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Available hard disk memory. Only half showing available.
I just bouht a ReadyNas 102 2-bay system. It has 2-2 GB HDs in each bay. When I look at the overview on the admin page only 1.8 GB is availble. Likewise when I look at the system at ReadyCLOUD ...
Bourbonbill wrote:
But I will be keeping all my photos and music on the NAS and I'm concerned if I should back up the NAS as well.
The short answer is "yes you should". The RAID mirror is NOT a backup.
Some common scenarios -
-There is an unexpected power failure that brings down the NAS. The file system ends up in a corrupted state and your volume is lost. Mirroring doesn't help- the disks are synced, so both copies end up corrupted in the same way.
-You make mistake and accidentally delete some precious photos. Oops.
-Both disks fail in rapid succession (which sounds rare, but does happen).
-You have a fire, flood, nearby lightning strike, or theft.
-a hacker or malware hijacks your data (e.g., something like Cryptolocker)
Bourbonbill wrote:
Seems like a third copy would be redundant.
By definition backups are redundant. Hopefully the info above will explain why I don't count RAID as one of the copies. Also, I'm using RAID-5, not RAID-1 - which works very differently, and is not creating a mirror.
I started backups long before I had a NAS - and unfortunately have had to use them from time to time. I learned the hard way that sometimes the backup wasn't readable. I've never lost data once I began the "3-copy" policy. So I continue to keep least 3 local copies (including the original) of everything, all on different devices. Though it costs some money up front, it is far cheaper and more certain than data recovery later on (not to mention the family fallout from losing the photos). Today my main NAS is a Pro-6, and I back it up to other NASes.
I also use cloud backup (CrashPlan) for disaster recovery - for ~$60 per year, it was a no-brainer. Though there have been some bumps in the road with them over the past few months, I still think its a good deal. I don't yet trust cloud backup enough to cut back from three local copies to two.
It probably doesn't make sense to run CrashPlan on an RN102, but you could potentially run it on a PC or a Mac (and there are some tricks that will let you back up the NAS from the PC/MAC).
Sorry, meant TB not GB.
You have RAID-1. That gives you redundancy (so you can replace a failed disk w/o downtime, and without losing data). That is the default (and is what most users want).
You can switch to JBOD, which would give you two 2TB volumes. To do that, uninstall any apps, and switch to flexraid. Then delete the existing volume, and create two new ones. After that, reinstall the apps. Read the the chapter in the OS6 manual on volume configuration first - http://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/GDC/READYNAS-100/readynas_os_6_4_o_09.pdf.
As far as 1.8 (vs 2) goes - the NAS (like Windows) reports storage in TiB, the drive manufacturers use TB.
2 TB = 2 * (1000/1024)*(1000/1024)*(1000/1024)*(1000/1024) = ~1.8 TiB.
Thanks. That helps. I guess the second disk is syncing or backing up data from the first.
Is this automatic?
Looks like I need to do further reading on Backup and Syncing?
Technically RAID-1 sets up the two drives as "mirrored". Everything you write is written in parallel to both disks. When reading, the system can use either disk (which can increase performance). When a disk fails, it simply switches to using only 1 drive. When you replace the failed drive, the drives are resynced and mirroring starts again. This is all hidden from the user, and is automatic.
RAID doesn't replace the need for backups. A simple disk failure is not the possible failure, and you shouldn't trust your data to a single device. So you should read through those sections of the manual as well.
So, with the 2 disks in the RAID-1 setup being mirrored and sync'd automatically should the NAS drive be backed up as well. Seems like a third copy would be redundant.
I understand about backing up my other computers to my NAS. But I will be keeping all my photos and music on the NAS and I'm concerned if I should back up the NAS as well.
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