Advice setting up NAS

Any advice would be appreciated as I really haven't got a clue how to set up what I want and the more I research the more confusing it seems to get.

The sd card on my phone got corrupted not long ago, luckily I managed to get all my pictures from it but it given me a kick up the bum to get my pictures and files backed up.

So I've connected a 32gb memory stick to my bt home hub 6, I've set it up and now can see the files on my laptop and home pc, I belive that I have created a Nas?

I'd like now to be able to transfer files automatically from my phone to the nas which is on all the time, then when my pc with lots of hard drive space is turned on the files from the nas will get backed up over 2 or 3 drives on the pc.

Do I need to install something onto the memory stick in the home hub to make it a nas or is classed as a nas and do I need to install software on the nas to be able to connect to it with my phone to automatically transfer the files?

NAS stands for network attached storage you could loosely call the shared storage your router can expose as a NAS generally though it's a dedicated system. The features of most routers that allow you to share storage is extremely limited. There are plenty of backup applications out there that may be able to accomplish what you want. I generally just stick to writing PowerShell scripts since they can accomplish the same thing. There is a learning curve though if you've never worked with PowerShell and an application may suit you better. The other option would be to purchase a dedicated NAS that has multiple drives and is in a RAID for data redundancy. Synology makes pretty good NAS systems that have lots of features and are pretty easy to setup.

No Ive never had any experience writing Powershell scripts and for just the basic backup is all I need so was hoping just to be able to do it with the hardware I've got, I think what I'm struggling with is if my main pc is shut down would the router be able to receive files to the USB storage?

Hi there.

Rather than go for a dedicated NAS system IMO a better (and usually cheaper) way is to use an old computer (or even one of those small HP micro cube servers e.g gen 10 ProLiant microserver) and run any sensible Linux distro on it.

You don't need dedicated graphics, it can run headless (i.e you don't need to have a keyboard/mouse/monitor attached) and RAID is easily managed by software. You don't even need a powerful CPU either -- a lowly Intel Celeron often will work just fine and of course power consumption will be very small so ok to leave on 24 hrs a day. Decent HDD's and network are the important factors.

Just populate the HDD's you want, use preferably an ethernet cable to router or wifi extender device and share the HDD's via SAMBA. You could start with just 1 HDD.

For setup temporarily plug in mouse / keyboard/monitor but once up and running you can access the NAS via RDP from a windows laptop etc.

While learning install the Linux system with a GUI -- once you are happy with how the thing works simply re-install the OS without GUI - for simply using as NAS you don't need GUI.

If you want to try out Linux first why not install as a Virtual machine on Windows - VMware player or Vbox both free will run on Windows Home, or on Pro in addition you could use HYPER-V.

My problem with things like dedicated NAS systems is that the OS is proprietary and not easy to install additional software whereas on standard Linux systems it's a breeze and easy to back up data from windows.

Don't forget that even data stored on a NAS (of any type) should also be backed up regularly -- if it's multi-media files then these won't change so you only need to do an original backup and then backup new files loaded to a NAS. If you use a Linux system with a GUI program GRSYNC is absolutely first class for that.

I use 2 HP proliant microservers as NAS systems -- the only time they ever get re-booted is if I need to upgrade hardware (rarely - only larger HDD's) or upgrade the OS for a new Linux kernel - that also rarely.
Some systems will also allow you to hot swap HDD's -- mine don't but the small cube factor with bays for 4 HDD's is more than sufficient plus boot and OS on an SSD.

These servers will also boot from internal micro sd cards etc if you want -- once Linux has booted the boot partition isn't needed again so best way is to boot from sd card which loads OS onto the SSD if your system doesn't boot to SSD directly (the HP Gen 10 does -- connect SSD to where a DVD goes - you don't need the DVD on a server).

Cheers
jimbo

Some great advice there Thank you
Ive had no luck with USB stick in the router I'm going to have a look at filezilla that's been mentioned but I think soon as the pc is shut down the USB in the router will disappear.

I do actually have a redundant HP proliant t an n40 I think, that was being used as a media server a couple of years ago I'll dig that out andchaveca look but it does sound like a daunghting task, obviously the synology sounds like the easiest way forward but I don't want to spend (haven't got) the money.

Hi,

Have you considered installing the OneDrive app on your phone? You can set it to automatically upload pictures to the cloud, then on to your OneDrive folder on the PC. You then have a copy on the cloud and a copy on the PC hard drive. I think you get 5GB of storage for free.

I did have a look at it for a while but decided it wasn't what I was looking for, but thanks