We’ve got five computers in our household. We’re almost like a small business – we need regular maintenance and backup. Rather than set up a separate backup device for each computer, I elected to go with a network-attached storage (NAS) device.
You connect the NAS device to your internet router. Your computer sees it as a network device that it can use for backup.
It’s a great way to add storage for backup and also for shared media. You can even set up your NAS device to make your data available securely over the internet for when you need to access it outside of your home or office.
NAS devices come in all sorts of configurations. The basic configuration is a device with one drive “bay”. (You need to buy the hard drive separately.) I opted for a device with two drive bays. I installed two hard drives and configured the device so that the second drive is “mirrored”, meaning that it’s an exact copy of the first drive. (So it’s a backup of the backup.)
Here’s a device like the one that I have: Synology NAS Drive.
On Windows computers, the drive needs to be “mounted”. Your device will typically come with software that will help you to configure that. Once you’ve mounted the device, you’ll be able to access it just like you would a local device.
On Windows 8 and Windows 10, you can set up Windows File History to back up to the mounted drive. For Windows 7, it’s easiest to install backup software from the device vendor. On a Macintosh, you can select the network drive when setting up Time Machine. (You may need to configure your NAS device first – check the manufacturer instructions.)
The household computers are all backing up to my NAS drive on a daily schedule. I don’t have to worry about data loss.
It’s a nice solution if you have more than one computers.
Get the “Controlling the Chaos” Newsletter and receive a free PDF download
“Drowning in Email – A Lifeline for Communications Overload”
