The Country School Finds Reliable NAS Solution
to Safeguard Mac Network

	About Customer
	School Name: The Country School	Models Used: DS1010+
	Why The Country School Chose Synology Reliability Ease of Use Support for Apple Backup Redundancy
"I simply couldn't be more pleased. This is how technology is SUPPOSED to work!" John Orban, Country School System Administrator

The School

Founded in 1934, the Country School in Easton, MD strives to provide students with the best education possible. The school offers a challenging and nurturing program to students from Kindergarten through 8th grade, helping them reach their highest academic potential while building strong character. The focus is on traditional content mixed with innovative methodology to help students develop a sound background in basic skills and a lifelong love of learning. With passionate teachers and a student-teacher ratio of 10 to 1, students are encouraged to engage with the curricula and the classes.

As part of its emphasis on the whole child, the Country School stresses character through cooperative undertakings. The Helping Others, Helping Ourselves program builds a sense of empathy by involving students in community service programs. The K-8 buddy program pairs 8th grade students with Kindergarten buddies, creating relationships between the youngest and the oldest students in the school.

The Challenge

In June of 2008, the school began a two year migration process from PCs to Macs. One of the goals was to reduce the number of servers required to support approximately 150 users. "Another of my concerns all along was backup. I was not able to find as reliable and efficient (albeit expensive) solution as I had with my Windows network," says John Orban, the Country School’s system administrator.

John needed to find a backup solution that would support his Apple^® network without adding unnecessary layers of complexity. At first, he tried a DAS (direct attached storage) solution, but this lacked the redundancy he required. Next, he tried another NAS solution. “It offered 4TB of storage and claimed to be Mac compatible, but there was no way to make it a Time Machine destination. So, back it went to the vendor.”

The Solution

After reading a number of positive reviews on the web, John found the Synology DS1010+ 5100, a high-performance 5-bay server pre-installed with five 1TB drives in a RAID 5 configuration. With help from his rep, Brenda, at GlobalGovEd, he finally found a backup solution with redundancy that fit his budget and met his needs. Upon receiving the DiskStation, he placed it in the rack and turned it on. John found that the DiskStation Manager made it simple to set up his backups.

"I set up a shared folder as a Time Machine destination - just like the documentation says to do it (although I admit I didn't read the documentation, I just followed the wizard). I started pointing my admin staff to the DiskStation and within 24 hours everyone had been migrated and backups were working. I simply couldn't be more pleased. This is how technology is SUPPOSED to work!"

John continues his search to simplify his network, having pared the school’s servers to three. Even so, he is unwilling to compromise on his backups. The DS1010+ provides him with a robust solution that just works with his Mac^® network. The Synology DiskStation gives him an on-site backup solution for his administrative staff and his XServers^®. This also gives him faster restores than downloading from a cloud-based service.

As they continue in their mission to bring children the best education possible, the Country School cannot afford to lose their data. The DiskStation provides an important component in John’s backup strategy - a simple, redundant, local solution.

"Your product is one of those that we buy and hope to heaven we'll never need. Hopefully no one's machine will need to be restored from backup. Hopefully everything will run smoothly. But if it doesn't work out that way, I am confident that the school's data is being backed up reliably and efficiently."

For more information on The Country School's on going mission please visit: http://www.countryschool.org/home/home.asp.