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Forum Discussion
VolkerB
Nov 06, 2021Aspirant
RN214 refuses to take snapshots
Hi! After factory-resetting and reinstalling my RN214 (check out https://community.netgear.com/t5/Using-your-ReadyNAS-in-Business/Admin-page-unavailable-after-cancelled-backup-job-amp-hard/m-p/21...
- Nov 08, 2021
VolkerB wrote:[...] snapshots (neither smart nor custom, no matter what schedule) did not seem to work anymore for the home shares of all users. Manual and automatic snapshots for other shares not related to individual users worked fine. There was no issue with insufficient space (no snapshot pruning taking place) [...] So I have created a new user "test" with all default settings in the "Users" group. [...] for user "test" automatic snapshots are actually taken successfully, while at the same time, no snapshots for user "volker" are stored even though he is sharing the same schedule. As it happens to be, [X] Allow snapshot access was enabled for volker and [ ] Protection was disabled, user "test" had it the other way round. [...]
Currently, I'm running a test with various combinations of (dis)allowing snapshot access and en-/disabling the protection feature, (de)activating bit rot protection and compression for the other shares to find out what exactly spoils the fun here.
The tests have completed. Conclusion:
If you don't activate the [X] Protection option in the Home Folders > Settings > Snapshot Access for all the users where snapshots should be taken, no schedule whatsoever is going to work. Everything else (Bit-rot-protection and compression for shares, snapshot access for individual users, the type of schedule and whether you want snapshots even if nothing changed) does not matter.
So if some Netgear dude is listening: Perhaps this critical relationship could at least be made more clear in the manual or probably even a warning displayed if the admin deviates from a setting that implicitely disables snapshots.
HTH & Greets,
Volker
StephenB
Nov 06, 2021Guru - Experienced User
I have two comments on your settings.
- The "Smart" snapshots never delete the monthly snapshots. Over time, that will fill the data volume. While you can go in periodically and deleted the oldest snapshots, it is simpler to switch to "Custom", and set retention. You can also tell the system not to store snapshots if there are no changes.
- Making snapshots visible in Windows has an unfortunate side effect - the snapshots are writeable, so files can be deleted by the user (or encrypted by ransomware). This is a non-started for me - so I allow Windows Previous Version, but I don't allow users to otherwise browse the snapshots.
I'm not sure what's going on in your case. But I am thinking you might try renaming or or deleting a file in one of the home folders, and see if that triggers a snapshot. FWIW, I don't use home folders myself - we don't need or want the privacy feature, and they aren't easy to restore from a backup.
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