Sorry for the long post but I 'm looking for clarity on Synology functionality before jumping in

[G+_Alex Howard]

Sorry for the long post but I'm looking for clarity on Synology functionality before jumping in. I appreciate any feedback.

 

My situation: I'm currently using a Time Machine to external drive with my iMac for local backup and the soon-to-be-discontinued CrashPlan for a cloud backup. I also have my wife's PC backing up to a local drive with no cloud backup. As I hardly ever use my desktop anymore, I've been basically only using it to very occasionally stream Plex, to sync local copies of my iCloud Photo Library (to then be backed up locally and to the cloud), and to store local copies of my music library (which is synced to both iTunes in the Cloud and Google Music). My iPhone is my primary camera and those photos are synced to my iCloud Photo Library and Google Photos.

 

I've been contemplating a Synology NAS to house Plex as well as for backups which would allow me to shut my iMac off until I actually need to sit at it. I would like to back up my Mac and my wife's PC to the NAS, then use a cloud service (like B2) to back up that data offsite. So I've got a few questions regarding Synology that I haven't found firm answers researching.

 

My wife and I both love Google Photos, which my wife uses exclusively. Using Google's Backup and Sync, her Google Photos get copied locally so they can be backed up locally. I also use Google Photos but just as another cloud sync with all the cool features of Google Photos. The only files my wife cares about on her computer are her iTunes Library and her photos.

 

So I'm looking for a local strategy to replace and shore up our local and cloud backups. I understand the difference between backing up our data and backing up our computers. I like the idea of a recoverable workstation backup on the NAS in case I need to restore one of the computers. I want this for ease of recovery. I also want to back up our photos, music, and my smattering of documents to a local drive (the NAS) as well as offsite (B2 Cloud).

 

1. I know that you can locally sync Google Photos to a Synology NAS by enabling Google Drive, setting Google Photos to appear in Google Drive, then having the Google Photos directory on Google Drive sync to DiskStation. Does Synology DiskStation support multiple Google accounts so I could get local copies of both my wife's photos as well as mine?

 

2. I like Apple Photos as a desktop app, so my thought is to schedule my Mac to wake up at least once a week or so, allow the local iCloud Photo Library to update, fit in a Time Machine backup, then shut down. My goal mostly is to preserve a local copy of my iCloud Photo Library (for a local backup, cloud sync, and cloud backup). I don't think there's any direct support for iCloud Photo Library with DiskStation, but I believe that I can copy my Apple Photo Library to a share on the NAS and use Apple Photos to reference that library. Does that sound reasonable?

 

3. Does anyone know if Moments is smart enough to grab album data from either iCloud Photo Library or Google Photos? If you are using Apple Photos or Google Photos to optimize space on an iPhone, thus deleting local copies from the phone, will Moments be able to trigger Apple Photos or Google Photos to pull copies back down to send to the NAS?

 

I know I could just keep doing what I'm doing with the two computers with external drives and just get two BackBlaze accounts for $100 a year which is much cheaper than any Synology and drives. My goal in this is shut down both desktops more often (thereby saving some power), since they're rarely used, and possibly replace my wife's aging Lenovo desktop with a Chromebook or Chromebox for when her iPad isn't enough.