How to Back Up a QNAP NAS to Amazon S3 with HBS 3

This guide shows how to copy data from a QNAP NAS to Amazon S3 with HBS 3. You will create a private S3 bucket, give a dedicated IAM user limited access, connect HBS 3, schedule the transfer, and verify that files reach the bucket.

Important: the screenshots below use an HBS 3 one-way sync job. A sync copy is useful for off-site protection, but it is not automatically a versioned backup. Enable S3 Versioning or use an HBS 3 backup job with version management if you need to recover older or deleted files.

Why use Amazon S3 for a QNAP backup?

Amazon S3 provides durable off-site object storage without requiring a second NAS. It is a strong option when you need geographic separation and flexible capacity, although storage, requests, retrieval, and data-transfer charges make it more complex than an external drive.

Before you start

• Update QTS or QuTS hero and HBS 3.
• Choose the AWS Region closest to you or required by your data policy.
• Keep S3 Block Public Access enabled.
• Decide whether you will use S3 Versioning or an HBS 3 versioned backup job.
• Store the access key securely; never paste it into screenshots or public notes.

Set up QNAP HBS 3 with Amazon S3

Step – 1 – Login to your AWS console and create a new S3 Bucket:

The S3 Bucket name should be globally unique, for this example it’s “mynas-backup-1996”

Scroll down, we have more configurations while creating S3 Bucket, like Versioning , Object Lock , and public access, etc…

For this example, keep Block Public Access enabled. Enable S3 Versioning if you want object-level version protection in addition to the HBS 3 job design, then click “Create Bucket”:

Now after the bucket is created, we need to create an IAM user for HBS 3 to use to write files to the Bucket.

Step – 2 – create IAM user:

Head to IAM console then Users, and then create user:

This user doesn’t need console access, so you can leave the option “Provide User access to the AWS Management Console “ unchecked, then click “Next”:

For permissions, I will create a custom policy and follow the principle of least privilege: the HBS 3 identity should receive only the S3 permissions required for this bucket and job, rather than broad access to the AWS account.

Now, on permissions page, choose “attach policy directly” , then “create policy”:

We will allow this user to make the actions (ListBucket, GetObject, DeleteObject, PutObject, ListAllMyBuckets, GetBucketLocation ) on this Bucket and the objects of this Bucket, it should look like this:

{     “Version”: “2012-10-17”,     “Statement”: [         {             “Sid”: “BucketLevel”,             “Effect”: “Allow”,             “Action”: [                 “s3:ListBucket”             ],             “Resource”: [                 “arn:aws:s3:::{Bucket Name}”             ]         },         {             “Sid”: “ObjectLevel”,             “Effect”: “Allow”,             “Action”: [                 “s3:PutObject”,                 “s3:GetObject”,                 “s3:DeleteObject”             ],             “Resource”: [                 “arn:aws:s3:::{Bucket Name}/*”             ]         },         {             “Sid”: “ListAndGetBucketLocation”,             “Effect”: “Allow”,             “Action”: [                 “s3:ListAllMyBuckets”,                 “s3:GetBucketLocation”             ],             “Resource”: [                 “*”             ]         }     ] }

for more information about IAM policies, check AWS Documentation

In order to make this, when you click on “create policy” it will open the policy editor, choose JSON and paste the above policy in the policy editor

After this, click “Next”, then give the policy a name, then, scroll down and click “ Create Policy”:

Once the policy created, we can attach it to the user:

Then, click “Next” and review then “Create User”:

Step – 3 – Create Access Key for the IAM User:

On the IAM Console, go to the users section and click on the username that you created:

Then go to the “ Security Credentials “ tab, and scroll down to “Access keys” , then click on “create access key” button:

The options should be as follows :

Then click “Next”

Optionally, you can add tags to describe the access key, then “create access key”

Once the access key is created, save the Access Key ID and Secret Access Key securely. AWS shows the secret only at creation time, so do not leave the CSV in Downloads or another unprotected location. Rotate or remove the key if it is no longer required.

Step – 4 – Log in to your QNAP NAS and Create HBS 3 Sync Job:

Open HBS 3 Program:

Then head to Sync Section and Create a “One-Way Sync Job”:

Now choose the destination as “ Amazon S3 & S3 Compatible” :

Then, copy and paste the Access Key id & Secret Access Key from the csv file downloaded earlier to their fields respectively, then click “Create”:

If the permissions are assigned correctly, then the creating should be successful and you can choose the bucket name from the drop-down menu:

Now choose the Source folder from your Local NAS and the destination folder in the S3 Bucket:

* you can add multiple folders to map to S3 up to 16 folders per Job.

Now, you can schedule the Sync Job however you see fit:

For the Rules, review how deletions, filters, and conflict handling should behave before leaving the defaults. A one-way sync can copy deletions or changes in ways you may not expect, so the rule set should match your recovery requirements:

Review and Create:

Step – 5 – Start the Sync and verify:

Click on “Sync Now”, to test the Sync job

I have a test.txt file inside the mapped folder:

Now we can see that the file has been copied to the S3 Bucket:

Before you rely on this copy

• Run the job once and confirm it finishes without warnings.
• Restore a small test folder to a different location on the NAS.
• Configure notifications so failed jobs are visible.
• Review S3 lifecycle rules carefully; premature transitions can add retrieval costs.
• Rotate the IAM access key and remove unused credentials.

For a lower-cost local copy, follow the QNAP external-drive guide. You can also compare the workflow with the Synology Amazon S3 guide.

Conclusion

Backing up QNAP data to Amazon S3 gives you durable off-site storage and flexible lifecycle options, but S3 pricing and retrieval rules can be more complex than a local backup. For smaller environments, I would keep a local external-drive copy as well instead of relying on one cloud job.

Check out this guide how to backup your QNAP NAS to an external hard drive.