Purchasing a NAS - Storage Adventure #1

I've managed to keep all the files that I've worked on since I was in school up until now. It mounts to around 1 TB of data, most of it unorganized. I like keeping all those files but never find enough motivation to sit through and organize them. There are a lot of duplicates and random data, even several folders containing the entire C drive of my early 2000s laptop, simply copy pasted without any organization.

I'm also a big believer in data backup, especially the 3-2-1 data backup approach:

• Three copies of data (1 original + 2 copies)
• On Two different media
• With One off-site copy

Early Storage Journey - External HDD + Student Google Drive

I started my data storage & backup journey around 2013 when I was in university. Back then, I stored and backed up my data to 2 places - a 1TB WD External HDD & my Student Account Google Drive, with "unlimited" storage.

In the external hard drive, I backed up everything - photos & videos, school files, university files, games, programs, phone & laptop backups. In the Google Drive, I only backed up my university files, part of it due to internet uploads still being slow around that time so it's almost impossible to back up all my hard drive contents to Google Drive. Back then I think my internet speed is still around 1MBps.

As far as I know, my student account comes with "unlimited" Google Drive since it's pooling all the storage quota of all student accounts. Given there are several thousands of new college students per year, each with their own account, I guess "unlimited" sounds pretty valid, especially since my university never shuts down the account of those who have graduated (my account is still active until now).

Back then, I also didn't know that the workspace admin can see your drive activities. So this approach is super bad for privacy.

Here is my WD 1TB external HDD, securely stored in one of my desk drawers.

Second Storage Journey - External HDD + PC HDD

I bought my very first PC on the year 2020. It has a total of 3TB storage (2 x 512GB SSD, 1 x 2TB HDD). I need 2 SSDs since I'm dual booting Linux & Windows, and the 2TB HDD is dedicated for file and game storage. This is the first time I decided to have 2 copies of my data backup, in my external HDD and my PC HDD.

Around 2022, my university also decided that everyone will only get 2GBs of storage on their account, which results in me emptying my Google Drive.

Third Storage Journey - External HDD + PC HDD + Personal Google Drive

I first heard about the 3-2-1 backup concept around the year 2023. I want to try implementing it and the easiest way for me at that moment is by using Google Drive (again) as the one off-site copy. This time, I use my own personal account and paid for the 2TB storage. I would've paid for the 1TB if it exists, but Google has their own subscription strategy so there's nothing I can do. To go on a bit of a rant, there are no storage option between 200GB and 2TB, up until now.

This 3-2-1 setup is quite simple. I simply installed Google Drive on my PC, then set it to sync a folder in my PC HDD. It will show up as a "Computer" in Google Drive's web console.

Look at these storage options from Google!

Current Storage Setup - External HDD + PC HDD + Synology NAS

Early 2025, I finally decided to buy a NAS. Three main reasons:

1. Google once again increases the price for its 2TB plan. As someone who only uses around 50% of the storage, this stings.
2. I've been meaning to tinker around with NAS as one of my personal projects.
3. I've realized the danger of being overreliant to a single company in your daily life. If something is to happen to my Google account, I'm at risk of losing a lot of things. Granted that storage is only one of the many Google products that I'm using, so this only solves part of my problem.

In the end, I decided to buy a Synology DS224+ along with a 4TB Seagate Ironwolf Pro. I think this is a quite good entry level setup, given I only have around 1TB of data to store anyways. The purpose of this NAS is not only for backup, but also for day to day use. I plan to have all my files stored centrally in this NAS and be able to access this NAS from everywhere.

In total, I spent around 8.2 Million Rupiah (around 490 USD), thanks to multiple promotions from Indonesia's online e-commerce platforms.

Why Synology?

Note: I purchased this several months before the whole Synology Hard Disk Lock fiasco.

Before purchasing, I've done a fair bit of research on NAS. I've watched a lot of videos from NAS Compares, Space Rex, etc. My final choice is between Synology DS224+ and QNAP TS-216G. Hardware wise, QNAP offers a much better hardware at a similar price point, but I like Synology's software more. I've planned to use Synology Drive as Google Drive replacement, and Synology Photos as Google Photos replacement, and much more. In the end, it went down to how easy I can start integrating the NAS to my daily life.

Regarding OSS such as TrueNAS or FreeNAS & OpenMediaVault, since this NAS will be used daily and also part of my backup strategy, I need to make sure that it is stable. I don't have enough knowledge and experience and time to trust myself to keep it stable.

Off-site backup

As of now, I've moved all backup on Google Drive to my Synology NAS. I haven't deployed an off-site backup yet though since my NAS and my PC is still under the same roof. I'm looking into using Backblaze's B2 storage as my off-site backup since I find that the pricing are quite good and a lot of people seem to recommend it.

What's Next

On the next part, I'll probably talk more about how I set up my Synology NAS and integrate it on my daily life. I'll also work on setting up an off-site backup to finally have a proper 3-2-1 backup.