Apple Macs suitable NAS

[JJonas]

We are getting our first Apple Macs for Music.

 

We are planning on purchasing a suitable NAS for backups.

 

Which ones should we be looking at?

 

We are totally green when it comes Apple Macs, is this the right backup solution for us?

 

If not, what should we be buying?

 

Also any other tips from people who have gone down the Apple Mac route.

 

Thanks in advance.

[JJonas]

Would an Airport Time Capsule do the job?

 

https://www.apple.com/uk/airport-time-capsule/

[ForgotMyPassword]

Quick question - what are you planning on backing up? Is it necessary to keep a separate backup of each machine? The whole lot or just data?

 

In which case, would it make more sense to store that data elsewhere?

 

What sort of number of iMacs are we talking about?

[JJonas]

We would just be wanting to back up data (student work)

 

There would be 17 Macs.

 

Is it possible to link these to active directory so students could connect to our Windows shares and login using their existing password?

[ForgotMyPassword]

Yep, it certainly would - that's how we operate. We used to have a fancy script which ran at log off and copied stuff from the local storage to the students' network area but it rarely worked, so now we map the network share too and it's a manual process. That said, we're moving to Google Drive for most stuff and the students just save to the desktop and upload once done - takes a while to drill it into them but worth it in the end.

 

I think in your case, I'd probably look at a backup system to 'image' a couple of the Macs (maybe even something like DeployStudio which would let you do it automatically)

 

We have a single Mac Mini server which handles the auth with Active Directory - works okay but given the Google Drive stuff, I'm not sure I'd deploy like this again in future.

 

If you want to talk to a supplier who can help, I'd give AT Computers (Tewkesbury) a shout - they've helped us no end and got it all set up without any fuss.

 

Cheers,

James

[JJonas]

Do we need a Mac Mini Server to enable Active Directory authentication?

 

When you said that’s how we operate, was that for the Airport Time Capsule?

[ForgotMyPassword]

Nope - you can bind macs to AD without the server, but we use it to control a few aspects of the experience...we don't use Time Capsule at all, individual machines aren't backed up but can be re-imaged if need be from DeployStudio running on the server.

 

The actual document shares that are mapped come from our Windows network (which is backed up) - students are made aware of the risk of not moving work to Google Docs or the network (doesn't mean they always listen, mind you!)

 

Cheers,

James