A beginners guide to setting up a Synology router | Time Machine backups

• Open Synology Router Manager (SRM) and sign in using your administrators credentials.
• Now connect an external USB hard drive to the USB port on your router

Note: You will need to configure your Synology router so that it can behave as a file server. For this you will need to connect a USB external hard drive. While we use a 4TB Western Digital USB hard drive. You should be able to use most makes and models of external drive. For more information please see A beginners guide to setting up a Synology router | Network shares.

• Your router will detect your hard drive and present the following message. “To reduce interference to WiFi, 2.4GHz, your USB 3.0 device was downgraded to USB 2.0.”
• Open Control Panel in the SRM
• From the sidebar choose Storage
• In the tab Shared Folder you should see you USB drive. 
• Select the Add (+) button to create a new shared folder 
• Using the Create New Shared Folder wizard, give your new share a name ie Time Capsule
• Leave Recycle Bin disabled
• For Encrypt this shared folder, we recommend you leave it unticked. We will be encrypting our backups directly from our computer in a later stage.
• Click on OK
• Highlight the folder you just created
• Under the heading User Permissions make sure that any user accounts you want to use Time Machine with, have read/write access to your Time Capsule network share
• Choose Apply
• From the sidebar, choose File Services
• Under the heading Win/Mac locate the option Enable Mac file service, and check the tick box
• Next to Time Machine select the drop down menu and choose your Time Capsule network share 
• Click Apply

As it is bad practise to use your routers administrators account to access network shares. So in order for users to access the network shares you create. You will need to create individual user accounts for them to use.

• From the Desktop of macOS, open System Settings 
• In the Search field in System Settings, type Time Machine
• Select Time Machine from the list of results
• In the Time Machine panel, select Add Backup Disk

Note: If prompted to unlock Time Machine. You will need to use the account credentials for an account with administrative access to your Mac. This is in order to change the settings for the Time Machine application.

• Select Time Capsule From the list that appears and choose Set up Disk

Note: You will now be prompted for a user Name and password. This is to allow you access to the Time Machine network share on your Synology router. This means that you will need to use the same account credentials you just set in User Permission on your router.

• Now clicking Connect, we are prompted to encrypt our backup
• Assign your encrypted backup with a password

Note: We recommend that you make a note of the password you use to encrypt your backup. As it will be impossible to restore your computer from this backup if you forget the password.

• Set your Disk Usage Limit

Note: You can limit how much space on your routers USB hard drive a backup can use. You might do this if you have multiple computers making backups to your router or if your router is providing additional network shares.

• Click Done and Time Machine will start to make its first backup

Note: The first time you make a Time Machine backup to your Synology router. It will take a number of hours to complete. Which will be dependent on the speed of your wireless connection. The amounts of data being backed up, and the speed of your USB hard drive. Once a backup has been made, any subsequent backups will be a lot quicker.

• Amazon store link – 4TB Western Digital USB hard drive
• Amazon store link – Synology router RT6600ax
• Amazon store link – Synology router WRX560
• Amazon store link – Synology router MR2200ac
• Amazon store link – Synology router RT2600ac

• Synology support article – Synology Router User Guide 1.3
• Apple support article – Backup your Mac with Time Machine
• mydoodads article – A beginners guide to setting up a Synology router | Network shares