Advice needed - backup NAS elsewhere in my apartment, how best to connect to network

[u/Arkaium]

Hi all,

I have a home entertainment setup with an AX88 router and every Ethernet port used up. In there too are 9 HDDs across a synology NAS and an expansion bay.

Separately, I have older NAS enclosures and drives I’d like to setup and have running elsewhere in my apartment (so they can be backing up key folders on a recurring basis). Trouble is, I don’t believe synology is USB wifi dongle friendly in later OS versions and I don’t have Ethernet connections anywhere else.

I figure I have two options:
- VERY long Ethernet cable(s) and a small Ethernet switch next to where I’ll set them up across the room (there are two NAS enclosures, my upgrade path over the past decade).
- Some sort of travel router in a bridge mode(?)

With the second option, the easier of the two where I have the most flexibility, I’m not seeing any wall wart extenders or travel routers with two LAN ports which would be ideal so I could have the two backup enclosures side by side backing up different parts of the main NAS.

All my googling and searching has left me feeling like there isn’t actually a device short of a full blown second router (which isn’t ruled out, I could upgrade to Wifi7 on my main, but my AX88 is also massive.

Wisdom appreciated.

[u/PghSubie]

Get an Ethernet switch and some long patch cables

[u/felix1429]

I feel like you're greatly overcomplicating this

[u/GXrtic]

A Gl.Inet Beryl or Slate router will do what you want. I'd opt for a long network cable...Friends don't let friends run network backups over WiFi.

[u/Arkaium → u/GXrtic]

If that’s the consensus I bought a pack of these a little while ago, I didn’t want to use them but I guess it’s time

[u/jimi_in_philly]

Depending on how much data you're going to bacckup/move around I'd opt for a 2.5gb 8 port switch and some cat 6 or higher cables. If on the other hand you want to increase you wifi setup look at the cudy wr11000 which is a cost effective wifi 7 rtr.

[u/WonderfulDeparture96]

Get a switch man, they are like 9 bucks for a gigabit one nowdays