Currently I have 1 ReadyNAS RN2120v2. We had a recent failure on site and lost all 16TB on the NAS.
Looks like a 3138 would be close match to the 2120. 3138 is probably a little faster.
I want to create NAS to NAS mirror, on site and would like to talk about the procedure if a nas goes down.
Making the new 3138 the primary nas (because it is faster) and the old 2120 the “BACKUP” nas.
To limit down time, how would I create this so I would not have repoint everyone to the BACKUP nas in the event that the primary nas goes down?
The 3138 would be called NAS1 and would be plugged into the network switch. Could I call the BACKUP nas NAS1 also, and on this machine disable all SMB sharing?
Could the BACKUP nas be plugged directly into the primary 3138? And if the primary nas goes down I would only need to unplug the 3138 from switch, unplug the BACKUP 2120 from the 3138 and plug it into the network switch? And toggle on SMB sharing.
Basically, I want to know how easy the procedure is to switch from the primary NAS to the BACKUP nas? How clean could the procedure be, would I be needing to mess with DHCP and re-addressing the BACKUP NAS?
The RN3138 is better than 2100 due to its specification and features.
It would be better to have two identical NAS model for the setup you want to have; this is to speed up your transition to the Backup NAS in the event of failure by restoring the configuration on the other unit and have users able to access it just like the primary NAS.
Regarding backups, backing up each share using rsync on the source or destination NAS would do the job.
If you will have two different units, the best way is to unplug the RN3138 and plug in the Backup NAS and reconfigure. This is not the best resolution for failover unlike with restoring the configuration from the same NAS, but other community members might have better ideas.
Backing up and restoring configuration steps is available here. Backup using rsync is here.
Regarding the suggestion you may want to check this thread.
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If you want to mirror nas 1 to nas 2, what is the best way to connect their ethernet cables?
For each nas do you BOND the network cards together and then plug cables into the switch?
Can you plug one nas directly into another nas?
How would you do that? For nas 1, one cable is plugged into the switch and the 2nd is plugged into the nas 2. Then nas 2 has its 2nd cable plugged into the switch as well.
I suggest wiring them both to your switches/routers, and run rsync over the normal network.
You can use bonding if you like, but I don't think you should do that specifically for backup. If your NAS has a lot of simultaneous users, then bonding will increase the throughput.
It depends on the bonding mode you choose and when you run the backups.
If you use LACP bonding, then each data flow is still capped at 1 gigabit. So the backup is the only thing accessing the NAS, then it won't be any faster. If there are other flows from users, then it might be. The xmit hash policy commits each flow to use one specific NIC, so whether there is a speedup or not depends on how the hash comes out.
If you use static lags in the switch(es) and round-robin in the NAS, then the dataflows could use the full bond speed (e.g., 2 gigabits). But in that case, your normal users might suffer packet loss due to queue overflow in the switches, since they aren't able to receive at that rate. You can overcome that by enabling flow control in the switch(es) and clients. Though when the flow control kicks in you are losing the benefit of the speedup, since it pauses the NICS until the queues empty.
ALB should be similar to static LAG/round robin. The driver will split flows across the two NICs in the outbound direction. The NAS will attempt to load-balance in the receive side by hacking ARP - not sure how well that works in practice.
Some folks here have found issues with their non-bonded clients when they tried to use ALB.
If you want to experiment with it, I'd suggest trying static LAG first.
In the link below, step #9, in the remote settings, once I choose the Remote: Rsync Server for the protocol the PORT field is displayed. What port should I use. Step 9 does not show a port field.
I am trying to back up one nas to another.
On the admin page of MainNAS, under System - Settings. Rsync service is NOT enabled. The instructions did not say to do this.
On the admin page of BackupNAS, under System - Settings. Rsync is enabled
If they are on the same network then the answer is Yes. No need to setup port forwarding but you still have to put in the port number on the NAS backup configuration
In the link below, step #9, in the remote settings, once I choose the Remote: Rsync Server for the protocol the PORT field is displayed. What port should I use. Step 9 does not show a port field.
Choosing the port is a new feature, so the KB article is a slightly behind,
You should be able to leave it out. Or you can enter 873 (which is the default RSYNC port).
The backup job will not let you proceed unless you enter a valid port number, I am just saying you can't leave it blank.
What is the pro to using Rsync vs SMB backup? Rsync has the ablitly to removes files from destination that have been deleted from source location without making a FULL backup again, correct?
The backup job will not let you proceed unless you enter a valid port number, I am just saying you can't leave it blank.
In my opinion that's a bug (it should default to 873 if you enter nothing). FWIW, my existing backup jobs continue to work fine, I didn't need to go back and enter port numbers there. Anyway, 873 is the well-known port for rsync.
What is the pro to using Rsync vs SMB backup? Rsync has the ablitly to removes files from destination that have been deleted from source location without making a FULL backup again, correct?
Rsync has the setting to remove files on the destination that have beeen deleted from the source, SMB does not. I believe it is a bit better at detecting changed files (SMB uses timestamps alone, Rsync also looks at other properties).
Since it is built into linux, Rsync preserves the exact linux file ownership, permissions, and timestamps. It's a good choice for NAS->NAS backup.
Man I wish you could copy an existing backup job, rename and change a couple settings instead of starting from scratch everytime. Something for the "idea bucket" I guess.
Is there backup job protocol that would copy the snapshots with the shares? So that when you are mirroring 1 nas to another they are truely Mirror copies of each other?
Is there backup job protocol that would copy the snapshots with the shares? So that when you are mirroring 1 nas to another they are truely Mirror copies of each other?
ReadyDR does backup snapshots, but I don't think it backs them all up. It also doesn't create a mirror - you need to restore a ReadyDR backup to a share before you can access the files. So it's not a good choice if you want to switch over to the backup NAS when the primary NAS fails.
