I see a lot of ReadyNAS backup to PC questions, but not too many PC to ReadyNAS backups.
I want to backup my PC that has 10TB worth of images to the ReadyNAS and EDA500 unit.
Prior to buying this 2 days ago, I was backup the PC to a FreeNAS unit using ShadowProtect Desktop.
The ReadyNAS has 4x5TB drives and the EAD500 has 2x 5TB drives.
What I would like to do is backup the finished images to the EAD500 Raid (which has not been setup yet) and all the raw images to the ReadyNAS (also not setup yet).
Can I get some imput here?
I would like to do a Mon, Wed, Fri, backups of RAW files to ReadyNAS and weekly (Sat) backup of finished images to EAD500 unit.
I wouldn't mind using Shadowprotect still or if the backup software that is provided by NG can do the job all the better,
You can still use shadowprotect desktop - I do my PC backups to the NAS with Acronis TrueImage, which is similar.
The main disadvantage is that the actual images on the NAS can only be accessed with shadowprotect. Is that a problem for you?
The built-in Netgear tools basically copy folders (incrementally or in full). They don't provide versioning, though the snapshot feature of the NAS is in some ways similar. The PC source folders need to be shared with windows file sharing, and the PC needs to be turned on when the backup job runs. Personally I find the Netgear tools are best for backing up the NAS to another NAS - I don't use them for PC backup.
If your 10 TB of data is on the FreeNAS now you can use the Netgear Backup Jobs to migrate the data directly from the FreeNAS. You can do that using NFS as the protocol (though rsync and SMB are also possible).
Hmm. I've not done this, but I've been backing up laptops forever to an external harddrive, and then copying the contents of that drive to the ReadyNAS. I have harddrive backups going back to my 1992 40Mb IBM Thinkpad. I have to maintain an old Windows XP to run the software to restore. I've also just this week setup one ReadyNAS to backup another ReadyNAS via RSYNC.
So, here are my thoughts. If you want to automate the backup of PC(Windows?) Systems, making the NAS the client which initiates the backup and retrieves the data from another machine, I'd look at an RSYNC server for the PC. The ReadyNAS can wake-up the PC, then remote login, and collect the data from a directory or filesystem on MON/WED/FRI. The first backup would be a full backup if you use RSYNC on the ReadyNAS, after that it would be delta or incremental. There are no versioning facilities on the ReadyNAS and so if you replace a file on the PC it would get backed up on the next backup.
I've no idea how FreeNAS and shadow protect desktop work, so can't advise.
The alternative to the above scenario of using RSYNC would be to set-up a backup, filecopy of the PC that would mount the ReadyNAS file system and use XCOPY or similar to copy the RAW files to the ReadyNAS. This could easily be a scheduled batch job and would run on the PC. A 2nd alternative would be to use a program like ACRONIS which has been my backup tool for the past 6-years. It will backup a whole hard drive, or a user chosen subset, say RAW files. It will create a .tib file as the backup, you can either create that direct on the READYNAS or a local drive and then copy/move the .tib file to the ReadyNAS.
It's the Acronis solution to a local drive I use. I do a monthly full backup and incremental backups inbetween. The backup set also notes what has been deleted, and when I do a restore, I get back only what I had at the time of the last incremental backup, not everything including the files I deleted, since the full backup.
