[Annoucement] QNAP x WD Special Giveaway | World Backup Day 2025 ─ Share Your Backup Story and Win the Prize! (Closed)

[ProAudio]

As hobbist music producer and independent researcher in music information retrieval (ISMIR), I do have a lot of valuable data. In addition, my wife also has sometimes some video processing projects.
My music production workstation has around 12TB SSD. Whoever in music production has a decent collection of sample based libraries and a lot of audio projects, they know, without backup to rebuild, reinstall all the things, it can take two or more weeks. Not to mention about the irrecoverable loss of original material. Therefore I am using a more comprehensive backup system which can be short described as the following:
I have a QNAP NAS, the TVS-872XT with 8x8TB disk and two NVMe for cache. That is connected with 10GBps ethernet with the music production DAW PC, through a QSW-M408-4C switch. Another small NAS, the TS-431K with 4 disks, but 14TB each. The small and slower NAS is the backup of the TVS-872XT, just in case something tragic happens with the main, fast NAS.
Since two months I am using Hyper Data Protector in the NAS and QNAP Netback PC Agent in the Windows PC side. I backup all the SSD disks, which is significant amount of storage.
My network security constraints are somewhat restricted, since I had some deliberate attempts by some adversaries, to break-into my home network. I am really careful what ports I allow to open etc. I use WireGuard VPN access for myself when I am out of home and still need to access something from my NAS. But when I collaborate with others, I prefer not to bother my musician friends to deal with VPN key setup etc, instead we use myQNAPcloud provided services to get accessing my shared things.

Today’s story is more about the latest experience. Often, musicians cooperate around the world, therefore in addition to fast network access, are really important to have features like QNAP has, such as the possibility of sharing.
I just introduced to my friend musician this QNAP cloud and sharing. He is living in Vietnam and I am living in Switzerland. We managed to share some important files, which otherwise would be really inconvenient to transfer by other means. I also want to convince him to share his experience here, in the hope that he or myself win also some prize. Let’s see how is going on…
Cheers,
Tibor

[Ryan]

Ransomware attack

Right around the time the Port of San Diego was hit with a ransomware attack, my home network was hit by the same group of people (same variant of ransomware). At the time I had very limited backup of everything. I had turned off snapshot on my QNAP to try to squeeze more space out of it and windows had its shadow volume disabled for reasons I do not remember. I was eventually able to piece most of the documents and photos back together through old hard drives I had that had copies and the ransomware failing to encrypt everything. I learned a lot from that experience and I have hardened my home network and have made my backups extra redundant. I have a TVS-h1688x that is my main NAS, and I have it setup with a sizeable snapshot history and two TL-D800Cs that get backup every day, and another QNAP NAS in a separate building that also receives a backup from the main NAS and is only turned on when its receiving a backup.

[HandeX]

I have all my own photos and movies in electrical format since 1980 or so (all paper photos, slide pictures (aka dia) and video tapes are digitized).

Also, I keep my own computers and servers’ backups and my sister and brother families backups in my home NAS’s.

So, my “rig” is quite complicated

I have 3 physically separate location (distance between places is more than 100km):

Location 1: Home

TS-9359X with updated RAM 16GB

10 x 4TB WD Red Pro

Location 2: Work home (work there weekly)

S-459 Pro II (weekly backups)

4 x 4TB WD Red Pro

This NAS I plan to replace next, before summer

Location 3: Work

Asustor AS-608T (only monthly backups)

8 x 4TB WD Red

Oldest but still working, but no updates, so EOL soon.

QNAP NAS’s are sync every night if there is changes in one of them (new pictures/movies).

Backups are scheduled weekly and when needed (before large updates etc).

Also I have several External WD 2TB hard disks for long period backups (every even month updated) and those I keep in office safe.

I my work place for work use is “little bigger” rig in similar use,

[dan.ipcam.home]

"The Unexpected Rescue of My QNAP TS-253Be NAS"

Hi everyone! I’m Daniele, a tech enthusiast but—I’ll admit it—a “complete beginner” when it comes to complicated stuff like Linux, servers, and impossible configurations. Yet, despite my lack of experience, my QNAP TS-253Be has become my everyday hero.

It all started when, after years of chaotic hoarding, I realized I had family photos, important documents, and work projects scattered across two PCs, an external hard drive, and… yes, even a lost USB stick hiding who-knows-where. The digital clutter was suffocating me, and then—disaster struck—my external hard drive decided to quit on me without warning. Goodbye, Greece vacation photos from 2018.

The Savior Arrives

After the initial panic, I decided to buy a QNAP TS-253Be NAS, lured by the promise of “ease of use” and “automatic backups.” As soon as it arrived, I plugged it in (after a few failed attempts— okay, maybe I reversed the cables), and started exploring QTS, QNAP’s operating system.

“Wait, this looks like Windows!” I thought, relieved. No command lines, no weird code, just intuitive icons. I set up my first RAID 1 (thank you, step-by-step guide!) and configured Hybrid Backup Sync to automatically back up all the important folders from my devices.

The Crisis (and the Miracle)

Two months later, while working on an urgent project, my PC crashed with a devastating blue screen. Nooo, I have to submit this file tomorrow! But then I remembered—everything was on the QNAP.

With my heart pounding, I turned on my laptop, connected to the NAS via File Station, and boom—the file was there, untouched, in the synced folder. I even recovered an earlier version thanks to the snapshots I had unknowingly enabled by accident (thanks, QNAP, for being smarter than me!).

Life with QNAP Now

Now my TS-253Be does everything:

• Backs up my daughter’s photos straight from my phones (thanks to the Qfile app).
• Streams my movies to the TV without buffering (and my father-in-law thinks I’m a wizard).
• Makes me look like an expert in front of my friends (“Wait, you have a server at home?!”).

And the best part? I’ve never touched a single line of Linux. Everything works with clicks, apps, and a little trial-and-error.

Moral of the story: If a digital newbie like me could turn chaos into order with QNAP, you can too. And when you least expect it, your NAS will save your… backup!

[petri.voutilainen]

I have TVS-873 with 8x8TB, RAID5 with spare. 6 cameras are recording there and all the photos and own videos are also backed up there with 2 user normal data. Already had issues with USB drives but QNAP had saved me. Also spare drive saved QNAP storage when one of the drives failed.

[Goldie]

After many years of backing up data as I have always known data is not just junk it is life it is value & valuable infomation in itself for ever if you need a current backup or a previous before backup copy older before last it is important.
My story goes well back beyond 15 years ago when my puppy labrador was young & I alway did back ups back then but one of the backup system drives died that had the young pups photos on this and not having these elsewhere taught me a very valuable lesson so back then in 2009 I went out and bought a second nas system so I could basicly run a duplication nas system sperate on the same switch and manual copy thing that took time but both nas devices were mirroed back then but soon after I had moved them to raid 5 & they were on sata one interface hdds with 1gbe not like we have today.
But today is a different story back then I used a different brand of nas but they stopped making them and got out of the nas storage market so sold them on.
Today I run an 8 bay Qnap TS-873a I have this setup as a raid 60 with 8 wd red pro 4tb hdds and two wd sn700 nvme gen3 ssd 1tb in mirrored mode for cached mode for read write extra perfomance speed mode coupled up with a Qnap 10gbe nic for high speed to a netgear 10gbe multigig smart managed pro switch this is todays configuration before this it was two raid5’s with four wd red pro 4tb and four wd red plus 2tb to run as two seperate nas in the same nas enclosure but it runs better reconfigured as a raid50 with all eight being red pro 4tb higher speed better redundcy as well but I also keep the same data spread across other usb4 type c external wd red sn700 drives as a precaution so there is a online offline when ever it’s needed the morrel of this storey is you never know what is round the corner & I have always backed up weekly and snapshotted on every backup as an extra it makes sense your data is your life look after it.

[pasha]

Imagine losing precious files, hours of hard work, or cherished memories due to a hard drive failure. It’s a nightmare scenario that can be devastating. That’s why I’ve made it a priority to safeguard my digital life. My trio of QNAP NAS devices (TVS- h874t), and an offsite TVS- h874t) work tirelessly to back up my files daily, weekly, and monthly.

But backups are just the beginning. I also rely on my QNAPs for Surveillance Station, Music Station, QuMagie, Video Station, and Multimedia Console. With QNAPcloud, I can access my files, photos, and music from anywhere, on any device. This means I can share memories with loved ones instantly, and even stream my favorite tunes without relying on expensive subscription services.

What’s more, I’ve amassed an impressive collection of over 100,000 photos, all meticulously organized and easily accessible. Friends and family are often amazed by my ability to conjure up memories from years past, and I’m grateful to have a reliable system in place to preserve my digital heritage.

[security]

¡Mi historia con QNAP y las copias de seguridad!

Hace unos años, mi empresa sufrió el peor susto digital de su historia. Una tormenta eléctrica en plena temporada de lluvias en México causó un apagón inesperado. Cuando la luz volvió, varios servidores se negaron a encender. Entre el pánico y la desesperación, recordé que habíamos implementado un QNAP NAS con Hybrid Backup Sync para resguardar nuestros datos más críticos.

Con manos temblorosas, inicié sesión en la interfaz de QNAP y respiré aliviado: ¡Todas nuestras copias de seguridad estaban intactas! Restauramos los archivos esenciales en cuestión de minutos, y el negocio pudo seguir operando sin problemas.

Desde entonces, QNAP se convirtió en nuestro salvador digital . Ahora usamos QuDedup para optimizar nuestras copias de seguridad y myQNAPcloud para acceder a archivos desde cualquier parte del mundo.

Gracias a QNAP, aprendí que una buena estrategia de backup no es un lujo, sino una necesidad.

¡Viva México y viva la seguridad digital!

======machine translation added by dolbyman======
My Story with QNAP and Backups!

A few years ago, my company suffered the worst digital scare in its history. A thunderstorm in the middle of the rainy season in Mexico caused an unexpected outage. When the power came back on, several servers refused to power on. Between panic and despair, I remembered that we had deployed a QNAP NAS with Hybrid Backup Sync to safeguard our most critical data.

With shaky hands, I logged into the QNAP interface and breathed a sigh of relief: All our backups were intact! We restored essential files in a matter of minutes, and the business was able to continue operating smoothly.

Since then, QNAP has become our digital savior . We now use QuDedup to optimize our backups and myQNAPcloud to access files from anywhere in the world.

Thanks to QNAP, I learned that a good backup strategy isn’t a luxury, but a necessity.

Long live Mexico and long live digital security!

[eramon]

I think that using cloud storage services from Google, Apple, Microsoft, or any big tech company can be expensive and a gamble with your privacy.
To avoid that, my easiest solution was to build your own home server, and host everything directly from the comfort of your house.
Started with a QNAP TS-459 this NAS might have initially been designed for file storage, but QNAP has now matured into full blown home servers, with easy graphical interfaces and one click installable solutions that let you replicate virtually everything a home server could do, but without sinking so much time into learning how to actually do it.
Now I am using a QNAP TS-673A and both units performed faultless. Lost one drive on my RAID but got replaced without any problem, like never happen.
I weekly backup all my computers at home and once save my daughter’s laptop from a nasty spam. We restored her laptop with only a few files lost from the previous week. But her main university project was recovered making her more aware of the use of backups are a must!

[NzNady]

Im using my TVS-h874 for backing up my partners new YouTube videos for her business and backing up our devices, I’ve went with a massive server to help later on as we create more and more Data year on year!

[JC1]

Here’s my usage experience with the QNAP TS-664 NAS

First of all, I am complete new to the NAS world. The QNAP TS-664 NAS has been a stellar addition to my setup. I equipped it with 16GB DDR4, two 1TB NVME SSDs (KC-3000 recommended by QNAP) and five 20TB WD Red Pro drives, creating a robust and efficient storage solution tailored to my needs.

The initial setup was remarkably straightforward. After spending some time to watch a few QNAP YouTube tutorial videos, I quickly familiarized myself with the device’s functions and navigated the configuration process with ease. The guided resources made the onboarding seamless, even for a first-time NAS user like myself.

After wait a little longer than 30 hours to sync up all hard drives, I started to explore the capabilities of the NAS by installing multiple applications. All the apps I tested worked flawlessly, delivering on their promise without any hitches. QNAP’s Qfinder Pro proved invaluable for mapping the NAS as a network drive on my PC, while Qfile Pro on my Smartphone enabled effortless file-backup solution to the NAS. The synchronization between devices has been seamless.

Conducting a series of speed tests, I was thrilled to witness the device deliver on its promise of 2 x 2.5Gbps performance (I have Cat 8 cables for my entire high speed network). This level of speed met my expectations perfectly, providing a reliable and efficient experience across all my operations. I may upgrade to 10GbE to test the speed later.

One of the most significant benefits of the TS-664 has been its ability to consolidate all my storage needs. I integrated my existing WD external hard drives (two MyBook and one Easystore backup drive) into the NAS, centralizing over 65,500 pictures, 200+ videos and important family and project documents. Syncing data across all three PCs has been a breeze, and the backup functionality ensures that my critical files are secure. The convenience of no longer needing to carry portable hard drives for backups is a game-changer.

For the photo process, I did ask people about the TPU efficiency in the community, in the end of the day, I added a USB Coral TPU to the mix, and it’s sped up the photo processing in Qmagie, few times faster than just using the N5095 GPU. It’s made organizing and sorting all my photos a breeze!

Perhaps the most impressive feature is the ability to access my data from anywhere in the world. While traveling overseas, I could seamlessly retrieve files as if I were at home, transforming the NAS into my personal cloud storage.

Another standout feature is the QVR system. I have few surveillance cameras around the house, some of them support ONVIF format. Setting up my surveillance cameras on the TS-664 was super straightforward. The QVR software makes it so easy to connect, configure, and monitor all my cameras. The live view and playback functionalities are intuitive, and the NAS handles the storage of surveillance footage effortlessly. Now all footage is securely stored and easily accessible whenever I need it.

For the final word, over the past few months, the QNAP TS-664 has exceeded my expectations in every aspect. Its setup simplicity, application functionality, impressive performance, and enhanced data accessibility have made it an indispensable part of my digital ecosystem. This NAS proves to be a highly capable and reliable solution for my needs. I hope my experience will be helpful to others who are considering getting a QNAP NAS!

[suvarna]

Six months after implementing QNAP’s backup solution, with one of our Esteemed Customer who used after Many well-known brands in the market and experienced the true value of their investment. A ransomware attack targeted one of their remote offices, encrypting a significant portion of the local data. However, thanks to QNAP’s immutable backups and cloud integration, they were able to quickly restore the affected files and avoid paying any ransom. The entire recovery process took under two to three hours, compared to several days with their old backup system.
Moreover, the company’s productivity Increased because their backup strategy no longer involved manual intervention. They were confident that their data was safe, protected, and easily recoverable, freeing up their IT team to focus on other critical tasks. Over time, after that customer expanded their backup to include VM backups.
Other then this we also suggesting our customer mainly QNAP solution where customer getting user friendly console and technical support.
Thank you very much

[Rick]

Many, many years ago I was tired of backing up to an external usb drive. A friend of mine was thinking the same way as I was and found a few used QNAP 4 bay NAS servers so we bought them and started our adventure down the home data centre path. The ones I got were a TS-412 and a TS-419P+ thinking I could use the TS-419P+ as the primary NAS and mirror synchronize that one to the TS-412. It worked great until I ran out of space, which happened a couple of times in their lifetimes. With each increase in drive space I noticed that backups were taking a little longer and the boxes were spending much to much time talking to each other so I got a bit creative and set up a private network between them on the second LAN port with a crossover cable between them. Wow, that kind of fixed things except the TS-412 freaked out and was al´most always at 90+% CPU and drive activity.

Putting up with it for a few years and not being able to use some of the apps efficiently and again hitting the full disk problem yet again, so, I decided it was time for something a little more got myself a 6 bay TS-673A, just in time for the TS-419P+ to start reporting two failing drives in the raid array.

I was always so happy when upgrading the drives that I could do one drive at a time letting the raid rebuild and was even happier when I could move the 4 drives to the new box and it worked giving me ample time to start replacing the drives and retiring two failing drives. Thank you QNAP for making that function work!

So, now I have the 673A as my primary NAS, shuffled disks around and rebuilt the 419P+ as the backup NAS with 4 of good drives as a single volume. Fantastic, I took the last two drives and put them into the remaining two slots in the 673A configuring them to use for virtual machines and containers. What a joy it is to use a VM as a broker for IoT devices and storing the data from them Mariadb for access from a web interface, all without compromizing the main function to backup for the family computers and phones.

The TS-412 is now sitting on a shelf collecting dust with two failing drives looking sad. Maybe it will get a new life, maybe it will retire completly.

[Adventure-Rider]

Time goes by and it’s meanwhile more than 7 years that I’m using my QNAP NAS. It’s simply a powerful machine which offers such a wide range of Apps and Functionaities. It’s so easy to create Backups on a regular basis, synch them with other Storages and at different locations like the myQNAPcloud Storage, setup remote access or simply store your digital life.

[masmith22]

Working in the IT field, I did not practice what I preach. I lost family photos and documents. I can never get back. Shame on me. I inform and highly recommend everyone to purchase a NAS. Purchase a NAS within your budget with NAS certified drives. The TVS-h874X is the model that checks all the boxes for me. The NAS allows my son’s to remotely save all their college documents in a save space. Also, share my music library and movies. Good Luck everyone, having a NAS will become the norm like a cell phone.

[m.savazzi]

I have my lovely QNAP 6 disks since couple of years and configured it in Raid6 so I was quite covered in case of an hw failure.
But now I have to re initialize the NAS and will all the data the only option is a backup
so I discovered the great HSB3 and I’m now using it to perform the backup… 3 days to go
Looks very good and both NAS remain responsive even if under a heavy load for the backup!

[nemesis7691]

Gone from the first backups on external drives and copy profile on secondary disk to scheduled backups on Ts264 nas and in addition the ability to access data on the go. Simply fantastic.

[ecsjjgg]

I do a full backup of my Home computer every week. and the backups are stored on my TS-451A-8G… I am only using my RAID-5 (4x6TB WD Red drives) as a file server at the moment, but I will explore more features in the future, when I will replace my old home computer with a new one, that can run Windows 11, which my current computer can’t, because my processor is too old (it’s an Intel Core i7-7700K)

[OneCD]

@ecsjjgg - my PC is also an i7-7700K, and has run Debian since day 1. It runs as-fast today as it did when first built.

[Klaus1]

My first experience with NAS storage was with the QNAP TS-212. I used it to back up family photos, store movies, and work on documents. It became a reliable tool for keeping my data safe and organized. Later, I upgraded to the QNAP TS-251D, and I’m really glad I did. This new device works better and makes it easier to protect my memories. I use it with 2x 4TB WD Gold drives (data center edition), which give me plenty of storage and keep everything secure. Regarding photos Qmagie is a greate tools and helps me a lot. In the future for sure I will choose Qnap and I suggest to all my friends to buy one, because it worth every penny. Greate products.