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Forum Discussion
Backup to USB Drive??
OK, I have a ReadyNas Pro2, older, but it has run flawlessly.
(RAIDiator 4.2.21 ) .
In the Past, we have backed it up through a workstation, which is SLOW!
I would like to use the built in "Backup" routine to backup the ENTIRE volume to an attached USB-3 2Tb Harddrive....
I have the Disks setup as a MIRROR (X-Raid2)
What is the SOURCE volume, is it "c" or "c-snap" or something else?
I don't want to backup the individual shares, (all 5 of them) I want to create an Image or Snapshot of the server (all 1.1 Gig of it) onto the USB drive.
Every time I try it, it starts, and the errors out a few seconds later...
What am I doing wrong???
5 Replies
c-snap is a snapshot of the c volume.
Your data volume is called "c" (no quotes)
The advantage of backing up a snapshot is that a snapshot is your data volume frozen in time, so you are more likely to get consistent backups. However the snapshot will only last till the next snapshot is taken on your schedule. If you make more writes to the NAS than there is snapshot space then the snapshot will be invalidated.Which filesystem is on the USB disk?
If you download the logs (Status > Logs > Download all logs), what is the date in bios_ver.log?
Interested in the answer too.
But...
I am using RAID1 (mirroring). Is there anything wrong in extracting one of the HD's and keeping it as backup, then inserting an empty HD and let it resync?
militar wrote:
But...
I am using RAID1 (mirroring). Is there anything wrong in extracting one of the HD's and keeping it as backup, then inserting an empty HD and let it resync?
Yes, there are major problems with that. It could lead to losing your data. Don't do that. RAID is not a backup. See Preventing Catastrophic Data Loss
I can re-format the USB-drive to whatever it needs to be... I will try again, but I have my file-by-file remote backup for now...
To the person who asked about using one of the Raid volumes as a backup...
An option, not a good one, is to remove a drive and replace it with a Blank drive and have the raid re-built. You now have a mirror of the mirror...but it may not be readable by anything but the NAS as it is likely a track-by-track backup/mirror not a file by file true backup.
An option, not a good one, is to remove a drive and replace it with a Blank drive and have the raid re-built. You now have a mirror of the mirror...but it may not be readable by anything but the NAS as it is likely a track-by-track backup/mirror not a file by file true backup.
Just to amplify the "not a good one":
(a) SATA connectors on hard drives aren't designed to handle a lot of insertions/removals. There is a risk that you will eventually damage the connectors. If that happens, your "backup" is useless.
(b) Every insertion requires a full resync of the array. This takes a lot of time, and puts stress drive 1. It also reduces the NAS performance.
(c) If there is an disk error on drive 1 during the resync, you will lose the RAID volume. Though you can potentially recover (removing both disks, and putting the last removed drive in slot 2), it is an unnecessary risk.
The fastest way to back up a Pro-2 is to back it up over a gigabit network - either to another NAS or a PC (perhaps an attached USB 3 drive on that PC). Though direct USB backup is convenient, and often fast enough.
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