× NETGEAR will be terminating ReadyCLOUD service by July 1st, 2023. For more details click here.
Orbi WiFi 7 RBE973
Reply

Re: RN104 for mirror and backup

jmazz
Aspirant

RN104 for mirror and backup

Hi all,
I would like to use an RN104 to give me one drive with redundancy and 2 drives for storage for non important data and for Backup
Would the following work ...
(1) Setup RN104 using FLEX RAID ... Install 2x 4TB drives in bay 1 and 2 leaving other 2 bays empty. Use RAID 1 on these two drives.
(2) In future add 4TB drives to bays 3 and 4 using JOBD (Giving me 3 volumes)
(3) Backup volume 1 (from bay 1 and 2) to bay 4. Remove hdd from bay 4 and keep in a safe place offsite as a backup. Replace hhd in drive 4 with a new hdd.
Please comment on this procedure and give any warnings of what may go wrong.
I am unsure of whether a JOBD backup drive can be usefully replaced into a FLEX RAID setup and be seen to recover data in case the original data is corrupted by other than hdd failure which I hope RAID 1 will handle.
If the RN104 fails will I be able to recover data stored on hdds in a new RN104 or similar device?
Will any sharing or APPs functionality be limited by such a setup?
Thanks in advance.
Message 1 of 9
RX
Luminary
Luminary

Re: RN104 for mirror and backup

jmazz wrote:
Would the following work ...
(1) Setup RN104 using FLEX RAID ... Install 2x 4TB drives in bay 1 and 2 leaving other 2 bays empty. Use RAID 1 on these two drives.
(2) In future add 4TB drives to bays 3 and 4 using JOBD (Giving me 3 volumes)
(3) Backup volume 1 (from bay 1 and 2) to bay 4. Remove hdd from bay 4 and keep in a safe place offsite as a backup. Replace hhd in drive 4 with a new hdd.
Please comment on this procedure and give any warnings of what may go wrong.

For me, it would be best that you backup that data (from volume 1) to an external drive.

jmazz wrote:
If the RN104 fails will I be able to recover data stored on hdds in a new RN104 or similar device?

This is possible as long as the drives are still healthy. However, it would be advisable not to just rely on your current backup using your NAS and to have another backup of your data to another destination for example to an external drive or another NAS.
Message 2 of 9
StephenB
Guru

Re: RN104 for mirror and backup

Netgear discourages this approach to backup, and I don't recommend it either. SATA connectors are not designed to be inserted/removed a lot of times. Also, the backup would be formatted as btrfs, so it could only be read on a linux system that supports that file system. If the NAS were to fail, you likely would want the ability to recover some files directly to a Windows or Mac pc.

So I recommend (a) a network backup to another device or (b) backing up to USB - in that order btw.
Message 3 of 9
jmazz
Aspirant

Re: RN104 for mirror and backup

Thanks Ixa and StephensB for your very prompt replies.

I may have misled you by not telling you that the backups of the 4TB VOLUME would probably only be done 6 times per year if not less. The volume would store extended family photos and home movies accessible over the net. The more recent photos and movies would be backed up on the drives of each family members home PC and possibly smaller external hdds. I would assume that the system would handle 4 to 6 hot swaps of hdd per year.

I am still uncertain that when a JOBD Volume on a single hdd is removed from a Flex-RAID setup that the original data on that volume will be seen when the hdd is replaced.

I am also assuming that this is all hot swappable.

Can someone confirm that the above mentioned setup would then allow larger sized hdds to be used as I think the limit for RN104 is 16TBs for a VOLUME. So under the setup of bay 1 and 2 having RAID 1 and bays 3 and 4 having JOBD (under Flex-RAID) I could upgrade to 6TB hdds (or higher) as long as each VOLUME is 16TB max?
Message 4 of 9
StephenB
Guru

Re: RN104 for mirror and backup

I still don't recommend the method. Why not just get two 4 TB USB drives? They don't cost any more than 4 TB internal drives (usually they are a bit less). The format can be NTFS, so files can be recovered from any PC.

OS6 is a bit fussy about stale volumes. I have had trouble with that in the past (though I haven't needed to do it recently). You might need to delete the partitions on reinsertion and recreate them.

Although drives > 4 TB are not supported by Netgear on the RN104, they should work as long as each volume is < 16 TiB.
Message 5 of 9
jmazz
Aspirant

Re: RN104 for mirror and backup

Thanks for your valuable advice
Message 6 of 9
Gonzo_already_i
Aspirant

Re: RN104 for mirror and backup

Hi,

did Netgear store parts of the OS on the disks?
It may be an issue when disks with an old firmware/OS are restored in a unit whith a newer firmware.

Regards
Message 7 of 9
StephenB
Guru

Re: RN104 for mirror and backup

Gonzo-already_in_use wrote:
Hi,

did Netgear store parts of the OS on the disks?
It may be an issue when disks with an old firmware/OS are restored in a unit whith a newer firmware.

Regards
The OS partition is stored on all disks. If the firmware on the disks doesn't match what is in the flash, the NAS will try to update the OS from the flash. Note that may result in either a downgrade or an upgrade.

If the firmware is very different, it is a good idea to install a scratch disk on the NAS first, and then manually install the correct version. After that, power down and insert the "real" disks.
Message 8 of 9
Gonzo_already_i
Aspirant

Re: RN104 for mirror and backup

Thx Stephen,

good to know, so, in principle the idea of jmazz should work.

Regards
Message 9 of 9
Top Contributors
Discussion stats
  • 8 replies
  • 2569 views
  • 0 kudos
  • 4 in conversation
Announcements