A better way to backup Duo to a USB drive ?

Hooking up a USB drive to a connected PC will work. However, I suspect it will be slower than having it connected directly. If you have a USB 3 external drive connected directly to the NAS I suspect is the fastest way to get a backup. (That is how I do it.) Connected via a network attached PC limits the bandwidth to the network speed plus the latency of the PC's connection to the USB drive. The backup task defined in the NAS will only be able to copy directly to the PC's USB device if you have also shared that device to the network and given the PC's login credentials to the NAS. Otherwise it won't be able to see it.

If you have a gigabit network, backing up to a connected PC will be much faster than using connecting the USB drive to the NAS. If you purchased around your forum join date, you have a duo v1 NAS which does not support usb 3.0 btw.

Also, in the connected PC case, you can either use frontview backup (as leiphasw suggests) or backup up using PC tools (robocopy, etc).

Another benefit of using ntfs format is that it is easier to read the backup data from a PC in the event the NAS fails.

StephenB wrote:

If you have a gigabit network, backing up to a connected PC will be much faster than using connecting the USB drive to the NAS. If you purchased around your forum join date, you have a duo v1 NAS which does not support usb 3.0 btw. Also, in the connected PC case, you can either use frontview backup (as leiphasw suggests) or backup up using PC tools (robocopy, etc). Another benefit of using ntfs format is that it is easier to read the backup data from a PC in the event the NAS fails.

Thanks for that StephenB, using the PC sounds like the way to go.

The USB drive connected directly to the ReadyNAS being backed up via resync can be NTFS formatted. It will be readable on a Windows PC, although the Windows PC may squawk about permissions depending on what you try to do with the drive while connected to the PC. But since you'd probably have Administrator permission on the PC, you can just reset all of the permissions on the USB drive.

mjburns wrote:
The USB drive connected directly to the ReadyNAS being backed up via resync can be NTFS formatted. It will be readable on a Windows PC, although the Windows PC may squawk about permissions depending on what you try to do with the drive while connected to the PC. But since you'd probably have Administrator permission on the PC, you can just reset all of the permissions on the USB drive.

That is true, but there are incremental backups that can be run on the Windows OS as well (for instance Robocopy).

If you want fastest backup speed, backing up over gigabit ethernet to a PC is the way to go - it is faster than directly connecting a USB drive to the Duo no matter how the drive is formatted.

StephenB wrote:
If you want fastest backup speed, backing up over gigabit ethernet to a PC is the way to go - it is faster than directly connecting a USB drive to the Duo no matter how the drive is formatted.

So a USB 3.0 drive connected to a PC which is on a gigabit ethernet network, and the ReadyNAS is on the same gigabit ethernet network, has higher throughput than the same USB 3.0 dive connected directly to the ReadyNAs' USB 3.0 port? If true, this implies a poor implementation of USB 3.0 in the ReadyNAS. Does anyone know what the ReadyNAS' internal issue is?

mjburns wrote:
So a USB 3.0 drive connected to a PC which is on a gigabit ethernet network, and the ReadyNAS is on the same gigabit ethernet network, has higher throughput than the same USB 3.0 dive connected directly to the ReadyNAs' USB 3.0 port? If true, this implies a poor implementation of USB 3.0 in the ReadyNAS. Does anyone know what the ReadyNAS' internal issue is?

Based on the forum join date, the OP must have a Duo V1 which does not support USB 3.0 and has a rather slow processor.

Based on the smallnetbuilder review, the performance of a duo v2 on local USB 3.0 backup appears to be about the same as NAS read speed. So in that case, the network backup speed should be about the same as the local backup.

I do have a Duo V1 which as you say is not the fastest in the world due to it being USB2 unfortunatly for backups.

It works fine in normal use, I can play 40g movies over the ethernet to my Mede8er MED600X3D Media player with no problems.

I still use my V1's (though right now just for backups of my Pro). They've worked well for me over the years, and as you point out, have enough performance for bluray streaming.

Definitely slower than the newer models, but if you are ok with the speeds you are getting, there is no reason to take it out of service.

I also have a query about ReadNas Duo (v1) backups to External USB Drive. I have several shares lets call them, Documents, Movies and Music. Each of those shares have several folders under them with file in them.
What I want to do is create three new Backup Jobs so that the contents of the "Documents Share" is copied to the External USB Drive into I folder called "Documents" that I have created, and the contents of the "Movies Share" is copied to the External USB Drive into I folder called "Movies" that I have created, the contents of the "Music Share" is copied to the External USB Drive into I folder called "Music" that I have created.

Now Step 1 of the Create New Backup Job procedure lets you select the Source (ie: "Documents" share) but Step 2 where you select Destination only lets you select the External Hard Drive (share) and does not let you specify the path on the External Hard drive (Ie: "Documents" Folder). And it is the same for the other backup jobs for Movies and Music.

So what then happens is if you select the External USB Harddrive as the destination everything backs up OK but all the folders from the different shares are all just mixed in together and not under their correct folder names (to relect the share names).

So the question is in Step 2 where you select Destination and you select the External Hard Drive (share) to back up to for each Backup Job how can you also specify the path on the External Hard drive (Ie: "Documents" Folder) where you want the contents of the "Documents" share to backup to. And then the same for the other Shares, Movies and Music so that the backup on the External USB Drive then reflects the structure of the Shares on the ReadNas Duo (v1).

A solution to this would be much appreciated as I have spent some time trying to work it out but just cant see how to do it.