What's the error message? By right it should not be an issue for zip files to sync.

Google Cloud: We do use some SolarWinds, but we weren't affected by mega hack

Hope really not affected. Otherwise the biggest data breach ever.

Seriously, that is one of the most easiest thing to do for PC assembling.
If you not confident on assembling PC components, you can pay any PC shop to do it for you. It is just for one time job.
Most of your time will be spent on software side. Prepare to spend hours to configure everything. A lot of IF this THEN that.

Means Google also scan the content of zip files that's uploaded.

You mean NAS that won't upload the file? If you use your PC with GDrive, can upload the file. But only it won't be downloaded into NAS?
I found this same situation but with Dopbox
https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-ins...ver/td-p/458051
Maybe Synology are over restricting or follow the cloud provider requirements. Can try rename the file or set password to encrypt the file, see it that can bypass the restriction.

Default is 5000 and 5001 if not mistaken. Control Panel > Network > DSM Settings to change DSM ports

Advisable change since hacker will target the default port.

This post has been edited by xxboxx: Jan 25 2021, 01:28 AM

Port numbers can run from 0 to 65353. Port numbers from 0 to 1023 are reserved for common TCP/IP applications and are called well-known ports. You should avoid using these ports. Above 5000 should be more safer. You can check at Control Panel > Firewall > Edit Rules to make sure built-in apps not using the port number that you will assign to DSM. Google it too to make sure it's in conflict with other important usage.

1. What's the reason you want to encrypt certain folder? If you don't want other user to see or access the folder you can make it not available to that user.

2. You can expand to RAID-6, but conversion will take ages. Faster way will be to delete the RAID-5 pool, create RAID-6 pool with the additional HDD. Make sure to have backup of your data.

3. Can mix disk size, but the all disk can only use size as the smallest size HDD. If got 3 12TB HDD and 1 4TB HDD, all 4 disk is available size to use is 4TB.

4. Up to preference really, and available bay. I got 4 bays only and all is utilized.

5. If your HDD is heavily and frequently accessed, and mission critical, better to have spare. If can afford downtime then can utilized it as separate volume for scratch files.

6. Yes, can. Using Hyper backup to make backup on another volume of my NAS, on external drive through USB, and rsync backup to another NAS.

7. I think how each app was developed that resulted as such. DS Photo the first and thus using Photo folder. Moments was part of Drive so it is in Drive folder. I don't know the upcoming Photos will be in which folder, but heard it will be the app that will merge DS Photo and Moments.

Additionally, see this video, he give good advise why one should do Snapshot. And since it's automated and doesn't really cost a lot of space, everyone should really have Snapshot on all their folders


This video also teach the safer way if your NAS can be accessed from internet

Those running Plex server and also have UPnP enabled in their router should disable UPnP for the time being until Plex is patched.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/plex-media-se...r-ddos-attacks/

$400 a year.. really better invest on NAS.

Got 3 main NAS brand in market, Synology, QNAP, and Asustor. Synology got the most polished software, QNAP better hardware, Asustor more on budget friendly but software not polished.

1. All NAS should be able to do backup of photos and videos from multiple phones. Laptop/PC backup also all should be able to do it. I'm using Synology and they have Active Backup for Business which it also can make laptop/PC drive's image backup, not sure the others have such functions.

2. Synology have almost same functions with Google. I got write a review at Reviews and Guides sub-forum, you can read it there. Not sure about QNAP and Asustor.

3. Same as Google Drive, data that can be constantly edited or deleted should not be consider as backup. With NAS you can make a volume for active data, these are data that sync with your phone and laptop/PC. Then make another volume for backup of those data. The best backup practice is follow 3-2-1 backup rules.

4. As my recommendation of NAS to handle 1 volume for active data and another volume for backup data, suggest to get at least 4 bays NAS. These day it's better to get NAS with Intel/AMD CPU that have at least 2 cores 4 treads, and 4GB RAM. You can get 2 bays NAS just for backup, but once you discover what else it can be use for, you will find the 2 bays will limit you from achieving it.

5. Get NAS hard drive, it is designed for running 24/7 and have vibration sensor to optimized performance. Though got 1 consumer NAS HDD that doesn't have vibration sensor even though it is the most expensive, and recently exposed to be using SMR drive. On the plus side, didn't hear much reliability issue with it's drive. So pick your poison.

6. Get UPS, preferably that have data USB that can connect to the NAS, when power failure it will send signal to NAS which will shut down to prevent damage. Surge protecting also part of UPS.

7. Do exactly as Whatsapp backup at Google Drive? I believe all NAS can't do it. Luckily WhatsApp also can make local backup (backup on phone's storage) that can fully restore all chats and documents. What we can do is backup this local folder to NAS. Synology have it's Cloud app that can sync local folder to NAS, but it is only limited to 1 folder for sync. The plus side is can specify root as folder, but it means the whole phone storage will be backed up, even other files that you don't care to backup. Syncing will also take longer time since too many files need to check and sync. Another issue is the app will not be updated anymore, so there's risk. Asustor don't have such option. QNAP with it's QFile should be able to specify local folder to sync, but I'm not sure it will also be limited to only 1 folder sync or not. What I'm doing now is using SMBSync2 to auto sync few local folders to NAS using SMB protocol. The limitation is it can only work when I'm connected to my wifi, but it's good enough for me. I'm actually now writing guide how to automated backup from phone to NAS using SMBSync2, can have a read later once I post it. If want to backup over internet can use Syncthing, but more things need to setup on NAS.

8. All 3 NAS have friendly interface these days. They are more similar to Chrome OS or Linux OS but it's not much different than Windows OS. What is different is you need to approach it as system admin handling multiple users accounts, including your own phone backup. This way to ensure security to your NAS. See it as you are Google while your family members is Google's users. You need to set what they can and cannot access. Also use 2FA as an additional security.

9. That's a very tight budget. Unfortunately good spec NAS with 4 bays is 2k above, and that haven't include HDD. For HDD you can get 2 HDD first and use RAID-1. When in future only get additional 2 HDD or more.

Happy hunting!

Ya, I'm running pihole on DS920+, install from docker. Just updated it few days ago, with docker it is so easy.
No issue with stability or any other issue. With intel Celeron/Pentium CPU, it's powerful enough to run pihole effortlessly.

I see your NAS is single core 1.2GHz, that is very slow by todays standard. I think your router have more powerful CPU than that. Can use router to download torrent, less strain on NAS.

If you get new NAS, can use your old NAS as additional backup for your important files. Can even use it as offsite backup if can put at other place and have fast internet.

Don't have experience with that UPS. Another thing to consider is the UPS battery can easily get and easy to replace. Battery doesn't last long, few years then it will die. Changing it's battery will be cheaper than getting a new UPS.

I'm running 2 dockers containers, RAM usage is almost 2GB. With some for caching, I think at least need 4GB. If want to run VM then 8 or 16GB only enough.

Docker is like mini VM. Instead of whole OS virtualization, it only virtualize the program (Docker call it as container). In locked OS such as NAS, with Docker you can run program/container that are otherwise not available. There's thousands of programs/containers that you can run. One of the most famous will be pi-hole. I also use it for jdownloader.

I don't think it's the NAS that detect bad sector. The HDD itself that detect it and inform the OS. The HDD also will do marking on the map table that the sector cannot be used anymore. What's the ID number and attribute from S.M.A.R.T info?

You can try hook the HDD to PC and check for any error or bad sector using program such as CrystalDiskInfo.

Firstly, you need to understand what is DNS and DNS Server. From Cloudflare site:


DNS Server is the one that manage DNS. It will periodically connect with other server to update the ip address for url.

Pi-hole mostly used for DNS server. Do you change your DNS server to use Google's 8.8.8.8 or Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1?
The reason to use other DNS server instead of default ISP is for bypassing blocked site or security purpose.
Now more people are using pi-hole instead because the DNS list also include list of url to block, such as harmful site url or advertising url.
Usually you will install adblock on every computer browser or phone, but if the router is configured to use pi-hole for DNS, all the devices that use the router connection will be filtered by pi-hole.

Jdownloader is usually used for direct download. Some download site limit your ip can only download 1 time then have to wait how many hours/day. JDwonloader if configured, can make your router disconnect from isp and then connect back to get different ip. It also block cookie and change it's id so that the download site can't identified you, unlike internet browser. Jdownloader also can be used to download youtube video/audio/subtitle.

Edit: added the bold

This post has been edited by xxboxx: Feb 27 2021, 10:25 AM

VPN make sure which site you go can't be known by ISP or other device, such as the network server/router on your company or the cafe wifi router. All these let's call it as middle-men.
Example, you go to maybank, lowyat, youtube website. But you're using, let's say VPNnord, all the middle-men see is you only going to VPNnord site. Thus the middle-men can't monitor what you're doing or steal your credential. Only the VPN know where you actually going and the data that's being exchanged, and there are cases of VPN company that give the user logs to govt when requested.

Even if you use VPN, you can still be misled to fake site as the website address is determined by DNS server, as explained below.

DNS server is the phone book. Let's say you want to go maybank site, you type maybank2u.com.my, the DNS server that check what are the ip for that site, in this case it is 118.214.167.79. DNS Spoofing is when an attacker change the maybank ip to other ip, usually to fake site so that they can steal your credential. Your PC or phone will think it is the correct address, even sees maybank2u.com.my at the address bar.


Use ISP DNS will concern of security and privacy plus no blocking of ads. Use Google DNS will concern of privacy and no blocking of ads.

Ya, I got Snapshot running on all my shared folders. If there's no changes to the files it didn't take any additional space for snapshot.

I also created a user account that can write to all the folders, I use this account when want to access the NAS from windows or browser to save/edit/delete files. The reason is if hacker manage to steal the credentials from my windows or browser, all they can do is delete/encrypt the files on my NAS, but they can't delete my snapshot.

Admin account I only use when want to do changes on some settings or check of everything running okay. I didn't save the credential on windows or browser for safety.

If master file is corrupt or data edited or encrypted, when synced all the copies on other places will also become corrupt or data edited or encrypted. Here is where Snapshot will come to the rescue. You can revert back the files to any of the earlier snapshot made, one that before the data is corrupt or encrypted. It's like Undo function on Word or Paint.

The beauty of Snapshot is it won't take much space if the files that always edited is not big. Let's say you got 20GB of photos and videos file, plus 200MB Office files. Those videos and photos you don't do any editing so it won't take additional space. The Office files let's say you'll edit 50MB everyday, and you do snapshot daily, everyday the Snapshot size will increase only by 50MB. And you also can schedule how frequent to take snapshot and long to retain the snapshot. I take snapshot every hours on my frequently edited files but I set it to only retain 1 snapshot daily, 7 snapshot weekly (means each day snapshot is retain for one week) and retain for 8 weeks. So at any time I can go back to my previous edited files all the way back till 8 weeks.

While both have same requirement of at least 4 same capacity drive and will give same usable space, they are totally different on how the data is being written across drive.

This is RAID10. The data is split into 2 copies and each 2 drives carry the same data. This method give a fast read and write speed but the cons is you can only lose 1 drive, if you lose second drive with same data as first drive then all your data is gone. The rebuild time is fast with this.


This is RAID6. The data and 2 copies of parity is written across 4 drive. This method give slow read and write speed but the ups is you can lose any of the 2 drives and still able to recover your data. Because the redundant data is not mirror of the original data, but instead a parity data, the rebuild time will be much slower as it need to calculate the parity data. And if you encounter Unrecoverable read errors during rebuild then all your data is gone.


You gotta weight which one have better ups and cons for your usage.

Bad SATA cable or connector also can cause communication error thus report it as bad sector. It's more usually happen to cable as can easily damage or low build quality cable. Try to clean the connector slot.

1 new drive and then 2 RMA drive, all end with bad sector? Is the HDD for usage in NAS? You could try getting HDD from different brand to eliminate the possibility the RMA HDD is problematic. But I feel most likely communication error due to damage or dirty connector.

First thing you should do is make a backup of your data, if you don't have it. Doing rebuilding put a lot of stress on the remaining HDD and if another HDD died all the data will be gone. This is assuming you are using RAID5 or SHR.

I also got RMA 1 WD HDD last time, sticker write as RED but it's not red colour sticker.
After use about 1 year the drive died.

Yes, can. If 1 more drive fail during rebuild, all the data will be gone.
Also would be better to use BTRFS filesystem with SHR/RAID5, this filesystem when doing reading/writing will calculate checksum to make sure there's no data error.
If during rebuild and there's data error also will caused all data to be gone.