This is not a post on how to choose a NAS box. This is also not a post to provide a step-by-step guide on how to configure one. This is also not a post on how to do enterprise backups, while some concepts apply, i’d say that this is mainly for personal backups.

This is a post to share the choices that i made to create a back up plan for my media such that i minimize the risk of losing the media that has been accumulated throughout my PERSONAL life. Some of these are irreplaceable memories of phases, experiences that are usually nostalgic and you definitely don’t want to lose them.

[This post was inspired by a conversation that i had with a retiring colleague/friend who just ventured to purchase a Synology NAS, with the goal of backing up his photos from his upcoming travels and perhaps to catalog them. As we chatted, i realized that i am repeating the comments, recommendations that was provided, to many people, many times over the years.

My choices has served me well all this while and has been running the same way for almost 10 years. I have not had major issues and failures, even though some outages has induced panic for a while, it has always been recoverable.

I hope that by sharing my backup strategies and rationale here, it will help someone in the future.]