Looking for advice on best way to backup my ReadyNAS
Hello
I have had a ReadyNas 204 running for a number of years and had no issues until last week when i powered it down and when i turn it back on it failed to see my main drive, looking in to it it looks to have been a software issue with the readyNAS not to drive. not having set up any backup i have had to recover the data using recovery software. lesson learnt always have a back up.
My question is whats the best way to back up my system i know i need to get another drive of the same size, my first through was to mirror the main drive using the NAS however in the case above would i have lost both drives if it was down to a software issues with the Nas itself. should i be looking at having a external drive attached to the NAS via USB and performing a backup weekly/daily would this be a safer way?
My question is whats the best way to back up my system i know i need to get another drive of the same size, my first through was to mirror the main drive using the NAS however in the case above would i have lost both drives if it was down to a software issues with the Nas itself.
I agree that RAID-1 isn't enough to guarantee data safety, but I'd still recommend that. There are certainly cases where RAID-1 protection does help - particularly when the disk itself fails. And it also provides a path for easy volume expansion when you run out of space. I also recommend getting a UPS for all NAS. Many data loss stories here begin with an unexpected power loss.
But as far as data safety goes, having at least one other copy on another device is much better than RAID. Having an off-site copy is also a good way to protect against disaster (theft, fire, flood, ransomware, etc). That can be a physical drive, but it could also be a cloud backup.
As far as USB backup goes - it is convenient to connect the USB drive directly to the NAS, but personally I prefer doing backups over the network. That makes it less likely that a NAS failure will corrupt the USB disk. One option is to connect the USB drive to a PC (using either NAS backup jobs, or a PC backup tool like FreeFileSync). You could also use an internal PC drive (which I think are more reliable than USB drives).
Re: Looking for advice on best way to backup my ReadyNAS
Hello
Thanks for your advice. I think I will go for having an external back up over RAID 1. Aiming to have both in the long turm.
One last question if I may, if I set up a back up to a external drive on the network. Would this be in a readable format for any computer or would it backup as a NetGear format only readable by the NAS itself ?
Re: Looking for advice on best way to backup my ReadyNAS
If the data is stored on the internal drives of the ReadyNAS, then it would be stored using the BTRFS file system. That can be mounted on an x86 linux PC, but not on a Windows PC or Mac.
A USB drive directly connected to the NAS can be formated with several different filesystems, including NTFS - which can be read on both a Windows PC and a Mac.
