The Synology DS923+ NAS is the storage anchor for the lab, with four 18 TB drives in a one-drive-fault-tolerant SHR layout. It holds photos, general storage, Time Machine backups, computer backups, Proxmox backup data, and a large local media library.
Recovery layers
- Proxmox Backup Server handles VM and LXC recovery, with the NAS as its target.
- Backblaze handles the main desktop’s backup path.
- Dropbox sync keeps important working documents and notes available across devices, but is not presented as full recovery.
- Time Machine handles MacBook recovery to the NAS.
- Synology snapshots provide short-term rollback for some shared folders.
The media library is large and lower priority than personal documents, photos, and system backups. It is stored on the NAS, but it is not treated the same way as irreplaceable personal data.
What gets priority
The highest-priority data is personal work, photos, important documents, and system state that would be painful to rebuild. Game files and large replaceable media are lower priority. The current strategy is practical rather than perfect: keep the important things in multiple places, keep VM/LXC recovery available, and continue improving restore testing over time.
What this taught me
RAID or SHR is useful for redundancy and uptime, but it is not a backup. Sync is useful for convenience, but it is not the same thing as versioned recovery. Snapshots are excellent for quick rollback, but they do not replace off-device backups.
The next maturity step is a clearer restore-test log: one VM/LXC restore, one personal file restore, one Time Machine check, and one review of which data truly belongs in the off-site path.