I am using the QNAP backup to an external drive option. I am running Win 7 on my laptop and, if tragedy strikes my NAS setup, the whole point is that I want to be able to access the data from the USB drive from my laptop. I've read through the forums, but didn't find this answered clearly enough for me. Network-attached storage, short for NAS, is the extender for home sharing. Nowadays, a mass of our customers own a large Blu-ray/DVD collection each with hundreds/thousands or even more movies. They always need to rip Blu-ray/DVD to NAS to store, manage, serve, stream or watch them. Frequently, users ask which format is the best one for NAS. If you want to store hundreds of DVD's on NAS, then rip the DVD to.avi,.mp4,.mkv, etc compressed format. And click Settings bar, you can adjust the level of compression to suit the quality you want. Start copying DVD to NAS drive Press the 'Convert' button to start ripping DVD movies for NAS streaming.
Hi all,I posted this in the 'hardware & softward compatibility' forum and it has over 70 views, but no replies. So, I thought I would cross post it here. I'm not sure if that is the correct approach, but I'm guessing there is someone out there who can answer this quickly if I can just find you. Thanks!
I have 2 x 2TB internal drives and 2 x 2TB external USBs (all are Western Digital). My hope is to be able to alternate weekly backups on the USB drives and store the other one at my office. Basically, a poor mans off-site backup without having to pay for cloud storage/buy another NAS. Incidentally, I accept that the drive I have off site will always be a week behind, but I'm ok with that in terms of possible information loss.
I am using the QNAP backup to an external drive option.
I am running Win 7 on my laptop and, if tragedy strikes my NAS setup, the whole point is that I want to be able to access the data from the USB drive from my laptop.
I've read through the forums, but didn't find this answered clearly enough for me. So, my questions are:
1) Which format should I use for the external USB drives: EXT-3, EXT-4, FAT-32, NTFS, HFS+? I don't need speed, this is just for weekly overnight backups, so what I want is stability. And, I want to be able to switch the external USBs back and forth without confusing the thing. (I do know that I will have to officially 'remove' the drive before unplugging it)
2) Should I use encryption? If so, which one (128, 192 or 256 bits). If i encrypt it, will that interfer with the backup? And, if I encrypt it, will that interfer with my ability to access from a Windows machine?
Thanks all,
Share this post
Best Nas Drives For Mac
If you buy an external drive—such as one of our recommended desktop hard drives, portable hard drives, or USB 3.0 flash drives—you may need to reformat it to work with your operating system of choice, since different operating systems use different file systems to process data.
Blender 2 7 0 download. Although it's true that any drive is compatible with both Windows and macOS, most drives come preformatted for Windows out of the box. If you use Windows, chances are good that you won't need to reformat your external hard drive—unless you buy it secondhand, or you plan on switching between operating systems, your drive should come ready to use. If you use a Mac, the likelihood that you'll have to reformat the drive is higher. But fear not: The process is simple.
Choosing the right format for your drive
Non-Linux computers can use four main file systems: NTFS, HFS+, FAT32, and exFAT. So what do those four file systems mean, and which one is right for you?
Best Nas Drives For Home
- If you plan to use your drive for File History backups on a Windows computer, and you use only Windows, stick to NTFS (New Technology File System). NTFS is native to Windows, and most hard drives are preformatted for this file system. macOS and Linux, however, can only read files stored on such a drive; they cannot write to an NTFS-formatted drive. NTFS has huge file and partition size limits that you won't hit; that makes it a better choice than FAT32, which has a 4 GB size limit per file. Many backup archives and video files are larger than 4 GB.
- If you plan to use your drive for Time Machine backups on a Mac, and you use only macOS, use HFS+ (Hierarchical File System Plus, or macOS Extended). A drive formatted this way will not mount on a Windows computer without additional software. Like NTFS, the HFS+ file system has file and partition size limits that are much bigger and more suitable for modern use than those of FAT32.
- FAT32 (File Allocation Table 32) is an older file system that both Windows machines and Macs still support. FAT32 was introduced in Windows 95 in 1997, but it remains useful because nearly every system can use it. Unfortunately, it isn't any good for storing movies and other large files: FAT32 has a size limit of 4 GB per file, so your files have to be small.
- If you need to transfer files larger than 4 GB between Mac and Windows computers, exFAT (extended File Allocation Table) is the best option, although it doesn't work with File History or Time Machine. exFAT works on both macOS and Windows, and it doesn't have the file size limit that FAT32 does, so you'll be able to back up movies and other large files.
- If you want to use a single external hard drive to back up both File History and Time Machine, you can partition it so that some of the drive is NTFS and some is HFS+. First, partition the drive using Disk Utility with macOS, and (using our walkthrough below) format one part as HFS+ and the other as FAT32; then, plug the drive into Windows and reformat the FAT32 portion as NTFS. Now your computer will see your single drive as multiple, smaller drives. Make sure to leave plenty of room for future backups on both partitions. It's possible, but tricky, to change the size of a partition later on in Windows and macOS; we recommend backing up the data on your drive before attempting the task, since it's possible to wipe your drive doing this.
Now that you've figured out those differences, it's time to reformat your hard drive. Reformatting will delete all the data stored on the drive, so if you need to reformat, do so as soon as you buy the drive. If you already have data stored on the drive, back that data up elsewhere, reformat the drive, and then put your data back on the drive. Office pro 2016 64 bit download.
Reformatting your drive in Windows
To reformat a drive on Windows:
I have 2 x 2TB internal drives and 2 x 2TB external USBs (all are Western Digital). My hope is to be able to alternate weekly backups on the USB drives and store the other one at my office. Basically, a poor mans off-site backup without having to pay for cloud storage/buy another NAS. Incidentally, I accept that the drive I have off site will always be a week behind, but I'm ok with that in terms of possible information loss.
I am using the QNAP backup to an external drive option.
I am running Win 7 on my laptop and, if tragedy strikes my NAS setup, the whole point is that I want to be able to access the data from the USB drive from my laptop.
I've read through the forums, but didn't find this answered clearly enough for me. So, my questions are:
1) Which format should I use for the external USB drives: EXT-3, EXT-4, FAT-32, NTFS, HFS+? I don't need speed, this is just for weekly overnight backups, so what I want is stability. And, I want to be able to switch the external USBs back and forth without confusing the thing. (I do know that I will have to officially 'remove' the drive before unplugging it)
2) Should I use encryption? If so, which one (128, 192 or 256 bits). If i encrypt it, will that interfer with the backup? And, if I encrypt it, will that interfer with my ability to access from a Windows machine?
Thanks all,
Share this post
Best Nas Drives For Mac
If you buy an external drive—such as one of our recommended desktop hard drives, portable hard drives, or USB 3.0 flash drives—you may need to reformat it to work with your operating system of choice, since different operating systems use different file systems to process data.
Blender 2 7 0 download. Although it's true that any drive is compatible with both Windows and macOS, most drives come preformatted for Windows out of the box. If you use Windows, chances are good that you won't need to reformat your external hard drive—unless you buy it secondhand, or you plan on switching between operating systems, your drive should come ready to use. If you use a Mac, the likelihood that you'll have to reformat the drive is higher. But fear not: The process is simple.
Choosing the right format for your drive
Non-Linux computers can use four main file systems: NTFS, HFS+, FAT32, and exFAT. So what do those four file systems mean, and which one is right for you?
Best Nas Drives For Home
- If you plan to use your drive for File History backups on a Windows computer, and you use only Windows, stick to NTFS (New Technology File System). NTFS is native to Windows, and most hard drives are preformatted for this file system. macOS and Linux, however, can only read files stored on such a drive; they cannot write to an NTFS-formatted drive. NTFS has huge file and partition size limits that you won't hit; that makes it a better choice than FAT32, which has a 4 GB size limit per file. Many backup archives and video files are larger than 4 GB.
- If you plan to use your drive for Time Machine backups on a Mac, and you use only macOS, use HFS+ (Hierarchical File System Plus, or macOS Extended). A drive formatted this way will not mount on a Windows computer without additional software. Like NTFS, the HFS+ file system has file and partition size limits that are much bigger and more suitable for modern use than those of FAT32.
- FAT32 (File Allocation Table 32) is an older file system that both Windows machines and Macs still support. FAT32 was introduced in Windows 95 in 1997, but it remains useful because nearly every system can use it. Unfortunately, it isn't any good for storing movies and other large files: FAT32 has a size limit of 4 GB per file, so your files have to be small.
- If you need to transfer files larger than 4 GB between Mac and Windows computers, exFAT (extended File Allocation Table) is the best option, although it doesn't work with File History or Time Machine. exFAT works on both macOS and Windows, and it doesn't have the file size limit that FAT32 does, so you'll be able to back up movies and other large files.
- If you want to use a single external hard drive to back up both File History and Time Machine, you can partition it so that some of the drive is NTFS and some is HFS+. First, partition the drive using Disk Utility with macOS, and (using our walkthrough below) format one part as HFS+ and the other as FAT32; then, plug the drive into Windows and reformat the FAT32 portion as NTFS. Now your computer will see your single drive as multiple, smaller drives. Make sure to leave plenty of room for future backups on both partitions. It's possible, but tricky, to change the size of a partition later on in Windows and macOS; we recommend backing up the data on your drive before attempting the task, since it's possible to wipe your drive doing this.
Now that you've figured out those differences, it's time to reformat your hard drive. Reformatting will delete all the data stored on the drive, so if you need to reformat, do so as soon as you buy the drive. If you already have data stored on the drive, back that data up elsewhere, reformat the drive, and then put your data back on the drive. Office pro 2016 64 bit download.
Reformatting your drive in Windows
To reformat a drive on Windows:
- Plug in the drive and open Windows Explorer.
- Right-click the drive and choose Format from the drop-down menu.
- Select the file system you want, give your drive a name under Volume label, and make sure the Quick Format box is checked.
- Click Start, and the computer will reformat your drive.
When you've completed the process, you can open the external drive in Windows Explorer.
Reformatting your drive in macOS
To reformat your drive for macOS:
- Plug in the drive and open the Finder.
- Click the Go menu, select Utilities from the drop-down menu, and open Disk Utility.
- Choose your external drive from the left sidebar, and click Erase.
- Give your drive a name and select the file system you want from the Format drop-down.
- Click Erase, and the system will reformat your drive.
Best Format For Nas Drives
When you've completed the process, you can open the external drive by clicking on the drive's icon on the desktop of your Mac.
Note: Using the formatting options above on a drive that has data on it may not be enough to prevent some of that data from being recoverable. If you're formatting a drive in order to give it away, sell it, or recycle it, make sure to securely erase the drive to prevent data recovery.
Further reading
Best Format For Nas Drive
How to Back Up Your Computer
by Thorin Klosowski
After hundreds of hours researching the best local storage and online backup services, we've put together a guide to backing up your Mac or Windows computer.
