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Forum Discussion
Using ReadyNAS for rack mount storage for backup, comparing to Synology
Hey folks, thanks in advance for any offered guidance. I'm a one-man content production house, needing to upgrade my local backup. I use the software Retrospect to back up to local drives, and si...
Presumably, you are aware of the noise level and frequency range of 1U rack-mount computer equipment and have an appropriate location.
You are really making poor use of a NAS if each drive is a separate volume and it's only used as "a stack of drives". So having more capability on a higher end NAS (Netgear or other brand) is certainly a waste. A SAN (which the ReadyNAS can also act as) would seem a better fit, but you're probably not going to find one any cheaper than the RR2304. In that configuration, you will have to manually distribute the files across the volumes (unless Retrospect can do that for you) and, of course, you will have no redundancy. Redundancy is less important if all the data is just backups (as opposed to archives) or there is yet another backup. Still, it gives you the ability to work through a drive failure, which can be critical in a production environment. But, you know what you want.
I did not mention spanning all the drives together as non-RAID, since that is a really bad idea, though possible. While it eliminates the need to manually distribute the data across multiple volumes, the loss of one drive loses all the data. Even if you have a backup, it can be quite a task to restore it all.
Yes, the RR2304 can be configured to do that, and quite cost effectively. You can use the space on each drive for iSCSI or you can have the individual files accessable via SMB or other protocols. It all depends on what works best with your Retrospect instance.
If you have room for it (it's very deep), you might also want to look at the RR2312 and start out with it's 12 bays at under $1000. If you decide to go with RAID, a 12-bay system is more efficient in the use of the extra drive(s) needed for that.
Thank you Sandshark, great info here!
I'm aware of the noise (I've placed an order so I'll see just how loud it really is) and do have what I hope is a good location for it. I guess we'll find out. By "frequency range" I presume you mean an audible whine? Again I'll just have to see what it sounds like. All the other rack mounted gear I have (video switchers and audio interfaces) are pretty quiet, so maybe I'm in for a rude surprise. Only one way to find out though!
I've been talking to Retrospect (the backup software company) and may end up RAIDing these together after all. Tough call… leaving them individual is the most flexible, as I can replace individual drives as needed (due to damage or simply wanting to significantly upgrade the drive, i.e. from an 8TB today to a 20TB in a couple of years), and leaves any drive rebuilding up to Retrospect, however it also means each drive is a unique share point (which may or may not be tedious). I like the idea of making the backup a RAID 5 for safety, which if the 2304 is good at managing, monitoring drive health and rebuilding when needed, perhaps I just do that for simplicity. Of course I hate to give up 1/4 of my drive capacity, too. Ugh.
Retrospect does the file distribution automatically. It's a pretty sweet backup solution, allowing you to restore to any point in time that it's backed up, indefinitely or limited to xx days if you like, and the biggest benefit to me is that it let's me just add more drives as more space is needed. When backing up a 40TB RAID (my primary working drive that's a RAID 0 for performance so has to be backed up daily), finding the right solution took some time and experimentation. Retrospect is great, and is currently restoring 27TB of data due to some freak anomaly that caused nearly complete data loss. It was after that that I've decided to upgrade my backup even further ;-)
The 2312 is interesting. I should have the room for it as I just ordered a new rack to move things into, and it's quite deep (although I'd have to check). Can you build multiple RAIDs in it? Meaning, put four drives in today and RAID 5 them, then add another four to build another RAID 5 down the road? Or, does it have some other, more clever RAID solution for easily expanding the size of an existing RAID? Although I'd have to be pretty solidly convinced that it was rock solid, given that I've had Drobo's so-called clever "RAID" design utterly fail on my multiple times (and I'll never use their products again!).
One thing I'm interested in for the 2304 is the built-in cloud backup. I don't know how much sense it makes to cloud backup the Retrospect backup, but it's something I'll look at. If both the main drive and the local backup failed, I'd have to restore the Retorspect backup from the cloud, then restore the drive from Retrospect. Sounds tedious.
Thanks again for your insight. It's much appreciated.
-Joseph
Also Sandshark — you mentioned the RR2312. I was just looking at that more, and see it has an expandable RAID system called "X-RAID". I've been bitten HARD twice by Drobo's supposed expandable RAID and will never touch their tech again. Do you know anything about this X-RAID and if it's any good? That would certainly make growth easier down the road.
-Joseph
PhotoJoseph wrote:
I was just looking at that more, and see it has an expandable RAID system called "X-RAID".
All ReadyNAS have some form of X-RAID.
PhotoJoseph wrote:
Do you know anything about this X-RAID and if it's any good? That would certainly make growth easier down the road.
It has worked well for me, and it does simplify expansion. Note you choose to use the FlexRaid option - in that case you manually configure the RAID. That includes the ability to vertically expand an existing volume, by
- creating a new RAID group on the unused portion of your upgraded disks.
- concatenating that group one of the existing volumes.
X-RAID uses standard Linux tools underneath (mdadm and btrfs), so there is nothing proprietary about it.
In general, with X-RAID, you either replace a disk with one of the same size, or you replace (or add) a disk that is at least as large as the largest disk in the array. The rule for the volume size for single redundancy (RAID-5) is "sum the disks and subtract the largest".
There is no downside with starting with X-RAID, especially if your disks are equal size. You'll end up with RAID-5 if you have 5 disks or less, and RAID-6 if you have 6 disks or more. You can switch to FlexRAID later on if you like.
Overall - I recommend
- sizing your NAS and disks so that you have at least one empty slot for future expansion. Horizontal expansion (adding more disks) is more cost effective than vertical expansion (replacing working disks with larger disks).
- getting a UPS system to protect the NAS from unexpected power loss.
- and of course, put a back-up plan in place for the NAS.
Thanks StephenB that's helpful. I'm thinking more and more that I should just get the 2312 instead of the 2304. Bite the bullet now, pay more and be ready to add drives as needed. This system is a backup. I'm using the software Retrospect on a Mac, currently backing up to USB drives, and looking to improve upon this, hence exploring a rack mounted NAS.
To be sure I'm not misunderstanding anything here… if I get the 2312 and install four 10TB drives today, that will RAID 5 and give me 30TB of NAS storage. I'll back up to that using Retrospect, and as capacity runs low, I can add another drive to the 2312 and just grow the capacity. So far correct, right?
As I mentioned my only experience with this kind of RAID tech was Drobo which failed miserably for me. On X-RAID, if I have 4 10TB disks I get 30TB [(10x4)-10=30], and then if I add another 10TB (5 drives total) it becomes 40TB usable space, right. Now, if I add a sixth 10TB, it becomes a RAID 6 and I'd don't gain capacity until I add a seventh 10TB, correct? Am I getting that right?
Finally, what if I add larger disks? If I start adding bigger and bigger disks, i.e. a 16TB instead of a 10TB, does the extra capacity become wasted?
Thanks again!
-Joseph
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