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Rsync Schedule - Sever Limitations?
ReadyNAS OS 6.10.1
Looking at the scheduling options for Rsync backup jobs, it seems as though they are severly limited:
- I can only set the schedule to run at 5 minutes past each hour.
- I can only set the schedule to run every x hours, not ever x days/weeks/etc.
Am I missing something or is this really the best Netgear can come up with?
DCA-IT wrote: having to waste up to an hour per job each night is not exactly an efficient use of that time.I think there might be some confusion here. You don't need to schedule the jobs separately (and I agree that wouldn't be efficient). You schedule all the jobs to start at the beginning of your nightly backup window. The NAS will queue them, and run them back-to-back.
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You can select the job to run on certain days. selecting one day equates to a weekly job
I've dug into how Netgear controls backup jobs. They have a program of their own making that does the "hard work" using a configuration file. That program is called hourly as a cron job. While that's not the most efficient way to control rsync jobs, it does seem a reasonable way to control all the backup options that are available. They have clearly chosen to have some limitations in the schedule and options to simplify things, and I can't say I blame them. I don't really see a lot of reasons why a typical user would need more precise timing than hourly nor why one would want to back something up less often than weekly..
You can, of course, always go into the NAS via SSH and set up your own rsync cron job if you have a special need.
I've not checked, but I suspect the start at :05 is because, when sleected, it issues the WoL at :00 and allows 5 minutes for the remote system to come online.
Sandshark wrote:
I've not checked, but I suspect the start at :05 is because, when sleected, it issues the WoL at :00 and allows 5 minutes for the remote system to come online.
Not sure OS 6 actually does issue the WoL, but if it does, your idea makes sense.
Either way, it also helps if the local NAS is on a power schedule - so it can boot at :00, come online, and back up at :05. It also ensures that scheduled hourly snapshots are made before the backup runs (helpful on the destination share, as it gives you rollback).
Sandshark wrote:
You can, of course, always go into the NAS via SSH and set up your own rsync cron job if you have a special need.
You can, but you would lose one feature. The NAS will defer scheduled power down until all the local backup jobs are finished. If you do your own backup jobs, then you could potentially have the NAS shut down before they finish.
Sandshark wrote:I don't really see a lot of reasons why a typical user would need more precise timing than hourly nor why one would want to back something up less often than weekly.
This is a NAS being used in a business setting in conjunction with another unit of the same model. One being used as the 'live' storage and the other as DR. As they are serving several SMB shares and data is changing every day. As there's only a certain number of hours to run backups to the DR NAS, time is tight and having to waste up to an hour per job each night is not exactly an efficient use of that time.
If, as Sandshark suggests, make use of a more granular timetable by using the cron scheduler then this seems the way forward.
DCA-IT wrote: having to waste up to an hour per job each night is not exactly an efficient use of that time.I think there might be some confusion here. You don't need to schedule the jobs separately (and I agree that wouldn't be efficient). You schedule all the jobs to start at the beginning of your nightly backup window. The NAS will queue them, and run them back-to-back.
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