Use a Mini PC alongside a NAS to act as an Acronis Storage Node for backups?

[miracle2k]

I may have a somewhat peculiar setup, but unfortunately, I have a bunch of specific requirements for a backup tool:

- The connection to the backup NAS is slow, so I both need to be able to throttle bandwidth and resume incomplete backups.
- The backups need be encrypted.
- The amount of data is significant.

I am using Synology NAS, and I would call their built in backup features atrocious. I've used duplicity in the past with some success, but ultimately ran into problems with a larger dataset that make me not trust it.

Anyway, I'm considering giving Acronis Backup & Recovery a try. For this, I would need a Windows PC next to the target NAS that can act as an active Storage Node. I was hoping something small like one of the Intel NUCs may do the job.

Does anyone run a similar setup, and are there any recommendations as which "Mini-PC" is a good fit?

 

[thiggins]

Whatever you use doesn't have to be very powerful at all, right? So most anything would do.

 

[stevech]

I may have a somewhat peculiar setup, but unfortunately, I have a bunch of specific requirements for a backup tool:

- The connection to the backup NAS is slow, so I both need to be able to throttle bandwidth and resume incomplete backups.
- The backups need be encrypted.
- The amount of data is significant.

I am using Synology NAS, and I would call their built in backup features atrocious. I've used duplicity in the past with some success, but ultimately ran into problems with a larger dataset that make me not trust it.

Anyway, I'm considering giving Acronis Backup & Recovery a try. For this, I would need a Windows PC next to the target NAS that can act as an active Storage Node. I was hoping something small like one of the Intel NUCs may do the job.

Does anyone run a similar setup, and are there any recommendations as which "Mini-PC" is a good fit?

I've used Acronis for many years, to image partitions on PCs. Fast and reliable. Saved my bacon many times.
For backup at the file level from PC to NAS, I've long used Centered Systems' Second Copy. Great program.

I can't imagine why you need a PC in the mix. At worst, due to the slow link you discuss, use Acronis to backup to a USB drive on the PC, then take the USB to the NAS, plug in, and copy to NAS to archive a 2nd copy. This presumes the subject PC has no ethernet link to the NAS.