How are you using your UNAS 2 for backups and family storage?

Computer Hardware & Server Infrastructure Builds
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Hi everyone,

I’m considering buying a UNAS 2 and would love to hear how others are using theirs, especially from a backup/privacy perspective.

My current setup is a Proxmox server running several VMs and containers. I’m planning to use the UNAS mainly for:

  • Proxmox VM/container backups

  • Microsoft 365 business backups

  • Time Machine backups for my Mac and an employee’s Mac

  • Family photos and videos

  • Some general family storage

  • Possibly Plex/media storage

I also have a few Samsung T5/T7 SSDs that I’d like to use for additional backup copies rather than relying only on the NAS.

For the two internal HDDs, I’m still deciding whether to run RAID 1 or use them as separate drives. Since I’ll have additional copies on external SSDs and eventually an off-site backup, I’m wondering if RAID 1 is really necessary for my situation.

I’m also interested in using UniFi Identity so that family members can have their own accounts and access/upload their photos without being able to access my business/M365 data or other parts of the network. Privacy and security are my biggest priorities, so I’m particularly interested in how people are keeping their setup secure while still making it convenient for family and remote access.

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The UNAS support creating permissions per created share so you can control on a per user basis who has access to each share. It supports NFS so you can create a share back to Proxmox with it but you can not run Proxmox Backup Server directly on it. Time machine will work fine along with other general storage.

I have not spent much time testing UniFi Identity so no strong opinions on that.

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You can only configure Raid 1 with two drives, raid 0 is not available on the device

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What do you think I should consider: a UniFi NAS, or should I look at other alternatives like UGREEN? I’m not sure how secure UGREEN is, especially since not all of my family members live in the same household.

I assume we would need to use something like WireGuard to securely access the NAS remotely. Alternatively, I’m considering using UniFi Identity for NAS access. I also feel that UniFi’s own cloud portal might be more secure, but I’m not sure if that’s actually the case.