File Recovery setup

[TheBestIGot]

Hi,

I'm having the hardest time finding comprehensive instructions on setting up file recovery on my home FreeNAS.
I looked into ZFS and Snapshots, but I think I set it up wrong because I cannot recover files if I delete them.
Can someone point me in the right direction?

 

[Spearfoot]

Hi,

I'm having the hardest time finding comprehensive instructions on setting up file recovery on my home FreeNAS.
I looked into ZFS and Snapshots, but I think I set it up wrong because I cannot recover files if I delete them.
Can someone point me in the right direction?

Welcome to the forums!

First you have to configure snapshots on the volume(s) you want to share via Windows. Then you need to specify the appropriate 'Periodic Snapshot Task' for the SMB share on FreeNAS. It's an advanced option, as described in the documentation here:

http://doc.freenas.org/9.10/sharing.html#windows-smb-shares

Here's a screenshot from my system, showing the edit screen for one of my shares and the portion of the dialog where you set the snapshot task to use:

 

[Spearfoot]

And another thing... even after you have this set up correctly, you won't see any previous versions of files except for those files that have changed since you began taking snapshots.

 

[TheBestIGot]

And another thing... even after you have this set up correctly, you won't see any previous versions of files except for those files that have changed since you began taking snapshots.

Thanks! Though I use a mix of Linux and Macs for my machines. Granted they can do SMB, but I try to stick to AFP. Does the same apply despite the share? (I'm thinking it does, but just verifying.)

Also, if the original file is there, it gets deleted, I should be able to restore it with this feature. Right?

 

[Ericloewe]

This functionality is getting an overhaul in FreeNAS 10 (and 9.10.3, I think) to allow for all snapshot tasks to be exported, which will be a major improvement.

 

[TheBestIGot]

This functionality is getting an overhaul in FreeNAS 10 (and 9.10.3, I think) to allow for all snapshot tasks to be exported, which will be a major improvement.

Do you think I should just wait for that version before I implement?

 

[Ericloewe]

Do you think I should just wait for that version before I implement?

No, no point in waiting.

 

[TheBestIGot]

No, no point in waiting.

Thanks for the heads up.

 

[Kevin Horton]

Thanks! Though I use a mix of Linux and Macs for my machines. Granted they can do SMB, but I try to stick to AFP. Does the same apply despite the share? (I'm thinking it does, but just verifying.)

Also, if the original file is there, it gets deleted, I should be able to restore it with this feature. Right?

There may be a better way to do this, but the brute force method would look something like this:

• set up periodic snapshots on the dataset you want. You'll want to set a suitable retention period - long enough to make the feature useful, but short enough to avoid filling up the storage with snapshots.
• when you later need to recover a deleted file, figure out what date and time the file would have been available, and find the snapshot in the GUI that corresponds to this date and time. You can use the Filter button to help narrow down the number of snapshots that are displayed.
• select the snapshot of interest, and then click the "Clone Snapshot" icon on the right side of that line. This creates a new dataset that contains the contents of the snapshot.
• Find the file and copy it to your normal dataset, then destroy the cloned dataset.