Can anyone recommend a method to backup my ReadyNAS NV+ to a Seagate GoFlex External USB 1Tb drive? I intend to migrate from the NV+ to a diskless unit compatible with my Seagate Barricuda drives. I want to reformat the NV+ drives and use the drives with a new NAS device ie., restore the data from the Go Flex to the new NAS device with the newly partitioned and formatted hard drives.
Why not just define a backup task in Frontview? You can specify "Volume: c" as the source and your USB drive as the destination, that will copy all data if your NAS is set up conventionally as a single volume.
If your intention is to use this USB copy only to migrate to another ReadyNAS I recommend you first format it to ext3 for maximum transfer speed. In any case I don't recommend using FAT32 (possibly how it is formatted now) because of all sorts of limitations in file size and permissions. You could use NTFS if you need read/write access to the USB disk on a Windows PC but it will considerably slow down the backup/restore on the ReadyNAS.
Another thought: assuming your NAS has redundant drives, another option would be to wait until your new NAS arrives then pull one of the disks from your old NAS and initialise it in the new one. Then do a NAS to NAS backup - much quicker than USB - after which you have time to double-check all your data on the new NAS before finally pulling its last disk and inserting into the new NAS, where it will automatically sync.
Of course you probably should make a copy to USB anyway before pulling the first disk, but the NAS to NAS method has the advantage of speed without the need to destroy the original before the data is safely on the new NAS. The USB disk would be used only for emergency disaster recovery rather than the recovery source.
I am using the X-Raid setup therefore the second disk can be removed and placed in the new NAS? Afterwards, I can setup Frontview backup and specify the new NAS as the backup destination? Can Frontview backup to a non-ReadyNAS device?
I am using the X-Raid setup therefore the second disk can be removed and placed in the new NAS? Afterwards, I can setup Frontview backup and specify the new NAS as the backup destination? Can Frontview backup to a non-ReadyNAS device?
Yes to all questions. I have a second NAS purely as a backup for my Duo, and it's not a Netgear product at all.
Frontview backup requires only that it can "see" both source and destination; I use the rsync protocol because it suits my purposes, but in your case a simpler method is the best. Once the second box is up and running its shares will be available to the old NAS in exactly the same way they are available to your PC, although if it's not a ReadyNAS you may have to change where things get copied from/to - share by share is probably the safest way. For example, to backup the "media" share on the ReadyNAS to a share called "xyz" (whatever) on the new NAS you can just select "Share: media" as the source and "Remote: Windows/NAS" as the destination, filling in the IP address of the new NAS in the "Host" box and (in this example) "xyz" as the "Path". Finally supply the username and password for the new NAS share (if needed) and hit the "Test connection" button. Assuming it says all is ok, you're ready to go.
Finally, I'll say again that I would make a backup first to USB before touching anything. Not only is it an important backstop against disaster but it will give you some familiarity with the Frontview backup system in a relatively harmless way. USB on the NAS is slow, but it's reliable enough and chugs away unattended. Set it going and forget about it for a day or two if you have 1GB of data to backup.
