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ReadyNAS 212 Back Up Question
I am using my NAS (Raid 1, 2 - 4 TB drives) attached to a R7000 Netgear router as a hard drive for my Microsoft Surface Book 2. As you know, there is not much onboard memory(128 or 256 GB) on solid st...
Calvin386 wrote:
So it looks like I have a plan now. I will add an additional 8tb external hard drive as a redundant back up and reformat my current external hard drive to NTFS. Also will be looking into a UPS for my system.
That should work out well. On the UPS: you want one that has a USB output for monitoring. You connect that to the ReadyNAS, so it will cleanly shut down when the UPS battery drains. I happen to use Cyberpower myself, though many folks like APC.
Perhaps also switch to jbod (2 volumes) in the future when you need to recreate the volume anyway. You'd simply put some of the network shares on each volume (keeping reasonable free space on each). It looks the same from the PC, since it normally sees the shares, and not the full volume.
Keep in mind that this is a home laptop which may go days without being used. The NAS will have mostly pictures and videos uploaded to it a couple days a week. Also a daily back up to the external hard drive. The vast majority of the time the NAS will sit idle waiting for someone to access it. It is actually overkill for what I am using it for. I just happen to be a bit of a tech junkie. I never had redundancy before. Only purchasing the NAS, gave me the option of having redundancy plus back up. Does this change your concern for my use? I do not want to lose my wifes pictures.
Calvin386 wrote:
I do not want to lose my wifes pictures.
Going from safest to least safe:
- RAID-1 on the NAS, combined with USB backup.
- Two jbod volumes on the NAS, using the same backup strategy.
- RAID-0 on the NAS, using the same backup strategy
The panic-mode scenario here is that the primary copy on the NAS would fail, followed by a discovery that the USB backup was unreadable when you tried to restore it. Using two USB drives (swapping every other week) reduces that risk.
Also, it makes sense to do a full backup to the USB drive every now and then (perhaps once a quarter) - that tends to expose failing drives more quickly than just using incremental backup.
We've been suggesting the middle mode (which isn't redundant, but is less fragile than RAID-0).
I was not aware that JBOD was an option on the NAS212. You have sufficiently made me nervous. I'm going to be doing some more reading.
Your main concern is that if either of my NAS disks fails, the entire NAS data is lost. Secondly the backup would be found to be compromised in some way making recovery impossible. Correct? What if I added a second 8tb external hard drive giving me 2 separate back ups? That would give me redundant back ups while maintaining operating speed and full capacity of my NAS drives.
Secondary question.... I formatted the external hard drive ext which was recommended by Netgear. My understanding is format is unreadable by my lap top via direct usb connection without downloading additional software from Netgear. I am able to read the external hard drive via the lap top using Windows file explorer which confuses me a bit. NTFS was also an option. Would you recommend NTFS or the Netgear recommended formatting.
I appreciate your input!
Calvin386 wrote:
Your main concern is that if either of my NAS disks fails, the entire NAS data is lost. Secondly the backup would be found to be compromised in some way making recovery impossible. Correct? What if I added a second 8tb external hard drive giving me 2 separate back ups? That would give me redundant back ups while maintaining operating speed and full capacity of my NAS drives.
Two USB drives certainly are a good idea. My own policy is to keep three copies of everything I care about, including the original. A second backup drive fits that policy. You can rotate them (alternating between Drive A and Drive B).
That mitigates most of the risk. If (or when) the internal volume does fail, you will have a longer recovery time (because you have to restore everything on it), but with your usage that isn't that critical.
Another suggestion is to get a UPS for your NAS. That will ensure a clean shutdown when the power fails - which also eliminates some of the risk outlined above.
Calvin386 wrote:
Would you recommend NTFS or the Netgear recommended formatting.
NTFS for sure. Otherwise if the NAS were to fail you'd have a backup you can't read. And check the backups periodically to make sure everything is ok.
Netgear upgraded the NTFS software on the NAS a year or so ago - there isn't much difference in backup speed anymore.
Thank you for your suggestions. Like you said...my usage is not dependant on being up and running quickly. That's what led me to the RAID 0 set up.
So it looks like I have a plan now. I will add an additional 8tb external hard drive as a redundant back up and reformat my current external hard drive to NTFS. Also will be looking into a UPS for my system. Thanks again
Calvin386 wrote:
So it looks like I have a plan now. I will add an additional 8tb external hard drive as a redundant back up and reformat my current external hard drive to NTFS. Also will be looking into a UPS for my system.
That should work out well. On the UPS: you want one that has a USB output for monitoring. You connect that to the ReadyNAS, so it will cleanly shut down when the UPS battery drains. I happen to use Cyberpower myself, though many folks like APC.
Perhaps also switch to jbod (2 volumes) in the future when you need to recreate the volume anyway. You'd simply put some of the network shares on each volume (keeping reasonable free space on each). It looks the same from the PC, since it normally sees the shares, and not the full volume.
Will do...Thanks for your help.
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