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Forum Discussion
Move Pro to Ultra worth it?
Hi. I have a ReadyNas Ultra 6 which I have used successfully although had a drive fail and another experience ATA errors during the rebuild of the spare that meant I could never get it back into redu...
What OS are you running?
You're actually describing something very similar to my setup. I have the ReadyNAS Pro BE as my main NAS and the Ultra as my backup (backing up a 2011 iMac), but that is because my main NAS is also a Plex server and a Transmission client. To improve my Plex experience, I have upgraded the CPU in the Pro (which wasn't possible to do in the Ultra).
For file use only, I've seen little, if any difference in performance between either NAS using either AFP or SMB from a single Mac client. Some extra RAM in the Ultra wouldn't hurt though, 2GB would be enough an improvement.
My backup system:
1) use Carbon Copy Cloner to take regular full backups to a disk image file on the NAS
2) use Chronosync to back up a number of folders / items to a similarly named folder on the NAS (mainly media e.g.: photos / audio work, iTunes Library, certain work folders, user home folders
3) use RSYNC through backup jobs (set up on the secondary NAS) to back up shares on the main NAS daily / weekly as appropriate (depending on the share and frequency of update)
4) a third NAS offsite takes a monthly backup of the primary NAS (again using backup jobs on the NAS / RSYNC)
The secondary NAS is also set to wake during the night, run the backup and then power down. Running bonded NICs on both NASes but not on clients, with a smart Cisco switch. I'm not using snapshots currently, nor am I using Time Machine on the NAS - I have another external drive and Time Capsule for that purpose.
I'd bond the NASes together, but I'd experiment with bonding on the Mac to see whether it yields an improvement.
Happy to discuss in further detail via pm if you need any more detail on my setup / configuration. I'd be happy to run some better file transfer tests between both NASes if you needed more accurate numbers to help decide.
You're actually describing something very similar to my setup. I have the ReadyNAS Pro BE as my main NAS and the Ultra as my backup (backing up a 2011 iMac), but that is because my main NAS is also a Plex server and a Transmission client. To improve my Plex experience, I have upgraded the CPU in the Pro (which wasn't possible to do in the Ultra).
For file use only, I've seen little, if any difference in performance between either NAS using either AFP or SMB from a single Mac client. Some extra RAM in the Ultra wouldn't hurt though, 2GB would be enough an improvement.
My backup system:
1) use Carbon Copy Cloner to take regular full backups to a disk image file on the NAS
2) use Chronosync to back up a number of folders / items to a similarly named folder on the NAS (mainly media e.g.: photos / audio work, iTunes Library, certain work folders, user home folders
3) use RSYNC through backup jobs (set up on the secondary NAS) to back up shares on the main NAS daily / weekly as appropriate (depending on the share and frequency of update)
4) a third NAS offsite takes a monthly backup of the primary NAS (again using backup jobs on the NAS / RSYNC)
The secondary NAS is also set to wake during the night, run the backup and then power down. Running bonded NICs on both NASes but not on clients, with a smart Cisco switch. I'm not using snapshots currently, nor am I using Time Machine on the NAS - I have another external drive and Time Capsule for that purpose.
I'd bond the NASes together, but I'd experiment with bonding on the Mac to see whether it yields an improvement.
Happy to discuss in further detail via pm if you need any more detail on my setup / configuration. I'd be happy to run some better file transfer tests between both NASes if you needed more accurate numbers to help decide.
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