Xpenology - Has anyone used it in their environment?

[CHiLL]

We have been looking at backing up our M365 data on-site and found that Synology's Active Backup for M365 is free. I've also found that there's a community project called Xpenology, which allows you to run the Synology environment on other hardware and even a VM. So I'm considering utilising the free space we have on our SAN as a backup repository for Xpenology running on a VM. My main concern is safety, as this is a community project that involves a modded OS being installed on a production server.

 

My gut says just buy an actual Synology unit and some drives - but I was hoping to save some money if possible (but only if I can find some recommendations or reassurance).

[robintech]

I think your gut is right, if they trust you to choose a backup solution then they won't appreciate the money saving if something goes wrong in the future; and you already think it's a bit of a gamble.

[DrCheese]

Don't cut corners with this.

In the event of backup issues you want someone elses throat to choke & support from a vendor.

 

If you cut corners, it'll be your throat being choked & it won't matter that you've saved money.

[andy_b]

https://xpenology.org/#Is_Xpenology_legal

 

Is Xpenology legal?

 

The water is a bit murky here, but the consensus is that Xpenology is not legal. Why? Xpenology is a bootloader for Synology’s operating system DSM. It runs on a custom Linux version developed by Synology, where the community has edited the code to work on non-Synology devices.

 

Doing this is illegal, as you are accessing it for free instead of paying for the Synology DSM. If you are using Xpenology for personal use, chances are you won’t get caught, and it should run as normal. But if you are using it for business or anything other than personal-lab projects, we would recommend avoiding using Xpenology.

[DrCheese]

hah yup - So in addition to my stuff above....

 

It'll be your throat being choked when your school gets fined for using unlicensed software.

[mavhc]

https://corsobackup.io/docs/intro/

[Aprice]

I'd just go for a genuine Synology, Just wouldn't chance it with some questionable software.

[CHiLL]

Ok, I think you've all helped confirm my decision. Now to calculate how much storage I'd need and what retention to go for.

 

We have 8TB of production data in M365, so I'm thinking 30 days retention. We have also had issues Salamander not corrently archive/convert to shared mailbox and just deleted leavers...which we've then had requests for access/data for and we can't provide it. The incident we had today was for someone who left over 6 months ago, so I don't think we'd be able to reasonably retain that much data for that long.

[PotNoodleTech]

Cant go wrong with synology i've got 10 year old nas's still running

[robintech]

Ok, I think you've all helped confirm my decision. Now to calculate how much storage I'd need and what retention to go for.

 

We have 8TB of production data in M365, so I'm thinking 30 days retention. We have also had issues Salamander not corrently archive/convert to shared mailbox and just deleted leavers...which we've then had requests for access/data for and we can't provide it. The incident we had today was for someone who left over 6 months ago, so I don't think we'd be able to reasonably retain that much data for that long.

 

We have around the same 8TB of 365 data and then after the initial backup it doesn't seem to grow that much, 2.5TB a year maybe including Emails and OneDrive, SharePoint

With a 24TB usable Synology DiskStation it can retain for years longer than our DPO wants but all depends on how much they want to spend.

[DrCheese]

Have you looked at cloud to cloud offerings like Barracuda? It's what we have & it's fairly cheap (3k a year) for what it does - Covers everything in our Office 365 tenant & you only pay for staff.

[mavhc]

For £500 you can get a 4 bay Synology and for £266*4 = £1046 you can get 4 18TB HDDs giving you 54TBs that will last at least 5 years

[CHiLL]

Have you looked at cloud to cloud offerings like Barracuda? It's what we have & it's fairly cheap (3k a year) for what it does - Covers everything in our Office 365 tenant & you only pay for staff.

We did trial barracuda, though the school opted for not paying £3k a year for it.

 

For £500 you can get a 4 bay Synology and for £266*4 = £1046 you can get 4 18TB HDDs giving you 54TBs that will last at least 5 years

That's probably going to be my plan. I just need to decide on the model of NAS and whether I need to RAID the drives (probably just RAID5).

[andy_b]

We did trial barracuda, though the school opted for not paying £3k a year for it.

 

 

That's probably going to be my plan. I just need to decide on the model of NAS and whether I need to RAID the drives (probably just RAID5).

 

Make sure you get a model that supports the Active Backup App:

 

https://www.synology.com/en-global/dsm/packages/ActiveBackup-Office365

 

Just use Synology's own RAID: https://www.synology.com/en-global/support/RAID_calculator

[mavhc]

DS423+ is probably the cheapest new one that supports it