After the debacle of crashplan and since my nas was unable to upgrade to the new version I disabled it.
I bought a Seagate 8 TB drive and proceeded to backup my nas. Was going to do a low level format and re-install,
Back up job 13 (via rsync) share: users ran but i notice I put a "/" in the backup job i.e. USB_HDD_4/users so I cancelled it and it took a while to cancell and then replace the "/" iwth a "\" and it ran fine but I notice when I did a df -h my memory space was at 50%.
I next ran backup job 14 and got ambitious and decided to backup my entire share: media, about 5 TB, this ran for a while and then my wife was unable to copy data over so I checked the backup and it was running fine all though logs exceeded maxumum log space and were truncated.
So I ssh into box and checked and did a df-h and it was at 100%. I tried cancelling job and it did not cancell I also tried to do a system shutdown and that did not work I waited a bit to see if the commands where being delayed.
In the meantime I tried to shutdown my dlna and couldn't so I coppied down the file to my local pc and I delete "files.db" to make space "170 mb".
In the end I had to do a hard shutdown by pressing the on/off button and when it rebooted all of my configurations were gone (the shares were there bu I could not access them) and was unable to add or delete anything via frontview.
I'm not a fan of the Backup solutions built into the ReadyNAS. They seem pretty primative and you can't trust them. I had a bad HDD I guess that I was backing up to, and not once did the software say there was any problem. So I ended up losing Data. Makes kind of a worthless backup, wouldn't you say?
I hear support won't help you if you SSH into your NAS. The last you you ever want to do on a NAS is a hard shutdown, especally while it's busy doing something. That's a good way to screw things up. I have a Seagate 8TB Backup drive myself and need to get a second one. The Backup I did on that one turned out fine. I format to NTFS now just for the simple fact I can pop the drive into my PC system and easily read it. The btrfs format I won't use now as I don't have any way to read it other then through the NAS. I still need to find a better backup solution then the crap backup software built into the ReadyNAS. It doesn't do the most basic things like make sure there's enough space to backup to!!! You basically have to manually figure out how much space each directory is going to take up, add it up and make sure it doens't go over the space you have on your backup hard drive. i mean really??? Just one of a number of dumb things it doesn't do or I can't figure out. If I can't figure it out, it's much to complecated for a normal person.
Hopefully someone here can help you. You can try calling Netgear Support and see if they can fix things. It won't hurt to try.
Well I have over 13TB on my NAS. The largest HDD I know of is 10, so kind of hard to do that. So I have a 8TB HDD and 3TB HDD that I used. The new 8TB was fine, the 3TB seemed to have issues. Yet not a single error message which backing up to it. To me that's a pretty big problem and seems to be a basic feature any halfway decent backup program would let you know.
How many backups do I need? How about I had 5 backups and 1 drive out of all 5 of those backup's were bad and yet not a single time the NAS told me there was any problem. What then? Again, the backup software seems really primative to backup software I've used 20 years ago. It really shouldn't be this complecated. I shouldn't be told all is good when it's not and then try and restore the next day and it's mostly garbage. It makes no sense. It's pointless for the NAS to spend hours backing up data to a HDD that has issues and then doesn't inform anyone of those issues. It formated just fine, it Backed up just fine and that is what it showed. So it's a big fat liar. How can anyone trust that? I can't!!!
I can't see how spending a bunch of money to backup to another ReadyNAS fixes anything other then spending a bunch more money. It's the same backup software. That's a single backup and you're just telling me I could have more then that. How do I verify a backup on a backup I did the day before? Do I now manually check each and every file myself. All thouands of them? For some reason the backup software can't verify what the hell it's doing, that's clearly the case. It's just blindly copying. If it fails, it doesn't care, it doesn't tell you, it keeps on going. One bad copy after another bad copy until it's finished and tells you all is well.
I can't see how spending a bunch of money to backup to another ReadyNAS fixes anything other then spending a bunch more money. It's the same backup software.
I understand the frustation. But I did want to add that I've had no issues with using rsync to back up ReadyNAS->ReadyNAS. I do get email alerts if the backups fail. And the destination NAS runs regular maintenance functions (scrub, disk tests), which so far has let me know when there are problems not related to the backup itself. Another benefit is that you can expand the backup volume as primary storage expands.
I agree that backup with verify would be extremely useful, esp. with USB backups. If that's not on the idea exchange, perhaps add it. Verification should also be possible as a stand-alone task.
I've had trouble with USB drive reliability (years ago I used them for PC backups - I've never used them with ReadyNAS). Personally I don't trust them much. If anything their reliability has gotten worse since then, not better.
My own policy for backup is to have 3 copies including the original. There's always risk of course, but I haven't lost data since I began that policy perhaps 10 years ago.
Yet it didn't!!! Didn't show a single error to me. All was perfectly good. Yet most of the files were curupted when I tried restoring the following day. The other larger HDD was problem free. So it may have seemed to copy to the HDD just fine, but something was not right with the drive. The backup software didn't pickup on that. Thats a fact because that's what happened to me.
Yet it didn't!!! Didn't show a single error to me. All was perfectly good. Yet most of the files were corrupted when I tried restoring the following day.
That's why verify would be a good addition to the backup jobs.
I've similar problems with Windows btw - data appeared to copy correctly to a failing USB drive, but then couldn't be read back.
Verify would be a great feature. It would pretty much double the time, but you would at least know that backup as it currantly was, was a GOOD Backup!!! I'm not saying Windows backup's can't have issues. But in general they have better backup features. Like Verify the backup. Like not having to manually figure out if you have enough space to fit onto a HDD. Where you can backup, and when that storage space is used up, pop another HDD in and continue on. The most basic of things.
If there was a Verify feature, I'd have it always turned ON. Clearly as things are now, it FAILED to tell me anything was wrong when the backup on the 3TB drive I was using where most of my files were currupted when trying to restore them a day later. When it says all is good, you tend to beleive it. Not that it's a big fat lie!!! Why the software didn't pick up that something was wrong, I don't know, which is why Verify would be a good option to have. It would, I hope see that the file is BAD!!!, Lots of BAD error files and I can then go, Ummm, Looks like I have a HDD issue and better not use it. Right now I can't even trust any backup's it does. Maybe it's good, then again maybe it isn't. I wouldn't know until I tried using it.
It's not like I did a Backup and the HDD was put away and not used for a year or longer and then I tried Restoring from it. Even in that case I would hope it worked, but a day later? What am I suppose to do, just hope for the best? Cross my fingers? Prey? How do I trust anything I backup? That's where I'm at right now. A backup is no good if it's worthless. How many backup's do I need in the hopes that one of them will be good?
Verify would be a great feature. It would pretty much double the time, but you would at least know that backup as it currantly was, was a GOOD Backup!!!
Since the backups are usually incremental, it would be be good if you would schedule a periodic 100% verify (similar to the way to you can schedule a periodic full backup now). That would more than double the time, but the point is to have backups you know are solid.
How do I trust anything I backup? That's where I'm at right now.
What backup drives are you using? Seagate has started using SMR ("archival") drives for the larger USB drive sizes, and I'm specifically wondering if you are using one of those.
Yes, I have 1 of Seagates 8TB SMR type drives I'm using for backup and it has worked perfectly fine. I need another one as I have about 12gigs of data on my NAS now. It was a 3TB normal Seagate drive that a lost most of my files on. Then I had some room on a 3TB HDD in my Desktop PC I backup what was left. The the Desktop backup was fine and the 8TB drive data was fine, it was that 3TB Seagate drive. It would show all the files, but when I tried to copy the file over, it would fail as being currupted. 90+% of the files were curupted that way. It was some files late in the backup that were still good.
Yes a incremental , Verify backup on a schedule would be perfect. I could keep the USB drive plugged in all the time and getting the small Updates and check. Also once a drive is FULL, it would allow me to plug in another and continue on. I shouldn't have to worry about if what I'm backing up is going to fit or not. I should be able to pull out the drive and pop another in and continue on with that USB backup. I don't care if it takes twice as long to do a backup so long as I know that data is going to be good. A bad backup doesn't fix anything.
Also once a drive is FULL, it would allow me to plug in another and continue on. I shouldn't have to worry about if what I'm backing up is going to fit or not.
I tihnk you'll need a different software package for that. I can envision Netgear adding a verify option, but I don't see them adding a completely different backup tool any time soon. Just my opinion - and they have sometimes surprised me.
