on recordsdata all through the day. The BeeStation’s innards are stuffed with heatsinks, passive cooling methods, and vibration dampers, and that design work has paid off. In comparison with a (non-Synology) two-HDD-bay NAS system that my BeeStation ran subsequent to, the BeeStation was comparatively meek and serene.

With out having owned the gadget for a full three years’ guarantee interval, I can solely converse to how little I observed this object throughout just a few months’ time in my workplace. Synology’s bee-themed branding is delicate, with only a quarter-sized emblem imprint on every dimension. There’s an influence gentle on the entrance to inform you it’s working, and plugs are within the again. The USB-A and USB-C ports are proper subsequent to one another, so for those who’re utilizing a very cumbersome thumb drive or cable head for both one, you may need to spend money on adapters or brief connection cables.

As for efficiency, that is not what this gadget is about. The Realtek chip inside is not going to be operating Plex, a torrent downloader, or something of the type (nor does the OS help that). After I handed it my full 140GB (compressed) Google Images export for importing into BeePhotos, it took a complete weekend for the system to decompress, analyze, and set them in place. Transferring recordsdata from a USB4 stick was as quick as I may think about it being; whereas I’m certain the 1GB reminiscence is a bottleneck, I solely do that just a few occasions a yr. As with all different backup plan, you need to solely have to sync the brand new and adjusted recordsdata as soon as the majority is in place.