help with backing up multiple PC's

I am not aware of any backup software that would allow you to consolidate data from multiple sources like that.

Rather software such as shadow will require you to maintain separate backups of each PC

You may be able to setup different backup jobs to store data into sub-folders of your NAS shares eg

\\computer1\music -> \\nas\music\computer1
\\computer2\music -> \\nas\music\computer2
Etc

Yeah. That is basically what I do now. But I read somewhere that a NAS is supposed to go out and look for you files and back them up for you. Find the pictures on all of you PC's and put them in the pictures folder on the NAS. Same with Documents, Videos, and Music folders. Right or wrong? It would seem to be easier cutting down on duplicate and triplicate files this way.

Don't know where you read that - it is not correct. No consumer NAS that I'm aware of supports such a feature or includes data deduplication and/or consolidation capabilities

The NAS can "pull" data from a remote source such as your PC, but backup clients like Shadow that "push" data to the NAS offer far greater capabilities and control and are to be recommended

sphardy wrote:
The NAS can "pull" data from a remote source such as your PC, but backup clients like Shadow that "push" data to the NAS offer far greater capabilities and control and are to be recommended

I can recommend SyncBack. Runs on your PCs and you can tell it to write to a NAS location and leave existing files alone.

Oh Ok. I will look into syncback. seems pretty popular here. I use goodsync. I can do that but have to turn off deleting of files. You would think someone could make a software that could sync ONLY the files a PC put into a folder without touching other files from other PC's.

I am looking to do something similar, I think.

Thinking of terms of using SQL, I would like to left join a folder on my ReadyNAS with a folder on my PC. Specifically, I subscribe to several podcasts that I like to keep copies of. I put the older copies in a folder on the NAS (e.g. share/Podcasts/Podcast_name1) and delete them from my PC. When I download the next podcast on my PC, I would like to write a script or use Rsync or some other automation to keep whatever is in the NAS folder and only add to that folder what is not there. Ideally, I would like to set this up so it does the same thing for each subdirectory of the Podcasts directory. In other words, I would like to add all new PC files to //share/Podcasts/Podcast_name1 from //PC/Podcasts/Podcast_name1 and then do the same exact thing for /Podcast_name2 (e.g. add all files that are in //PC/Podcasts/Podcast_name2 to //share/Podcasts/Podcast_name2).

Does anyone know of any potential solution? I have a ReadyNAS NV+ and a ReadyNAS Pro4. I am open to using rsync, a commercial program, or even scripting using Python, though I'm somewhat of a novice with rsync and Python.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read my post. Is it okay to attach this post to this tread? They seemed related/relevant to me. Happy Holidays!

I found this post that seems to be related to the OP: http://www.readynas.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=25800

Syncback will do what you require, as will most such backup utilities which only copy files that have changed or are new

sphardy, thanks for your reply!

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention...my network is mixed PCs and OS X, so Syncback may not be an option, so I'll look for something similar.

So, setting the backup to only backup files that are new will not delete files on the backup that have been deleted from the source, is that correct?

Thanks again, and if I am asking redundant questions, please direct me to the appropriate thread/resource.