Requirements and Limitations
This section provides you with important information on deployment limitations and supported environments of different devices.
Synology NAS Requirements and Limitations
- For Active Backup for Business 2.1.0 and above versions, a Synology NAS running DSM 6.2 or above is required.
- For Active Backup for Business 2.0.4 and previous versions, a Synology NAS running DSM 6.1.7 or above is required.
- Active Backup for Business can only run on x64 Synology NAS servers with Btrfs file system.
- To achieve better backup performance, your Synology NAS should have at least 4 GB of RAM, and shared folder quota should remain disabled to facilitate data deduplication.
- To perform a backup task, there must be at least 8 GB of free space both on the backup destination and on the volume where the package is installed.
- Backup destinations must be shared folders on Btrfs volumes.
- The backup destinations of personal computers, physical servers, and virtual machines cannot be encrypted shared folders.
Personal Computer Requirements and Limitations
Windows
- Supported Windows editions
- Windows 11 (all editions)
- Windows 10 Creators Update (all editions)
- Windows 10 (all editions)
- Windows 8.1 (all editions)
- Windows 7 SP1 (all editions)
- Supported file system
- Required network port: 5510
Note:
- If your computer is encrypted with BitLocker, decrypt it before performing a backup so that you can restore the computer from the Recovery Portal. BitLocker will be disabled after you perform bare-metal restoration, so make sure to turn on BitLocker encryption again to resume protection.
- Volumes larger than 64 TB cannot be backed up. Learn more about the Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) limitation.
- On dynamic disks, only simple volumes are supported for backup, while other types of volumes are not.
- Supports backing up external hard drives only. Other external devices, such as floppy drives, thumb drives, and flash card readers cannot be backed up.
- The backup of personal computers with 4Kn disks is not supported.
- The backup of virtual hard disks (VHDs) on Windows is not supported. If you wish to back up VHDs, please back up the entire device or the volume where the VHD files are located.
- When connecting personal computers to Synology NAS via Synology Active Backup for Business Agent, connecting through QuickConnect is not supported.
- Active Backup for Business Portal does not support downloading or restoring backup data that are encrypted by Windows Encryption File System (EFS).
macOS
- Supported macOS versions
- macOS Catalina 10.15.7
- macOS Big Sur 11
- macOS Monterey 12
- macOS Ventura 13
- Supported file system
- Required network port: 5510
Note:
- You must allow Full Disk Access if you want to back up external APFS hard drives or SSDs on your Mac.
- When you install the backup agent, the kernel extensions (kexts) must be enabled and the user account must have administrator privileges.
- On dynamic disks, only simple volumes are supported for backup, while other types of volumes are not.
Physical Server Requirements and Limitations
Windows
- Supported Windows edition:
- Windows 11 (all editions)
- Windows 10 Creators Update (all editions)
- Windows 10 (all editions)
- Windows 8.1 (all editions)
- Windows 7 SP1 (all editions)
- Windows Server 2022
- Windows Server 2019
- Windows Server 2016
- Windows Server 2012 R2
- Windows Server 2012
- Windows Server 2008 R2
- Supported file system:
- Required network port: 5510
Note:
- Volumes larger than 64 TB cannot be backed up. Learn more about the Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) limitation.
- On dynamic disks, only simple volumes are supported for backup, while other types of volumes are not.
- Supports backing up external hard drives only. Other external devices, such as floppy drives, thumb drives, and flash card readers cannot be backed up.
- The Cluster Shared Volumes in a failover cluster will not be included in backups because their file systems are recognized as the CSVFS file system. Active Backup for Business does not support the backup of CSVFS file system.
- The backup of physical servers with 4Kn disks is not supported.
- The backup of virtual hard disks (VHDs) on Windows is not supported. If you wish to back up VHDs, please back up the entire device or the volume where the VHD files are located.
- Windows 11 backup tasks only support Backup Verification and Instant Restore to Virtual Machine Manager on DSM 7.1 and above.
- When connecting physical servers to Synology NAS via Synology Active Backup for Business Agent, connecting through QuickConnect is not supported.
- Active Backup for Business Portal does not support downloading or restoring:
Linux
- Supports kernel versions between 2.6 and 5.15
- Supported 64-bit versions of the following Linux distributions
- CentOS: 6.10, 7.8, 7.9, 8.1, 8.5
- RHEL: 6.10, 7.8, 7.9, 8.1, 8.4, 8.5, 8.6
- Ubuntu: 16.04, 18.04, 20.04, 22.04
- Fedora: 30, 31, 32
- Debian: 8.0, 9.0, 10, 11
- Supported file systems
- Required components on the target device
- make 4.1 version or above
- libaio 0.3.110 version or above
- dkms 2.2.0.3 version or above
- gcc 4.8.2 version or above
Note:
- Supported device types: /dev/sdx, /dev/hdx, /dev/vdx, /dev/nvmex, /dev/mdx.
- Backup of external devices is not supported.
- For connecting physical servers to Synology NAS via Synology Active Backup for Business Agent, the QuickConnect URL of the Synology NAS is not supported.
File Server Requirements and Limitations
Active Backup for Business supports servers running with SMB (Windows) and rsync 3.0 or above (Linux) protocol.
For file servers to be backed up and restored properly, please make sure the following permissions of the source folder are enabled.
- For SMB (Windows) server backup:
- For backing up the server, the account you entered in Active Backup for Business for connecting the SMB server should have at least the read permission.
- For backing up and restoring the server, the account you entered in Active Backup for Business for connecting the SMB server should have the read and write permissions.
Note:
- The entered account should be authorized to access the path of the file you wish to back up and restore. For example, if the backup source is under "System32/AppLocker/ABBbackup", the account is required to have the read permission for the "System32", "AppLocker", and "ABBbackup" folder, instead of only the "ABBbackup" folder.
- For rsync server backup:
- For backing up the server, the account you entered in Active Backup for Business for connecting the rsync server should have at least the read permission.
- For backing up and restore the server, the account you entered in Active Backup for Business for connecting the rsync server should have the read and write permissions.
Note:
- For all connection modes, please check and edit the permission settings through command line or Linux user interface.
- If the selected connection mode of the server is rsync module or rsync module mode via SSH, please also check the permission settings in rsync.conf and edit settings if encountering insufficient permission errors.
- If the source server is a Synology NAS, please make sure the permission settings of the folders and directory are correct.
Virtual Machine Requirements and Limitations