Inexpensive NAS for over 4TB backups - recommendations?

xeltros wrote:
Linux commands don't handle hidden files by default. for example, cp copies only visible files unless you specify -a afterwards or choose to format the source as /source/*. The /* meaning copy of everything in the /source folder

Makes sense. By default would a NFS Frontview backup include hidden files? (Browsing the backup, it looks like they're there.)

No idea. When NFS is mounted it would depend on the copy command sent by Netgear that I'm not aware of.
Moreover I used NFS only once and that was more than 7 years ago, so not really qualified to speak for this.

Now that I have our Pro backup properly setup and working with Rsync, I have a question about snapshots on the 104:

Frontview Rsync has an option to remove deleted files on the target (i.e. the 104)

Which would be a better overall backup strategy -

1) leave "remove deleted files on target" setting OFF so that backup files accumulate on the 104

or

2) turn "remove deleted files on target" setting ON so that 104 backup mirrors the Pro. Then use daily snapshots on 104 to preserve deleted data in case it's needed.

Any thoughts/recommendations on the pluses/minuses of either method? Thanks!

allowing to delete files will give you exact backup but will also introduce an error risk. If someone deletes a wrong file on the source, it will be deleted from the backup after the sync too. This means the only recoverable source would be the snapshots on the 104 if enabled. Those snapshots are not definitive and will be erased automatically after a certain time or when disk is full. Moreover if you rely only on one device, you may have a failure with that device too and you may not be able to use the snapshots at all.
The choice is whether you are willing to take the risk to lose a file from time to time or if you prefer to maintain a really big save which will get messy. The choice partly depends on who is operating the NAS, if everyone is responsible and will say immediately when they delete something they don't want, it's pretty sage to use delete option, if you are dealing with daydreamers then it may not be. You may also want to backup yearly used files since they are prone to be forgotten and may be out of time for snapshots.

In addition to deleted files, there are modified/changed files to consider.

The built-in backup is best for recovering your NAS from failure. There is some protection from user error, but it is much more limited than what you'd find in a continuous backup program that does versioning.

No matter how you do the settings, your ability to get back an older version depends on you noticing that you need to do that fairly quickly, and then manually searching for the version you want in the backup (which of course might not be there).

The snapshot feature in OS6 actually helps quite a lot - you have a much larger window of time to recover the older files, and there might even be multiple versions in the various snapshots. The approach I've taken on the RN102 is to set "remove deleted files on target" - making my recovery of deleted files identical with my recovery of changed files (both being dependent on snapshots). Then if I do need to recover the data due to failure, I won't restore deleted files. BTW, I periodically delete old snapshots manually, as the automatic policies sometimes result in growing the snapshots larger than I want them to be.

Though on the older NAS (without the good snapshots) I leave "remove deleted files on target" to "off". Periodically I do a backup with the setting "on" to clean out old deleted files. That has actually worked out ok - (a) my primary NAS hasn't needed to be restored in quite a while - the last time was when I was still using the duo v1 as primary (which also taught me why I needed a UPS btw). (b) recovery from user error has also been pretty rare, and when it does happen the family tends to tell me right away.

Secondary backups (done weekly or quarterly) are a good way to give you more time to recover accidentally changed or deleted files.

For our primary PCs, I keep Daily, Monthly, and Yearly backups on the NAS and then Rsync these to external USB drive on a weekly basis, with Rsync set to delete files on the external drive. Otherwise it can get mind-numbingly messy IMO. Sure if one makes a mistake he/she doesn't notice within a week, a backup might be almost a month old. But then at least in my case I have WHS2011 backups and Acronis too.

Can't be "too backed-up" in my opinion! :-)

maxblack wrote:
...Can't be "too backed-up" in my opinion! :-)

I agree, and also take a conservative approach (though different from what you are doing). Mine is set up to have 3 local copies of everything, with a 4th copy in the cloud.

maxblack wrote:

For our primary PCs, I keep Daily, Monthly, and Yearly backups on the NAS and then Rsync these to external USB drive on a weekly basis, with Rsync set to delete files on the external drive. Otherwise it can get mind-numbingly messy IMO. Sure if one makes a mistake he/she doesn't notice within a week, a backup might be almost a month old. But then at least in my case I have WHS2011 backups and Acronis too. Can't be "too backed-up" in my opinion! :-)

Well said.

We're a Mac-based shop so all our Macs are constantly backed up via Time Machine on a Time Capsule. I want everyone to also start doing SuperDuper smart clones to the ReadyNAS on a weekly basis but have yet to put that in place.

xeltros wrote:

The choice is whether you are willing to take the risk to lose a file from time to time or if you prefer to maintain a really big save which will get messy. The choice partly depends on who is operating the NAS, if everyone is responsible and will say immediately when they delete something they don't want, it's pretty sage to use delete option, if you are dealing with daydreamers then it may not be.

Right now I'd say they're more in the latter category. The NAS is basically a big, shared storage pool and it may be beneficial to have an extra layer of protection for deleted files. The question of versioning via snapshots is interesting because it essentially gives us Time Machine-like rollback. I'll have to ask them if they think they would benefit from that.

@StevenB -
How often does your 102 make a snapshot? How often do you manually delete snapshots?

Thanks all for your help!

dhl wrote:
...How often does your 102 make a snapshot? How often do you manually delete snapshots?

The RN102 is running rsync backup jobs running daily to back up shares on my pro-6.

The shares are configured with the "continuous protection" interval of "daily", so snapshots are made 1/day. There's no benefit in making the snapshot interval faster than the backup job rate (though not much cost either).

I delete the snapshots every couple of months - no strict schedule to it If the file system exceeds 80% full, then the alert reminds me to delete them.

On the 102 you can set snapshots to hourly, daily and weekly by default, it's on the share settings and called continuous protection. I believe snapshots are done by midnight (mine are at least according to logs), so this won't affect the work hours productivity and will be transparent for users. You can give them access to snapshots via a shared folder or choose not to and keep the access in the web interface only. I believe you never lose while activating the feature unless you work with really volatile data (like SQL DB or VM).
If all your mac are saved to time capsules it will be an extra layer of protection since I believe everything is done locally then uploaded ? So I guess everything will be picked up by at least the hourly update of time machine. The only problem will be the time to recover, if you don't have enough space it could be too short and you may not have the date you want when the snapshots are regrouped.

My setup is simple, I got a time capsule for my mac, then I got the NAS with raid5. Then for important data I got 1 distant backup and 1 local backup.