network attached storage

Kyle has a home theater PC loaded with media and backups on ten different hard drives that he swaps out. Leo calls that a JBOD (just a bunch of discs). But Kyle is having an issue with the drives getting errors while erasing and starting a new backup. Leo says that the flaw could also be in the backups themselves. It also changed to MBR (master boot record) and cut the drive storage in half. He also can't reformat it with GUID using Windows 10. Is there a special utility he can use? Leo says there is an MBR to GUID command in Windows.

Michael says the time has come to let go of his Apple Airport and update to a new router. Leo says new mesh technologies do a better job and Apple hasn't kept the Airport design up to date. But Michael uses Time Machine to back up his Mac. Do any of the mesh systems offer USB support? Leo suggests going with Network Attached Storage or NAS and backup that way. That will work with any router. Leo prefers Synology, and you'll also need to buy the hard drives to put into them. A good two drive model would work great, and it supports Time Machine. It also backs up to the cloud.

Scott is having issues with his Synology NAS. He can't access it remotely. Leo says it sounds like a settings issue and he recommends going into the router settings and see if the router can see it. Then reserve the DNS number that's listed for that Synology. If it doesn't, there could be a problem with your router or with a power surge that fried your board. But that's unlikely. 

Tony has a Synology NAS, but the public folder disappeared from his Windows PC. And Windows won't let him browse to it. Leo says SMB has to be enabled for the folder to be discovered. It's the networking protocol that Windows uses. It will also give you a password challenge. But once you input the password, Windows should remember it. 

Ivan has a 2 drive NAS that has files he needs, but the RAID 1 hard drive are reading as corrupted. He believes it is the corruption of one, synced to the other. Leo says that the hardware is probably fine, there's just corruption in the files themselves. But it could be a physical issue making it worth using SpinRite to repair it. However, if the corruption has spread, that points to a software error in the files, not the hardware itself.

Brett is worried he's been hacked. He used UNRAID to create his own Network Attached Storage. But he recently got a message that he had 114 login attempts on his network. Leo says that it is very common. Any server that is online and attached to the internet will be attacked. Mostly by a bot that is programmed to look for servers online. Make sure you have security features that only allow logins from approved regions, IP addresses, or from your work. There should also be a feature that will lock out an IP address that keeps trying to log in.

Gifford is getting a new Mac but he also needs some storage for his 6TB of data. Is a Drobo a good option? Should he build a Hackintosh? Leo says that's a fun project, but it'll never be as reliable as a bonafide Mac.

Paul's WD NAS can't be seen on his network after changing the cable connector. There's a red light that says "I'm not working." Leo says he could try to use another computer with the dashboard software and connect directly, bypassing the router. If he sees it, then there's some issue connecting through the router. Leo says that Western Digital's NAS is terrible. Definitely not his preferred NAS. They fail more often than others. Leo prefers Synology.

Aaron has a Synology NAS, and he handles a lot of really large image files. But they load really slowly. Leo says that while loading it can bog down and there are several issues in the chain. He shouldn't treat his NAS as local storage. He should transfer his data to a hard drive. It still shouldn't be that slow, though. Leo suspects a misconfiguration issue. Aaron should make sure SMB File Sharing is turned on. That could help.

Wade wants to know if he can use network attached storage (NAS) with his Chromebook? Leo says he can mount the NAS as a drive, and he can access his NAS through the web. But to do a direct backup using Chrome may be nontrivial. Wade should check out the Chrome extension Network File Share.