Hyper Backup on Synology + Wasabi: a step-by-step guide

Hyper Backup is Synology's official cloud backup application, compatible with any S3 service — including Wasabi, one of the cheapest and fastest options for encrypted offsite backup. This guide covers the whole process from scratch: creating the Wasabi account, configuring the bucket, creating the IAM user, and setting up the backup job with AES-256 encryption and an automatic schedule.

Why Wasabi and not Amazon S3

Wasabi is a cloud storage service that is 100% compatible with the Amazon S3 protocol — any application that works with S3 also works with Wasabi, without code or configuration changes.

Wasabi's advantages over Amazon S3 for SME backup:

• Fixed cost: USD 6.99/TB/month, with no data egress fees. Amazon S3 charges for data transfer — recovering a large backup can cost significantly more than storing it.
• Speed: Wasabi has data centres in Europe (eu-central-1, Amsterdam), with low latency from Romania.
• Simplicity: There are no storage tiers (Standard, Glacier etc.) — data is always immediately accessible.
• Synology compatibility: Hyper Backup includes Wasabi as a predefined destination; setup takes under 10 minutes.

Step 1 — Create the Wasabi account and bucket

1. Go to wasabi.com and create an account. There's a free 30-day trial with 1 TB included.
2. In the Wasabi console, go to Buckets → Create Bucket.
3. Choose a unique bucket name (e.g. backup-firma-mea-2026) and select the eu-central-1 region (Amsterdam) for minimum latency from Romania.
4. Don't enable Object Lock unless you're sure you need it — it complicates deleting old versions.
5. Leave the remaining settings at their defaults and create the bucket.

Step 2 — Create an IAM user with minimal permissions

Don't use the main account's credentials for Hyper Backup. Create a dedicated user with restrictive permissions:

1. In the Wasabi console, go to Access Keys → Create Access Key or Users → Create User.
2. Create a new user (e.g. synology-hyper-backup), type Programmatic.
3. Assign it a policy that allows access only to the bucket you created earlier. The minimum policy required:

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [{
    "Effect": "Allow",
    "Action": [
      "s3:GetBucketLocation",
      "s3:ListBucket",
      "s3:GetObject",
      "s3:PutObject",
      "s3:DeleteObject"
    ],
    "Resource": [
      "arn:aws:s3:::backup-firma-mea-2026",
      "arn:aws:s3:::backup-firma-mea-2026/*"
    ]
  }]
}

4. Save the Access Key ID and Secret Access Key — you'll use them in Hyper Backup. You can't view them again after you close the window.

Step 3 — Install and configure Hyper Backup

1. On the Synology NAS, open Package Center and install Hyper Backup (free).
2. Open Hyper Backup and click + (Data backup task).
3. Select the destination: S3 Storage → Wasabi. DSM 7.x includes Wasabi as a preset.
4. Fill in the fields:
   • Server: s3.eu-central-1.wasabisys.com
   • Access Key ID: the key created in Step 2
   • Secret Access Key: the matching secret
   • Bucket Name: backup-firma-mea-2026
   • Directory: a subfolder in the bucket, e.g. nas-backup
5. Click Next. Hyper Backup will test the connection and list the available buckets.

Step 4 — Enable AES-256 encryption

This is the most important step for GDPR compliance and security:

1. On the Backup Settings screen, tick Enable client-side encryption.
2. Set a strong password (at least 20 characters, alphanumeric). Write it down and store it away from the NAS — without it, the backup can't be restored.
3. Download the exported encryption key (.key) and store it on separate media (USB, another cloud).

The encryption is client-side: data is encrypted on the NAS before it leaves for Wasabi. Not even Wasabi can read the contents of your backup.

Step 5 — Select the folders to include

1. Select the shared folders you want to include in the backup (e.g. homes, documents, shared).
2. Optionally, you can also include the configurations of the installed DSM applications — useful for quickly recovering the whole NAS configuration.
3. Exclude temporary folders, caches and folders with regenerable data to reduce the backup size.

Step 6 — Schedule and version rotation

1. On the Schedule screen, we recommend:
   • Frequency: Daily, at 02:00 (low network traffic)
   • Retention policy: Smart Recycle — daily versions for the last 30 days, weekly for the last 3 months, monthly indefinitely
2. Turn on Enable backup notification with an email address for failure alerts.
3. Tick Verify backup data integrity monthly.

Step 7 — The first backup and restore check

1. Run the first backup manually: right-click the task → Back up now.
2. Follow the progress in Hyper Backup. The first backup can take hours depending on the data volume and your upload speed.
3. When it's done, test a restore: Hyper Backup → select the task → Restore → Data → choose a few test files and restore them to a temporary folder.
4. Check that the restored files are intact. An untested backup is not a valid backup.

Repeat the restore test monthly and document the results. This also meets the GDPR art. 32 requirement for regularly testing technical measures.