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Documentation for Replicate, specifically backup and restoring data
Hello, I've been using Replicate for about 3 years now and luckily (knock on wood), I'v never had to restore my backup NAS to my primary NAS. That being said, I can't find any documentation on ho...
Thanks againg for your input, StephenB and TeknoJnky.
I got everything backed up this last week and so far as good.
StephenB, I know when I called into Netgear originally to setup Replicate, they suggested NOT to use snapshots on the destination (backupnas) device. Should I also not be creating snapshots on the destination device, when using Rsync?
By the way, I'm going with the "pull" method as I like the idea of putting the NAS on a power schedule. That being said, do I just figure how long the backup jobs should take, schedule them within the hours that the NAS is powered on, and that is it? Will it power off automatically if schedule backups are pending or in the middle of finishing one?
Here is a picture of my current schedule, which by the way, can you just have them all run at the same time and it will run each one, one-by-one until completion?
Thanks again for your suggestions!
nickjames wrote:
RN516s
6.6.0 and 6.6.1
They are BOTH on the same LAN (broadcast domain)
ReadyDR is one possibility. It backs up snapshots only, so it is quite efficient - especially for iSCSI luns.
The main disadvantage is that you can't immediately cut over to the backup NAS - you need to restore the backup instead. If that's an issue, then rsync backups are better (and are what I use myself). You can combine that with custom snapshots on the destination share(s) to give you some retention.
I like to use a separate rsync backup for each share (and since I don't use the home folders, I don't bother to back those up). Set up email notification on failure.
StephenB wrote:
nickjames wrote:RN516s
6.6.0 and 6.6.1
They are BOTH on the same LAN (broadcast domain)
ReadyDR is one possibility. It backs up snapshots only, so it is quite efficient - especially for iSCSI luns.
The main disadvantage is that you can't immediately cut over to the backup NAS - you need to restore the backup instead. If that's an issue, then rsync backups are better (and are what I use myself). You can combine that with custom snapshots on the destination share(s) to give you some retention.
I like to use a separate rsync backup for each share (and since I don't use the home folders, I don't bother to back those up). Set up email notification on failure.
Thanks for the reply, StephenB.
I currently do not use ReadyDR. I do not use LUNS either.
My main concern is how do I get the backup NAS online, if the main NAS fails? What if I don't have another NAS to restore the backup from Replicate to? Can you elaborate on the RSYNC method outlined? That sounds like the best bet for me as I don't use home folders either.
nickjames wrote:
I currently do not use ReadyDR. I do not use LUNS either.
ReadyDR is a new backup method. It copies btrfs snapshots to the destination system, which allows you to restore either the most recent snapshot or an older version. This is similar to replicate. It's available on business-class OS-6 only (which includes the RN516). It's not my preferred method, because I'd have to restore the ReadyDR backup to a share in order to use it.
nickjames wrote: Can you elaborate on the RSYNC method outlined? That sounds like the best bet for me as I don't use home folders either.I've created one backup job for each share on each backup NAS, and those are scheduled to run daily. They are all rsync, and all have "Remove deleted files on source" checked. Each destination share has custom snapshots enabled, generally creating daily snapshots with 3 month retention. Some shares with more churn have shorter retention. So I can roll back to older backups of any share (up to the retention limit).
I run these jobs on the destination ReadyNAS, though it works just as well if you run them on the source ReadyNAS.
Since the destinations are all shares (with the same name as the original share), I can directly access the backup NAS if the main NAS fails.
StephenB wrote:
nickjames wrote:I currently do not use ReadyDR. I do not use LUNS either.
ReadyDR is a new backup method. It copies btrfs snapshots to the destination system, which allows you to restore either the most recent snapshot or an older version. This is similar to replicate. It's available on business-class OS-6 only (which includes the RN516). It's not my preferred method, because I'd have to restore the ReadyDR backup to a share in order to use it.
nickjames wrote: Can you elaborate on the RSYNC method outlined? That sounds like the best bet for me as I don't use home folders either.I've created one backup job for each share on each backup NAS, and those are scheduled to run daily. They are all rsync, and all have "Remove deleted files on source" checked. Each destination share has custom snapshots enabled, generally creating daily snapshots with 3 month retention. Some shares with more churn have shorter retention. So I can roll back to older backups of any share (up to the retention limit).
I run these jobs on the destination ReadyNAS, though it works just as well if you run them on the source ReadyNAS.
Since the destinations are all shares (with the same name as the original share), I can directly access the backup NAS if the main NAS fails.
Thank you, StephenB.
The only problem I see with this is the fact that in order for the data to backup each night, it would take upwards of 36 hours, which is going to be before the start of the next business day. With Replicate, it was only backing up the "changed" data. I'll disclose that I dont know how RSYNC works so perhaps this is normal function of RSYNC (only backup changed data). Would that be true? Otherwise, if I run a backup job on an attached USB device, it takes around 36 hours to complete. Running this every single night is not ideal; it would never finish before the start of day.
In a perfect world, if I could run a "backup" for all the shares on the 6TB "main NAS" and have backup only include the changed data this would be the same as the Replicate process and normally takes about 2-3 hours each night (which is perfectly OK).
How could I get similar function to Replicate, using RSYNC but only the changed data and still have a mirror copy of the main NAS ready to accessed at the start of each day, if need be?
Were getting closer! Thanks for your help!
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