ReadyNAS Pro to RN516 Upgrade

You can install them at once, you will have only a single rebuild, if you add them it will rebuild once per disk added I think (rebuild is very long ;) really, I have a RN104 with 4*4To (same model as yours, works like a charm) it took 38hours to rebuild, the 516 should be quicker but still expect 10 hours for you 6 disks at least).

USB3 is faster than ethernet, e-sata is too so if you have USB disk that can keep up... otherwise rsync or FTP I believe the speed is nearly the same, even AFP/SMB shouldn't be that slow IMO. If you don't have gigabit network you may want to get a PC with a gigabit switch (or two gig NIC on the PC). Maybe jumbo frames can help. That said I believe that no matter what you are doing the Duo will struggle and limit the speed anyway so...

Rsync or nfs (over the network) will be quicker than usb because with usb you need to transfer twice.

Certainly if you have a gigabit network that it is the case. Using NFS and then editing the backup to use rsync and rerunning it is a good strategy

Yes, the network is a gigabit. I only considered using RSync. I'm interested in learning more about NFS as you seem to be suggesting it would be quicker for the initial backup.

Where I can learn more about NFS and how it applies to the ReadyNAS?

Thanks

Nfs is a file sharing protocol like CIF/SMB or AFP. Since it is native to linux generally is the fastest protocol between two linux machines. You can easily select it in the backup menu.

Rsync is good at incremental backup and full preservation of owners and permissions. If you edit the backup job after the first time you run it to use rsync, then subsequent backups will use that. The remote share needs to have both enabled.

Note that if you create a new backup job, it will do a full backup the first time it runs even if the files are already in the destination share. You need to use the editing trick to avoid that.

Excellent! Great tip.

Once the PRO is running reliably as an Rsync backup NAS to the RN516, is it possible to backup to the PRO from a remote location (my office)? I'm worried about chewing up too much bandwidth once I make a connection.

Thanks

It is possible, though it requires some attention to security. Using certificates (encrypted rsync over ssl) is what you'd want to to.

Also it probably will require the backup job to be run from the office side, otherwise you will probably have trouble traversing the office firewall.

On the bandwidth side - the amount used depends on how much new or changed data is added to the shares.

The RN516 is now setup and I am embarking on the transfer/copy of files from my ReadyNAS PRO 6350.

As suggested, I setup a Backup schedule in the RN516 to copy the Documents folder of the PRO to the new RN516 - using NFS protocol instead of RSync as the 1st copy will include all files.

Unfortunately, I'm getting an odd backup error:

Backup Job Name: Documents
Backup Job Type: Full
Protocol: nfs
Backup Source: [remote:nfs]/NAS-EA-5F-B1:/Documents
Backup Destination: [Documents]/Documents
Backup Start Time: Tue May 27 2014 8:35:32
Backup Finish Time: Tue May 27 2014 8:39:42
Backup Status: Fail: source cannot be mounted on the system.

Any ideas on what's going on?

Thanks,
Herb...

Try I.P. rather than hostname. Also make sure NFS is enabled for the share on the remote NAS.

Hmmm ... dumb question but how do you check if NFS is enabled on the ReadyNAS Pro 6350?

When I check the Shares in FrontView, I only see tabs for CIFS, AFP, HTTP/S, and RSync, and Advanced.

Nothing related to NFS is obvious.

Thanks,
Herb...

You would need to go to Services > Standard File Protocols, check NFS, click apply, then go to Shares > Share Listing > Sharename and enable NFS (don't forget to click apply).