NV+ backup/expand/restore

I agree that rebuilding from scratch has some advantages. In addition to likely being faster, you also can fall back to the 4x250MB drives if something goes wrong. (Do label them by slot number when you remove them).

You can save the full NAS in one backup job, but restoring it isn't symmetric - not sure why. So you need to recover it in multiple steps.

Do you use the private home share features?

Hadn't thought about saving the old 250 MB drives, but it's a good idea

You can save the full NAS in one backup job, but restoring it isn't symmetric - not sure why. So you need to recover it in multiple steps.

That was my question I guess. We backup via Acronis now, but what are the "multiple steps"?

Do you use the private home share features?

We just have the NAS attached as a network drive, and point Acronis to the appropriate folder. Acronis keeps a 2-month running backup, so we can go back to any point in time in the last 60 days.

So we're using it purely as a backup device.

Got it.

So you are running Acronis to a particular set of network share(s). To backup the NAS you need to
(a) save the configuration file from Frontview
(b) Note any add-ons that might be enabled (likely are none!)
(c) Copy the network share(s) you are using to another device.

The fastest way to copy the network shares is over a gigabit ethernet connection - that is quite a bit quicker than using the USB ports on the NAS. So maybe attach a USB drive to a PC, and copy over the network from the PC. I suggest using teracopy or robocopy to ensure that everything is transferred reliably.

To rebuild the NAS
(a) insert your new disks with the NAS powered down
(b) Power up and do the new install
(c) reinstall any add-ons
(d) restore the configuration
(e) restore the acronis shares (again over gigabit ethernet).

The order matters on (c) and (d).

I guess if you are in a rush, you could simply start with empty network folders, as you can reload all the old disks if you need to retrieve the current backup data. Just be careful to insert them when the NAS is powered down.

(a) save the configuration file from Frontview

What the heck is Frontview? All I've ever used is RAIDar. Guess I better look it up... I hardly ever use RAIDar BTW; only once every once in a while when I need to update the firmware.

The fastest way to copy the network shares is over a gigabit ethernet connection - that is quite a bit quicker than using the USB ports on the NAS. So maybe attach a USB drive to a PC, and copy over the network from the PC. I suggest using teracopy or robocopy to ensure that everything is transferred reliably.

I find it hard to believe that going over USB is slower than gigabit... I suppose it might be, but it takes all night (8+ hours) to do our full 100GB backup over gigabit with Acronis.

I've never used the "Backup" button on our NV+. What exactly gets done? I've always assumed it just copied the file structure on the NV+ to the attached USB drive. Is it something else?

Raidar is just a readynas discovery utility and provides some key information, when you click on setup in raidar you are then linked to the readynas admin system which is called Frontview. This is what you would have used for your firmware update.

Frontview has a backup facility to pull or push data from the readynas. You can program the backup button to run all or some of the backup jobs you have set up in Frontview.

The NV+ copies files at about 2.5 MB/second to an NTFS formated USB drive. The Read speed for large files over gigabit ethernet is about 25 MB/sec - 10x faster. Even 100 mbit ethernet is 5x faster than USB. I'm not sure how you set acronis up, but in this case you are wanting to copy the files, not run acronis at all.

The USB performance is not hardware related - it is a combination of driver performance and the very limited CPU in your NAS.

If your case I wouldn't use frontivew backup. But if you want to use it, read through the manual (the section you want starts at around page 80). http://www.downloads.netgear.com/files/ ... 6Dec11.pdf

Thanks Stephan.
Replacement drives are in the mail. Hope to get this done in a couple more days.

In the end I opted to just swap the drives one at a time.

In spite of the 8+ hour advisory in the beginning, the actual init/sync cycle for each slot only took a little over 4 hours. First one or two were about 5 hours, and the last couple went closer to 4 hours.

Rebooted the NAS, and it went through an expansion phase, that (I think) only took a little over an hour.

It then went into a second expansion phase, and has been stuck at 1.3% now for almost 5 hours.

The ACT light is blinking, and the 1,2,3,4 lights are blinking in ascending sequence, but the status display shows

Expanding... Expansion: 1.3%

Am I in trouble, or what?

The percentage and time estimates are notoriously inaccurate but I I'd have expected it to move faster than that with a 4 X 1 Terabyte systems.
Can you access the data and Frontview, if so, just wait.
Did you test the new drives before you started?

When I open RAIDar, it shows Vol Disk: and 1,2,3,4 as green, and "Expanding" under Info. However, I'm not able to start Frontview (Setup and Browse buttons are grayed out).

I had no way to test the drives before starting. However, the init and sync went without a hitch for all 4 drives, and it was functioning without error before the first expansion phase began.

What happens if I stop the expansion? What's the "proper" way to intervene here? How long do I wait before I try to do something?