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Forum Discussion
Backups not working yet status says they are working
I have been using the built-in Rsync feature to back up my ReadyNAS (firmware version 6.10.4) to a directly attached external USB drive for a number of years now. I get nightly notices via email from my ReadyNAS indicating "Successfully completed backup job nightly rsync of data folder." However, nothing has been written to my external USB drive in over two months. I did a little investigating and found that the external USB drive is only 68% full, buy my ReadyNAS is 100% full (but see next paragraph). I presume this is preventing rsyncing to the external drive. I'm curious as to why a full ReadyNAS would break the backup process (although I can image several reasons why). I am even more curious as to why the backup process would tell me that a backup was succesfully when it was not. Is this a bug that should be fixed for the entire ReadyNAS community?
When I say that the ReadyNAS is full, I'm looking at the output of the "df" command (from an ssh session) which shows 20G available with 100% use. I have not gotten any notices that the ReadyNAS is full and I'm still able to write to it just fine (I mostly write small text files), so I'm guessing that samba runs as root so it can still write my files as it likely has access to the 20G remaining..
This is a very dangerous senario considering that I rely on these emails to let me know that my backups are functioning. I have had no backups now for over two months and I've been told (via email) they have been successful every night. Thank goodness I didn't have any data loss and that I caught this before such an event occurred as this could have been catastrophic.
Here is an example of a nightly email that I receive from the ReadyNAS (notice that thte backup time is less than one second):
subject: ReadyNAS Alert Message (readynas Backup: Notice)
body:
Successfully completed backup job nightly rsync of data folder.
-------- Backup Job Information --------
Backup Job Name: nightly rsync of data folder
Backup Job Type: Incremental
Protocol: rsync
Backup Source: [volume:data]/
Backup Destination: [remote:rsync]/localhost::USB_HDD_7
Backup Start Time: Thu Jun 03 2021 12:05:11 AM
Backup Finish Time: Thu Jun 03 2021 12:05:11 AM
Backup Status: Success
16 Replies
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kenalker1 wrote:
I have been using the built-in Rsync feature to back up my ReadyNAS (firmware version 6.10.4) to a directly attached external USB drive for a number of years now. I get nightly notices via email from my ReadyNAS indicating "Successfully completed backup job nightly rsync of data folder." However, nothing has been written to my external USB drive in over two months.
This is a known bug with rsync "push" backups in 6.10.4 and 6.10.5 No idea why Netgear hasn't addressed it (perhaps JohnCM_S should make sure it is on their fix list???)
Since you are using "push" backups (backing up from a local source to a "remote" destination), you can either downgrade back to 6.10.3 or you can switch to using "pull" backups. Though you need multiple backup jobs to use "pull" (one for each share).
kenalker1 wrote:
...but my ReadyNAS is 100% full (but see next paragraph).
When I say that the ReadyNAS is full, I'm looking at the output of the "df" command (from an ssh session) which shows 20G available with 100% use.
You should expand your storage! BTRFS behaves very badly when it runs out of free space - particularly when it can't allocate space for metadata. Your volume is at risk. After you expand it, I suggest running a balance from the volume settings wheel. (I don't recommend running a balance now - it likely will fail).
FWIW, df isn't a good tool for exploring disk usage with btrfs. "Free space" is a rather complex subject with btrfs and zfs. There are some tools built into btrfs that give better information. For instance, btrfs fi df.
JohnCM_S wrote:I have already forwarded this to the appropriate NETGEAR team. I will send a follow-up to them since I have not received any feedback yet.
Regards,
StephenB (or anyone) - can I get a status on this? John and I were going back and forth in PM but it appears he retired and I can't PM him any longer. I have (intentionally) not cleared off space so that the problem remains in case programmers at Netgear needed to see the problem real-time, but I'm feeling nervous about leaving it in this state so was hoping for update to see what is next.
StephenB wrote:
kenalker1 wrote:I have been using the built-in Rsync feature to back up my ReadyNAS (firmware version 6.10.4) to a directly attached external USB drive for a number of years now. I get nightly notices via email from my ReadyNAS indicating "Successfully completed backup job nightly rsync of data folder." However, nothing has been written to my external USB drive in over two months.
This is a known bug with rsync "push" backups in 6.10.4 and 6.10.5 No idea why Netgear hasn't addressed it (perhaps JohnCM_S should make sure it is on their fix list???)
Since you are using "push" backups (backing up from a local source to a "remote" destination), you can either downgrade back to 6.10.3 or you can switch to using "pull" backups. Though you need multiple backup jobs to use "pull" (one for each share).
Wouldn't this require the backup device to be "smart" so one can command it to do the "pull"? I am just using an external USB drive with no brains.
kenalker1 wrote:...but my ReadyNAS is 100% full (but see next paragraph).
When I say that the ReadyNAS is full, I'm looking at the output of the "df" command (from an ssh session) which shows 20G available with 100% use.
You should expand your storage! BTRFS behaves very badly when it runs out of free space - particularly when it can't allocate space for metadata. Your volume is at risk. After you expand it, I suggest running a balance from the volume settings wheel. (I don't recommend running a balance now - it likely will fail).
I will likely delete some large old Windoze backups to free up space rather than expanding. I will run the balance after I remove some files and free up some space. Thank you for the suggestion on "balancing". I will have to study what that does.
FWIW, df isn't a good tool for exploring disk usage with btrfs. "Free space" is a rather complex subject with btrfs and zfs. There are some tools built into btrfs that give better information. For instance, btrfs fi df.
Thank you. I will study those.
BTW, the "quoting" mechanism in this forum software isn't very intuitive - it was VERY time consuming and difficult to figure out a way to enter a response part way through a quote without it looking like the response was part of the original quote. I won't belabor this since it is not the topic at hand, but it needs fixing (or I need some lessons).
"Push" and "Pull" with both work with a USB drive and using the LocalHost address for the "remote" system. For a pull, you want the source to be "remote" at the LocalHost address and the destination to be the local share. Note that if you don't want the backup to be in a folder within the target share you need to set the desitnation path to / after you have created the backup job.
Currently rsync backp on latest ReadyNAS firmware doesn't support to backup the full data volume (Backup Source: [volume:data]/) by default, please enable multiple file systems on rsync backup option, which will back up the whole data volume to destination.
I don't think you understood my question. I'm using the same method I've always used. Your answer doesn't address the issue. Can you please re-read the entire thread in detail?
dingjs1421 wrote:
please enable multiple file systems on rsync backup option, which will back up the whole data volume to destination.
Thx for pointing out that option - I don't recall seeing it before. Was it added in 6.10.4?
kenalker1 - it might be worth going into the advanced options page in your backup job, and setting that option.
Thanks.. I'll look at that soon.
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