iDrive readynas review

Here is my review of iDrive on readynas.

Currently using:

    iDrive version:  1.00.12

    ReadyNas:       OS 6.8.0

Summary

iDrive works pretty well on readynas, with some limitations that make it unsuitable for complete system backup, but useful for backup of shared data volumes to the cloud at an affordable price point, and easy to setup.

Tools

There are three different ways to perform backups to iDrive from headless linux such as readynas:

1. iDrive linux command line tools
2. iDrive web-based app (available from readynas app store)
3. iDrive DataCenter Edition

I was able to get options 1 and 2 working on my readynas, but the data center edition I could never get fully functional.  I was unable to login to the web app.  Its not clear to me if its offers any real advantages over the first two options.

Web App

The app that is provided for netgear users is a web based UI.  It provides most, but not all, of the features that you see on Mac/PC iDrive clients.  It uses a PHP backend, which launches some idrive processes as needed to perform various tasks, including data transfer to/from idrive.  I found the web app to install just fine on my ReadyNas Ultra 2 Plus, though they did not list my model on their website for downloading the proper .deb installer.  But by using the installer for some of the higher end readynas models which have AMD processors, I downloaded a generic AMD deb installer and it worked fine.  The readynas app store also has an idrive app that is ready to go and works, but its not up to date as of this writing, its at version 1.00.08.  In order to get the most up to date version, you have to go to iDrive website and following the instructions I just mentioned.

There are a few limitations with the Web App.  For one thing, there is no way at all to specify any folders with the gui which are not shared volumes on the readynas.  In other words, you can't specify /etc, for example.  Shared volumes under /data will be displayed and you can choose any of them, or drill down into them to create a more defined list of specific folders you want backed up or excluded.

I was able to find a work around which involved going into SSH command line and finding a particular text file that the web client updates.  You can manually edit this text file and then those manual edts such as /etc will be displayed in the gui as well.  I chose to backup /etc, /apps, /usr/local, /root, possibly a few other things, which I configured through the following text file

/apps/idrive/web/idriveIt/user_profile/<myuserid>/Backup/Default\ Backup\ Set/BackupsetFileForDisplay.txt

One limitation is related to owner permissions, which I will explain below, iDrive does NOT preserve owner permissions during backup.  In my view this makes it unsuitable for complete system backup of any unix filesystems.

Another limiation I have found is that with the web client there is no way to specify a "nice" level for the backend processes that get spawned, the calls to these backend programs are buried in PHP code somewhere.  I wish I could set nice level to 10 or something, as the idrive processes do seem to impact CPU significantly.  (note, I found similar issues with crashplan).

Linux Command Line Scripts

idrive also has some command line scripts which can be downloaded seperately from the iDrive website.  They also work fine on readynas.  They appear to use the same backend programs to transfer files, etc. and in function work very similarly to what the web-based solution spawns off as processes to perform on the reasdynas, the only difference is that you configure your backup sets using command line, view progress with the command line, etc..  the command line tools have no restrictions whatsoever about which folders can be specified for backup in the backup set.  You can, for example, specify /etc without issue, except, as mentioned before, owner perms are not preserved in the iDrive backup archive.  

I did not spend a lot of time with the linux command line tools but one thing I am going to attempt at some point is to see if I might be able to set nice levels with them somehow.  Might be possible to wrap something around their scripts with a nice level so that all sub-processes will have the higher nice level.   iDrive provides scheduling of some kind, however, and that might negate the ability to set nice.  I need to dig deeper to find out more.  

Limitation Summary

1. Owner permissions are not preserved.  If you are sharing the readynas with multiple userid's, all of that will be lost.  The userid being used to perform that backup needs to be able to read all the files you want backed up.  And when they are backed up, no owner info is archived.  During restore, they would I guess be restored to the readynas with the owner set to the userid used during the restore.  For me this is ok for my data volume as I am the only user, so just about everything saved on my main data volume is owned by me and restoring at as me would be fine.  However if any user permissions beyond that are expected, idrive backup will not be suitable.  it also makes iDrive entirely unsuitable for backing up everything under /etc and other system dirs, since they really can't be restored with correct owner perms, the best you could ever hope to do would be to restore them all as owned by root or something and hope it works.  
2. Nice levels can't be controlled, the web app works, but be warned, it impacts CPU significantly, during short backups, not a big deal, but during the inital backup that takes a long time, it can be an issue.  I started the backup, then used htop to adjust nice levels of all iDrive processes while doing the first big backup.
3. The web client won't let you specify /etc and other important dirs for backup, but in some ways it may not matter since owner perms are not preserved.  I'm backing them up anyway just in case, using the command line work around I mentioned earlier.  But its probably moot.

Good Points

Crashplan has canceled their home service and their small business service is double the price.  iDrive is now good value.  Netgear provides an easy installer.  Additionally, with one plan, based on storage requirements, you can backup multiple machines, which is different then most other services that require a subscription per machine.  I got the 5TB plan, whcih is more then enough to backup my readynas as well as a couple macs (though their owner perm limitation also negatively impacts mac backups).  With crashplan the backup was runing on java and consumed a LOT of memory.  It also was difficult to setup headless operation, iDrive is very simple to setup in comparison.

Workarounds

To get around the owner perm issue I'm backing up those key system dirs to one of my macs using rsnapshot, so far so good.  This should let me restore something in /etc that gets hosed for some reason (like my own mistakes), but if my house burns down, I will be left with only the incorrect backup on iDrive that doesn't have correct owner perms.

I'm still on the lookout for a better backup service that is both affordable as well as properly handles owner permission issues, not only for my linux readynas, but also for my macs.  My macs at least have time machine to back them up locally, but they aren't really fully backed up to the cloud..  I can image them periodically and backup the images..which is probably good enough for them, but I'm not aware of any way to image the readynas the same way.