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Re: Backing up NAS 516 to a NAS Pro 6 Best Settings

McRob1
Luminary

Backing up NAS 516 to a NAS Pro 6 Best Settings

Looking for some advise.

 

I have both a NAS 516 and a NAS Pro.

 

I have multiple shares allocated on the NAS 516 as my everyday use storage vault.

 

I am looking for the best method to back up my NAS 516 to the NAS Pro.

 

Should I create separate shares that mirror the NAS 516 on the NAS Pro or

Create a single share on the backup NAS.

I could have separate backup jobs on the NAS 516, one for each share that backed up files on the NAS PRO.

 

Is there a better way to do this weekly backup.

 

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Model: RN51664E|ReadyNAS 516 6-Bay 6x4TB Enterprise Drive
Message 1 of 10
StephenB
Guru

Re: Backing up NAS 516 to a NAS Pro 6 Best Settings

Personally I use a backup job per share, and they run daily.  Shares are created on the backup NAS in the usual way.  The backups are incremental rsync.  

 

The OS6 destination systems have snapshots enabled, so it is possible to roll back to an older version.  So this would be one benefit of migrating your pro to OS6.

 

If you have user accounts set up, it is best to match the user UIDs and the group GIDs.

Message 2 of 10
BrianL2
NETGEAR Employee Retired

Re: Backing up NAS 516 to a NAS Pro 6 Best Settings

Hi McRob1,

 

I will create separate shares for each so I can easily monitor, compare and check the files between the NASes. With that being said, a backup job for each share should be created and scheduled weekly.

 

 

Kind regards,

 

BrianL
NETGEAR Community Team

Message 3 of 10
StephenB
Guru

Re: Backing up NAS 516 to a NAS Pro 6 Best Settings


@BrianL2 wrote:

a backup job for each share should be created and scheduled weekly.

 


It depends on the amount and kind of changes of course, but weekly is not often enough for me. 

Message 4 of 10
McRob1
Luminary

Re: Backing up NAS 516 to a NAS Pro 6 Best Settings

I thought that weekly was enough because it's coming from a RAID device, right?

 

It's not supposed to crap out without letting you know.  No single disk failure will cause any loss of data, RIGHT.

 

Don't you trust these enterprise level devices?

Model: RN51664E|ReadyNAS 516 6-Bay 6x4TB Enterprise Drive
Message 5 of 10
StephenB
Guru

Re: Backing up NAS 516 to a NAS Pro 6 Best Settings

In ancient times, when I had to make backups manually, I'd balance the labor to make the the backups against the labor needed to reconstruct lost data.  I figured spending an hour or so a week on backups was reasonable, saving me a week's worth of effort when the system failed.

 

But there's no labor with automated backups, and mine generally complete in less than 30 minutes. 

 

The main drawback in doing them too often is that user error propagates to the backups before you realize files/folders were accidently deleted.  Before I was running OS6 on the backup systems, I solved this by combining a daily backup with a weekly backup. But OS6 snapshots give a better solution, giving me months of retention.

 

So it does no harm to do them every day, and it reduces lost work when things do fail.


@McRob1 wrote:

I thought that weekly was enough because it's coming from a RAID device, right?

 

It's not supposed to crap out without letting you know.  No single disk failure will cause any loss of data, RIGHT.

 


I don't see what RAID has to do with backup frequency.

 

RAID is a good thing, but is not enough to keep your data safe.  About 1/3 of disk failures occur with no warning whatsover. Multiple disks can fail in rapid succession - there are plenty of posts here from users who've experienced that.

 

Plus there is user error, unexpected power loss, chassis/PSU failure, physical damage (NAS knocked over,...).  And fire/flood/theft/etc.

 

So my NAS are UPS protected.  I keep three local copies of everything I care about (primary + two backups).  I run regular volume maintence.  Plus I keep a copy in the cloud for disaster protection.  At some point I might drop one of the local copies, but not yet.

 

That may seem overkill, but years ago (before I had a NAS) I learned that one backup copy wasn't enough.  It is very painful when you discover your backup isn't readable when you need to do a restore.

 


@McRob1 wrote:
 Don't you trust these enterprise level devices?

No more (and no less) than other computers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Message 6 of 10
rjwerth
Luminary

Re: Backing up NAS 516 to a NAS Pro 6 Best Settings

I have the same setup as you but the backup is now off site.  I have separate backup jobs for each share using rsync and I have active shares backing up every night and less active shares backing up every other day alternately.  The reason for that is that some of these less active shares are for storing audio and video, so when they change, they change a lot and take a long time to back up.

 

Some things to keep in mind:  have your backup system initiate all the backups.  It just works better.  Also, if you happen to be using Rsync over SSH, don't plan on the files ending up in the root directory of the shares.  The crazy backup system will make a directory in the share with the share name and put all your files there.  No way around this, unfortunately.

Message 7 of 10
StephenB
Guru

Re: Backing up NAS 516 to a NAS Pro 6 Best Settings


@rjwerth wrote:

The crazy backup system will make a directory in the share with the share name and put all your files there.  No way around this, unfortunately.


Have you tried starting the destination path with a / ( for instance /Music/ )?

Message 8 of 10
rjwerth
Luminary

Re: Backing up NAS 516 to a NAS Pro 6 Best Settings

Yes.  I believe that was my original setup.  Tech support says SSH cannot write to the root of a share.  Freaked me out initially because I was using Rsync locally and before I moved my server off site, I tested SSH.  I thought something was very wrong because I couldn't find any new data in the backups....then I found the new directories named after the share.   Very annoying one cannot easily make a true off site mirror securely with these boxes.

Message 9 of 10
StephenB
Guru

Re: Backing up NAS 516 to a NAS Pro 6 Best Settings


@rjwerth wrote:

 Very annoying one cannot easily make a true off site mirror securely with these boxes.


Agreed. 

Message 10 of 10
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