Back Up Windows to a Synology NAS — Encrypted, Scheduled

A Synology NAS is one of the best backup targets you can own: a one-time purchase, RAID redundancy, and your data sitting in your own closet. BackupKit backs up your Windows PC to the Synology — pushed from the PC, encrypted before it leaves, on a schedule. It's a simpler alternative to wiring up Hyper Backup or Synology Drive when all you want is “copy these folders to the NAS, safely, every night.”

Step-by-step on DSM

1. Enable SFTP. In DSM: Control Panel → File Services → FTP tab → enable SFTP service. Note the port (default 22).
2. Create a backup user (not admin) and a shared folder, e.g. pc-backups, granting that user read/write to it.
3. Add the account in BackupKit: the NAS LAN IP (or QuickConnect DDNS), the SFTP port, the backup username and password. Test the connection.
4. Create the job: source = Documents / Projects / photo library; destination = the pc-backups folder.
5. Configure AES-256 encryption, a daily or weekly schedule, retention (e.g. keep 30 days), and failure notifications.
6. Save and activate. Runs unattended.

Why encrypt on your own NAS

Client-side AES-256 still matters even though you own the box: a stolen or RMA'd drive, a disposed disk, or another NAS account with admin rights can all expose plain files. Encrypted archives stay unreadable. The password is yours and is never stored on the Synology.

Related

• Back up Windows to a NAS — the general guide (QNAP, Unraid, TrueNAS).
• Back up Windows to a QNAP NAS
• Self-hosted backup destinations
• AES-256 encryption
• Scheduled backups