Destination

For individual types of backup destinations, please read the following notes for important setup details and troubleshooting tips.

Local/remote backup destination

If you choose to back up files to local or remote Synology NAS, Hyper Backup Vault must be installed beforehand in order to view the .hbk files in Hyper Backup Explorer and have more information on the backup task's status. For more information on Hyper Backup Vault, please refer to this article.

Before you start:

• New external drives might need to be formatted before serving as the backup destination.
• Make sure you have already attached the external drives properly to your Synology NAS. You can go to Control Panel > External Devices to check the status of the USB/eSATA drives.

To choose a backup destination:

When selecting a destination for your backup data, it is important to keep the following factors in mind:

• The destination's file system supports ext4, Btrfs, FAT, exFAT, NTFS, HFS+, and PetaSpace.
• Destinations that cannot be selected for backup include:
  • External drives that are being initialized, formatted, or malfunctioning
  • Remote mounted shared folders (cannot be selected as the backup source, either)
  • Encrypted shared folders that are unmounted
  • Shared folders that are automatically generated, such as photo, surveillance, home, and homes
• When selecting a local shared folder or USB as the destination, you can decide to store multiple versions or only one version of your backup data in the destination. Here are the key differences between the two options.

  Multiple versions:

  • Your data will be saved as .hbk files to minimize storage usage when backing up a new version each time performing the task.
  • Data encryption and compression are available.

  Single version:

  • Your data will be saved in the original formats and folder structure. This allows you easily retrieve and view files on different devices.
  • The older backup data will be overwritten as the system will only keep one latest version of your files.
  • Data encryption and compression are not available.

To set the access privilege of a backup task:

You can set the access privilege of a backup task by editing the permission of the backup destination folder via File Station:

• A user is allowed to restore data from a backup destination if he has read privilege to each file/folder in the backup destination folder.
• A user is allowed to delete backup versions from a backup destination if he has write privilege to each file/folder in the backup destination folder.
• Only users belonging to the administrators group can perform Back up now for a local backup task.
• To perform a remote backup task, the remote login user must be the task owner.
• A task owner cannot be a group.

Remote rsync backup destination

• If you would like to back up files to or restore files from other NAS or servers, rsync service is one of the methods. To back up data via rsync service, rsync service must be supported and enabled on both NAS devices.
• The following modes are available when creating a backup task with rsync-compatible servers as the network backup destination: rsync daemon mode, which is used when you select a backup module (shared folder on the rsync-compatible server) from the drop-down menu next to Backup module; and remote shell mode, which is enabled only when you enter an absolute path (starting with "/") in Backup module.
• If you want to access a destination server over the Internet using its hostname, the hostname must be an FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name), for example, abc.bcd.com.
• When backing up from one Synology NAS device to another, you are prompted to enter the username and password for an account at the destination. When backing up to shared folders on another Synology NAS, you can do so according to the access privilege settings of the folders. Only shared folders to which the specified user account has access privileges will be visible. If you cannot find the desired shared folder at the destination, please check your access privileges.
• Transfer encryption is supported only when the destination server supports encrypted network backup and the authentication password is not empty.
• Remote shell mode only supports transfer encryption.
• If you are backing up files to a Synology NAS device through a rsync client, the file names must be in UTF-8 encoding.
• If you are backing up files from your Synology NAS to a rsync-compatible server, you will need to input the correct rsync backup account name and password. You will also need to choose the correct backup module with Write privilege.
• When you would like to select the rsync server as the destination, you can decide to store multiple versions or only one version of your backup data in the destination. Here are the key differences between the two options.

  Multiple versions:

  • Your data will be saved as .hbk files to minimize storage usage when backing up a new version each time performing the task.
  • Data encryption and compression are available.

  Single version:

  • Your data will be saved in the original formats and folder structure. This allows you easily retrieve and view files on different devices.
  • The older backup data will be overwritten as the system will only keep one latest version of your files.
  • Data encryption and compression are not available.

Synology C2 Storage backup destination

• To back up files onto Synology C2 Storage service, you must have a Synology Account.
• Please keep ports 443 and 8443 available when backing up data to Synology C2 Storage.
• The backup task will start after your authorization to Synology C2 service.
• Every task name must be unique and can contain 1 to 32 Unicode characters, except the following:
  ~ ` ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) - _ = + [ { ] } \ | ; : ' " < > / ?
• Once the backup task is set up with the client-side encryption enabled, you can no longer disable the client-side encryption, and the password is not changeable as well. For better backup performance, data compression is always enabled.
• If you select Enable client-side encryption, your password/encryption key is required to restore data on the Synology C2 Storage web page. Loss of password/encryption key will result in permanent loss of backed up data.

WebDAV backup destination

• Backup files are stored in the Folder selected on the WebDAV server, put to the directory of your choosing.
• The default server address automatically starts with the http:// prefix (e.g. http://SERVER_ADDRESS:5005/PATH).
• For encrypted connection, the server address should start with the https:// prefix (e.g. https://SERVER_ADDRESS:5006/PATH).
• Some backup files may not contain specific filename extensions; therefore, WebDAV server supports all files either with or without filename extensions.
  • When setting up WebDAV server via Internet Information Services on Windows, please add . and .* filename extensions to MIME type.

S3 Storage backup destination

• When creating backup tasks with the S3 Storage server as the network backup destination, various options are available, such as transfer encryption, backup to Amazon S3 RRS (Reduced Redundancy Storage), and others. Please note that some options, like transfer encryption, might reduce the speed of backup tasks.
• Backup files are stored in the Bucket selected on the S3 Storage server.
• Only the modified/added data chunks will be backed up to the S3 Storage server.
• Each Bucket on S3 Storage must have a unique name. In addition, the name should:
  • be in the range of 3 to 63 characters.
  • contain only lowercase letters, numbers, periods (.), and hyphens (-).
  • start and end with a number or a letter, and cannot end with a hyphen (-), contain two adjacent periods, or contain hyphens next to periods (e.g., "my-.bucket.com" and "my.-bucket" are invalid).
• Storage class supports S3 Storage Standard, Amazon S3 RRS (Reduced Redundancy Storage), S3 Storage Standard - Infrequent Access (Standard - IA), Amazon S3 Intelligent-Tiering, and Amazon S3 One Zone - Infrequent Access:
  • If you enable the storage class above, only the data content will be backed up to the storage class you have chosen, and the rest (e.g. configuration file and index) will be backed up to Amazon S3's standard storage.
• Moving backed up files from Amazon S3 to Amazon Glacier is not supported. If files are moved from Amazon S3 to Amazon Glacier via the AWS Management console, the related backup tasks might fail.
• Backing up files to the path-style buckets is supported only when you select Custom Server URL for the S3 server and the signature version is V4.
• When transferring files, the files will be split into equal parts. The default size of each part is 512MB. If the network connection is unstable, specify a smaller number for Multipart Upload Part Size in task settings.
• Backing up files to S3 Storage using server-side encryption is not supported.

JD Cloud backup destination

• When creating backup tasks with JD Cloud server as the network backup destination, various options are available, such as transfer encryption, data compression, and others. Please note that some options, like transfer encryption, might reduce the speed of backup tasks.
• Backup files are stored in the Bucket selected on the JD Cloud server.
• Only the modified/added data chunks will be backed up to the JD Cloud server.
• Each Bucket on JD Cloud must have a unique name. In addition, the name should:
  • be in the range of 3 to 63 characters.
  • contain only lowercase letters, numbers, periods (.), and hyphens (-).
  • start and end with a number or a letter, and cannot end with a hyphen (-), contain two adjacent periods, or contain hyphens next to periods (e.g., "my-.bucket.com" and "my.-bucket" are invalid).
• When transferring a file, the file will be split into parts. The part size can be set by the option Multipart Upload Part Size in task settings with 512MB as the default size. If the network environment is not stable, the option is recommended to be a smaller number.

Microsoft Azure backup destination

• When creating backup tasks with Microsoft Azure server as the network backup destination, various options are available, (e.g. transfer encryption). Please note that some options, like transfer encryption, might reduce the speed of backup tasks.
• Only the modified/added data chunks will be backed up to Microsoft Azure server.
• Each Container on Microsoft Azure must have a unique name. In addition, the name should:
  • be in the range of 3 to 63 characters.
  • contain only lowercase letters, numbers, and hyphens (-).
  • start and end with a number or a letter, and cannot contain two adjacent hyphens.
• The authentication failure warning message may be caused by the incorrect authentication information, a network connection problem, or the time on your Synology NAS and the remote server do not match. To check the time setting on your Synology NAS, please go to Control Panel > Regional Options > Time to synchronize time with the NTP server.
• Backup and restoration are not available when the backup destination blob is on the archive tier. Make sure your lifecycle management policy will not move the backup destination blob to the archive tier.

OpenStack Swift backup destination

• Backup files are stored in the Container selected on the OpenStack Swift server, put to the directory of your choosing.
• The data structure of OpenStack Swift includes a pair of Container and Object without any folder structure.
• Each Container on OpenStack Swift must have a unique name, and the naming should follow the rules below:
  • Its length must be between 1 and 256 characters.
  • No slash (/) character should be used.

Rackspace backup destination

• Backup files are stored in the Region and Container selected on the Rackspace server, put to the directory of your choosing.
• Rackspace uses the OpenStack Swift protocol for data transfer.
• The data structure of Rackspace includes a pair of Container and Object without any folder structure.
• Each Container on Rackspace must have a unique name, and the naming should follow the rules below:
  • Its length must be between 1 and 256 characters.
  • No slash (/) character should be used.

Amazon Drive backup destination

• This service has been ended by Amazon at 1st November, 2020.
• Amazon Drive uses OAuth 2.0 for authorization.
• Backup files are stored in the folder chosen in the Amazon Drive server.
• Each folder in Amazon Drive must have a unique name, and must not contain any special characters.
• Connections with Amazon Drive are encrypted by default.

Dropbox backup destination

• Dropbox uses OAuth 2.0 for authorization.
• Backup files are stored in the Folder selected on the Dropbox server, put to the directory of your choosing.
• Each Folder on Dropbox must have a unique name, and the naming should follow the rules below:
  • Its length must be between 1 and 256 characters.
  • No slash (/) or backslash (\) character should be used.
• Connection with Dropbox is encrypted by default.

Google Drive backup destination

• Google Drive uses OAuth 2.0 for authorization.
• Backup files are stored in the Folder selected on the Google Drive server, put to the directory of your choosing.
• Each Folder on Google Drive must have a unique name, and the naming should not use any slash (/) character.
• Connection with Google Drive is encrypted by default.
• After 51 attempts to create a backup task, the tasks created within the previous 50 attempts will require re-authentication, regardless of the actual number of tasks created. Please refer to this document for details.

HiDrive backup destination

• Backup files are stored in the Folder selected on the HiDrive server, put to the directory of your choosing.
• Connection with the HiDrive server is encrypted by default.
• Connection with HiDrive uses the rsync protocol for data transfer. In this way, free HiDrive accounts are not supported. Refer to Strato's webpage for details. Note that the availability of their webpage may change.

hicloud S3 backup destination

• When creating backup tasks with hicloud S3 server as the network backup destination, various options are available, (e.g. transfer encryption). Please note that some options, like transfer encryption, might reduce the speed of backup tasks.
• Backup files are stored in the Bucket selected on the hicloud S3 server.
• Only the modified/added data chunks will be backed up to hicloud S3 server.
• Each Bucket on hicloud S3 must have a unique name. In addition, the name should:
  • be in the range of 3 to 63 characters.
  • contain only lowercase letters, numbers, periods (.), and hyphens (-).
  • start and end with a number or a letter, and cannot end with a hyphen (-), contain two adjacent periods, or contain hyphens next to periods (e.g., "my-.bucket.com" and "my.-bucket" are invalid).
• When transferring a file, the file will be split into parts. The part size can be set by the option Multipart Upload Part Size in task settings with 512MB as the default size. If the network environment is not stable, it is recommended to set a smaller number.

Other S3-compatible backup destinations

• To use other S3-compatible clouds, enter the IP address/domain of the desired S3-compatible cloud in the S3 Server field when prompted.
• If there is any usage issue, please refer to the relevant documentation or contact the S3-compatible cloud service provider.
• Google Cloud Storage can also serve as an S3-compatible backup target with the interoperability option enabled.