For the past seven-eight year I have been using a WD My Cloud EX4100 24TB and some 10TB external drives as redundant storage for my data. I have about 10TB in total currently, including backups of cell phones, photos and videos etc. This is all stuff that I want to make sure it’s preserved forever.

Something occurred within the past few weeks when transferring some data from the NAS to a new WD 22TB Elements (of which I now have two). I had to format the new external drives to be case sensitive, otherwise the files would not copy successfully due to conflicts, according to my mac.

I then attempted to change the RAID format of the NAS to give myself some more space (from 10 to 5). What’s strange is that when trying to move the data from a WD 22TB Elements back to the EX4100, I also encountered case sensitivity issues, and was unable to copy my data back. I spent several days using different Python scripts to try and handle the file name discrepancies, but it was far easier to just format my two new WD 22TB Elements to HFPS case sensitive and call it a day.

Now I plan to keep my data on the two WD 22TB Elements and Backblaze for the time being. My question to you all is can you recommend a NAS device with at least four bays that is affordable, reliable, and as user-friendly as possible. Also, let me not forget my main issue, case sensitivity. My EX4100, although seemingly previously capable of storing my files without issue, is now case insensitive and that’s not something I can reformat in Disk Utility or on the WD dashboard. I would certainly want my next device to be able to handle whatever I throw at it.

I’m not sure if Synology devices would give me the same issues or not but I would love to have a NAS as an additional back up. I appreciate all of your time and suggestions.