Synology Enterprise NAS

Immutable snapshots let you roll back to a clean point in time even if files are encrypted by ransomware. Combined with off-site backup, this is a strong recovery posture. We configure both. Two details matter for it to work: the snapshot schedule and retention have to reach back further than the time it typically takes to notice an infection, and the account that administers the NAS must not be the same account that is compromised on a workstation, because otherwise the snapshots are as reachable as the files.

Yes. Synology's Active Backup suite protects servers, VMs, and endpoints to the NAS at no per-device license cost. Plan the capacity for it deliberately: backup data grows with retention rather than with the size of the source, and the first full backup of every endpoint is a substantial burst of traffic across whatever link those machines use.

We size it to your current data plus realistic growth, and ensure it can expand, so you do not pay for unused capacity today. In practice we ask for the current footprint, the rate it has grown over the past year or two, how long snapshots are retained, and whether the unit is also a backup target: the last two are what usually make the answer larger than the raw data figure suggests.

For file sharing, backup, and most media work, comfortably. The limit is more often the network than the storage: a single gigabit connection puts a hard ceiling on a share regardless of what is behind it, which is why we specify multi-gigabit or 10GbE where throughput matters. For latency-sensitive databases or virtualization datastores, block storage is the right tool, and for feeding a GPU training cluster you need parallel storage designed for that job rather than a NAS.

The array keeps serving data and rebuilds onto a spare or a replacement. The part worth planning is the rebuild window: with today's very large drives a rebuild takes a long time, the array is working hard throughout, and a second failure during that period is the scenario the protection level has to survive. That is why we choose the protection level against drive size rather than by habit, and why a spare on the shelf is worth more than it costs.

Yes, either by replicating between units so each site has local performance and a remote copy, or by presenting shares over the link between them. Replication is almost always the better answer, because file protocols over a wide-area link feel slow in a way users notice immediately. We specify the replication schedule against how much work you can afford to lose if a site is lost.