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Crash[plan and multiple NASes. Best strategy?
OK, I have multiple ReadyNASes. All are legacy, but some are on OS4.2.x and some on 6.x. I plan to move them all to 6.x once I'm convinced the bugs are worked out. The older Pro models have upgraded processors and memory (E6700 & 2 or 4GB) while the Ultra4 and Ultra4Plus have standard processors and 2GB. I'm looking at Crashplan. Since everything for a NAS us "unsupported", I'm looking at the best way to utilize it. I see a few ways to accomlish it and would like comments on the benefits.and pitfalls of each. They all depend on Crashplan continuing to be usable with the unsupported modes of headless operation on the NAS or utilizing Windows mapped drives Plan A: Install Crashplan on all NASes and computers. I'm sure this gives me the most control. I don't think I want to deal with the differences in installations between OS's. so upgrade of all to 6.x is the first step, but I'm not sure I'm rewady for that. Major disadvantage I see is that (according to Crashplan site), a headless configuration does not auto-update and there is no way to trigger it. Updating requires uninstalling and re-installing, including re-doing all of he "hacks". Not being the biggest 'Nix guru, that's a lot of work if updates come quickly. Another disadvantage is each NAS counts toward the 10 computers in a family plan, though I won't currently exceed that. If I want to use remote access to administer Crashplan, I need to port forward externally, have a PC with remote access also left on, or implement a VPN. Externally forwarding Crashplan ports seems a bad idea, even with atrong passwords. Plan B: Convert a currently retired PC into a "Crashplan server". It's pretty much of the same caliber as the NASes: Win 7 (10 if I upgrade the video) Core2 duo processor and 4GB of RAM. I can map //nasIP/c on the OS4.2.x NASes and //nasIP/data on the OS6.x machines as mapped dives and then access them via that computer. This has the advantage that all updates will happen automatically. Disadvantages are that the computer has to remain on and and all crashplan traffic goes through it. With bandwidth to my ISP probably being the biggest bottlenext, I'm not sure the latter is really an issue. Or is it? Plan C. Kinda like plan 2, but use a NAS as the "Crashplan server". I know Linux can mount external volumes, and I believe the ReadyNAS can utilize that, though I have not tried it. Crashplan site implies that using mounted server shares in Linux is a supported feature. I'd probably use the Ultra4Plus for that, since it's current backup function would become moot with Crashplan. It still means I need to keep a NAS installation up to date, but only one. And I can choose when to move from OS4.2.x to 6.x. It's also one more machine on all the time (it currently comes on only for backup job) and if I want to use remote access to administer it,it has the same issues as A.All traffic now goes through an Ultra4Plus -- is it up to the task? So, have I missed any pitfalls or benefits that might sway me? Is anyone using a plan similar to any of these, or something I haven't considered? I'm leaning toward starting with Plan B, and I coould migrate all or part to Plan A or C. With only a 30 day trial period, I want to try what makes the most sense first. One somewhat unrelated question: If "a friend" (not enrolled in a paying plan) uses my NAS as a backup, using any of the scenarios above to access it, does Crashplan recognize that that is backup data and disallow it's archival in the Crashplan cloud even if the folder containing the backup is marked for cloud archival? And, lastly, is there another service that I should be considering instead that will work with one or more of the schemes above? Most, I believe, won't work with Plan B, as they do not allow backup of maped server shares.
