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Backup: Keeping superceeded versions?
I currently have an Ultra-6 as my main storage device and it is being backed up to a DriveBender box using something called SecondCopy - which keeps up to 20 versions of any given file.
I think I am about to replace the DriveBender box with an RN316.
Understood that there are a few ways to mirror or back up one ReadyNas to another.
But what I am looking for is the multiple superceeded copy functionality.
i.e. if somebody edits file XYZ and saves it, it gets backed up when the next backup run occurs.
But maybe they edited it wrong and now the latest copy is bad - not corrupt, just incorrect data.
Once that is discovered, I want to go to the backup box and restore file XYZ from, say 15 days ago.... not last night or the night before.....
I guess I could run something like Macrium on my 24-7 PC to make incremental backups from the production NAS to the backup NAS.... but finding the desired copy of a superceeded file is basically a try-this-backup-try-that-backup thing until one happens on the desired version..... whereas SecondCopy puts all the superceeded files in the same apparent place and nicely numbers them -1, -2, -3.... and so-forth. That sort of organization is what I am looking for - in addition to the multiple/incremental copies.
Assuming I load that old Ultra-6 with the same OS as the new 316, is there anything out there that can be one on one box or the other to get the kind of versioned backup I'm looking for?
This has helped some users: https://community.netgear.com/t5/ReadyNAS-in-Business/ReadyNAS-312-Need-Help-Understanding-Snapshots/m-p/936586/highlight/true#M3041
Each snapshot holds the entire share at the time the snapshot was taken - all the files are visible. The reason it is space-efficient is because the data blocks that haven't changed are referenced by both the main share and the snapshots. So unchanged files are only stored once, files that changed once are only stored twice, etc. But they appear in the share and all the snapshots.
There are some shares where snapshots can create problems. Two common examples are shares holding SQL databases that are frequently updated and shares for downloading torrents. The frequent changes result in a lot of snapshot space being used, and also a lot of file fragmentation. Just something to keep in mind.
Note that if you are using Windows 7, 8, or 10, there is a right-click function that shows previous versions of a file. If you are using snapshots, you can right-click on any file in the share (or any folder) and see the previous versions for that file. That simplifies your use-case considerably. (There is a way to turn that feature off if you use custom snapshots).
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PeteCress wrote:But what I am looking for is the multiple superceeded copy functionality.
i.e. if somebody edits file XYZ and saves it, it gets backed up when the next backup run occurs.
But maybe they edited it wrong and now the latest copy is bad - not corrupt, just incorrect data.
Once that is discovered, I want to go to the backup box and restore file XYZ from, say 15 days ago.... not last night or the night before.....
Assuming I load that old Ultra-6 with the same OS as the new 316, is there anything out there that can be one on one box or the other to get the kind of versioned backup I'm looking for?
OS6 can do that all by itself with snapshots. Of course, you still need a backup, but probably not so many versions of one. ReadyDR may provide you with that as well, though.
>OS6 can do that all by itself with snapshots.
But that is going to be on a daily incremental (changed files) basis, right?
So if I want a backed up version of file XYZ from say, five versions ago, and XYZ were edited only infrequently, I would have to go hunting though the daily snapshots one-at-a-time starting with last night's and counting the occurrances of XYZ - maybe a month's or more worth depending on frequence of editing/saving - until I found the fifth version of XYZ..... and hope that I did not mis-count.
That is as opposed to going to a "Superceeded Files" directory and finding the file named XZY-5.
??
Well you could use this: ReadyNAS OS 6: Snapshots and Windows Previous Versions integration
No need to guess which snapshot had the old version in it.
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