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gwhite's avatar
gwhite
Guide
Jul 21, 2018

Share Folders Possible for NTFS USB Backup Jobs?

I just set up a series of backup jobs to use the front button backup process.  The backups are goign to a USB drive formatted asa NTFS.  Thsi is in OS 6.9.3.

 

I have separate backup jobs for various shares.  When I ran it the first time and examined the results, it doesn't differentiate between the shares.  For example, I have a folder called "Doug" under the Backups share, and a folder called "Doug" on the Music share.  When I examined the results on the backup drive, there is one top level folder called "Doug", but it contains (all mixed together) the contents of the files from both the Music share AND the Backup share.

 

I used to have a ReadNAS Duo, and if I remember correctly, it put the contents of different shares in different folders. Howewver, that was formatted as EXT3, and it may be that is trickier with NTFS.

 

Is there any easy way to get the system to create a folder for each backup job or share so they don't get all jumbled together?

 

Thanks

10 Replies

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  • Marc_V's avatar
    Marc_V
    NETGEAR Employee Retired

    Hi gwhite

     

    NTFS Format USB disk will surely be usable as a backup media to your NAS though EXT4 is what we recommend but a USB disk formatted in EXT4 file system will not be detected by a Windows PC by default. To view the contents of the disk from a Windows PC, you can connect the USB disk to the ReadyNAS and access it via the ReadyNAS or you can use an EXT driver for Windows such as http://www.ext2fsd.com/

     

    Have you tried recreating the backup job? what are you using for the destination? The USB port? This should not do it on NTFS but other users might be able to add their experience using this format on USB Disks.

     

    Regards

     

    • gwhite's avatar
      gwhite
      Guide

      Thanks for the feedback.

       

      I used to use USB backup disks formatted as Ext3 on my old ReadyNAS box, but it was always a pain in the neck to have to mount them on my PC using EXT2FSD to read the files or just verify that the backup data was retrieveable.  Even then, the backup file folder structure on the drives was a bit odd when viewed in Windows. 

       

      It should be possible to park the backup files from any given share into a folder named after that share.  Apparently it's not set up that way, and I may have to live with it as is.  All the files are there, which is the most important thing.  If I need to rescue something, it justy means I will have to dig around a bit more to find what I'm looking for.

       

      I couldn't find a "feature request" forum, so I'm not sure if there is a formal way to suggest this for the developers.

      • bedlam1's avatar
        bedlam1
        Prodigy

        gwhite

        You may be over complicating this.

        How much data is on the NAS and what is the capacity of the USB drive?

        The reason I ask is that a very efficient Rsync backup of the entire "data" folder (or selected folders) to a NTFS USB drive (readable by Windows) is simple, I use this myself.

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