Backup of iscsi LUN from a ReadyNas 316 to another ReadyNas 316

[DownTown87]

Dear all, 

I'm facing an issue where i need some help. 

I wanna mirror 4 iscsi LUN from one Netger ReadyNAS 316 to another. 

The goal is .... having all company data stored at the NAS and mirroring the whole data to another site where the second NAS will be located. 

At the moment i have both NAS systems at the site I'm working from. 

The Question is: 

Is it possible to get two identical NAS Systems  (for DesasterRecovery) ? 

I'm not really intrested in that Snapshot solution offered by Ready DR .... thats not what i prefer. 

I'd like to have a initial full backup followed by an incremental one for the whole companydata and therefore for the 4 LUN's which are already existing. 

Could you please tell me if this is possible and HOW. 

best regards

[StephenB]

iSCSI LUNs are block storage (opaque) as far as the NAS is concerned.  So if you were to use rsync, you'd end up copying the entire LUN every time something in it changed.  So that part of the backup wouldn't be incremental. It also wouldn't be coherent, since the iSCSI client could update the files in the LUN while the backup was running.

ReadyDR avoids both of these problems, though the cost is that the LUN will get fragmented over time.  

Is it possible to back up the files in the LUN from the iSCSI client that uses it?  For instance, create an NFS share on the local NAS, and run a backup on the client itself.  Then mirror the NFS backup in the usual way.  A variant would be to make the backup target a LUN on the destination NAS.

[DownTown87]

Ok so this means I don't really have a chance to get around the ReadyDR Snapshot solution ? 

I've already startet a replication via this way ... 

Does it mean that in Future the Data will be safed inkremental ?

thx in advantage.

[StephenB]

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@DownTown87 wrote:

Does it mean that in Future the Data will be safed inkremental ?

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ReadyDR does back up the LUNs incrementally.

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@DownTown87 wrote:

Ok so this means I don't really have a chance to get around the ReadyDR Snapshot solution ? 

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I think you could create your own script on the NAS that backed up the LUNs with rsync.  Though it's not something I've tried (and I don't use iSCSI myself).

[DownTown87]

Hey again,

so i ve started an backup using snapshots from the source NAS .... copying them to the destination NAS. 

The Next time I'll take a snapshot it will do it inkremental or how does it work ? 

thx so much in advantage

[StephenB]

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@DownTown87 wrote:

The Next time I'll take a snapshot it will do it incremental or how does it work ? 

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https://kb.netgear.com/31224/ReadyDR-FAQ

Note the answer to "If I delete all the snapshots on my source dataset or my destination ReadyDR, what will happen?"