Back Up Windows to a NAS (Synology, QNAP, Unraid)

A NAS is the cheapest reliable backup destination you can own outright. One up-front purchase, no monthly bills, and the data physically lives in your closet rather than someone else’s datacenter. BackupKit treats a NAS like any other destination: pick the share, pick a schedule, set encryption and retention, and the job runs unattended. Synology DSM, QNAP QTS, Unraid, TrueNAS, and any DIY box that speaks SFTP, FTPS, WebDAV, or SMB are all supported.

Why NAS for backups

• One-time cost. A 2-bay Synology or QNAP with two 8 TB drives gives you ~8 TB usable in RAID 1 for under $700 all-in, then no recurring fees.
• Fast restores. Local gigabit/2.5GbE means terabyte-sized restores happen in hours, not days. Cloud restores at typical home-internet speeds can take a week.
• Privacy. Your data physically lives in your home or office. No provider holds the keys.
• No vendor lock-in. Plain files on a network share. If you ever stop using BackupKit, the archives sit there exactly as written.

Which protocol to pick

For backups over the local network, SMB or SFTP are roughly equivalent in throughput. For backups over the internet (NAS at the office, PC at home, or vice versa), use SFTP or WebDAV over TLS — SMB over the internet is a security nightmare.

Step-by-step (Synology example)

1. Enable SFTP on the NAS. Synology: Control Panel → File Services → FTP → SFTP. Note the port (default 22).
2. Create a backup user. Don’t use your admin account. Give the user write access to one shared folder, e.g. backups.
3. Add the SFTP account in BackupKit. Hostname (LAN IP or DDNS), port, username, password. Click test — BackupKit lists the shared folders.
4. Create the backup job. Source = your Documents/Projects/photo library. Destination = the SFTP account, optionally a subfolder.
5. Configure. AES-256 encryption with a password, daily/weekly schedule, retention (e.g. keep last 30 days), notifications on failure.
6. Save and activate. Runs unattended.

QNAP, Unraid, and TrueNAS are the same flow — enable SFTP, create a user, point BackupKit at it.

Encryption: useful even on your own NAS

People sometimes assume backups don’t need encryption if they go to a NAS they own. Two reasons to still enable AES-256:

• Lost or stolen drives. If a NAS drive walks out (theft, swap, disposal), anyone with a Linux laptop reads the platter contents directly. Encrypted archives are gibberish.
• Multi-user NAS. Other accounts on the same NAS may eventually have read access through admin rights or misconfiguration. Encrypted archives stay private.

The password is yours. BackupKit never stores it on the NAS.

Pairing with a cloud job (3-2-1)

The standard recommendation: two BackupKit jobs against the same source. One to the NAS daily (fast, complete history). One to cloud weekly (off-site, disaster proof). Different retention policies if you like — e.g. 60 days on the NAS, 12 weekly versions in the cloud. See the S3 guide for the cloud side.

Common questions

Related

• 14 storage destinations — cloud, NAS, and self-hosted in one app.
• Scheduled backups feature
• AES-256 encryption
• Back up Windows to Amazon S3 — pair with NAS for true off-site.
• Self-hosted backup destinations on Windows