Backup question

[Bizquick]

So I have my FreeNAS box now. but what can I setup for a backup?
I have a external USB 3.0 drive is there anyway I can use that for backups?
if so how would I do that?

 

[danb35]

but what can I setup for a backup?

Any of dozens of methods which have been discussed extensively here in the past. Search is your friend.

 

[Bizquick]

Search just showed a lot of things that seemed more complex than I expected.
I guess I'll just have to depend on a windows backup job to back up the files from a mapped drive.
I thought there would have been a more efficient way to do this directly on the FreeNAS box itself.

 

[gpsguy]

With your USB hard disk connected to your Winsdows machine you can use a number of synchronization utilities. Robocopy and synctoy are a few - search the forum for "robocopy" or "synctoy" to find more.

 

[Bizquick]

Yes I realize that I could do many options from my PC with the drive connected.
But none of that is what I said. I was looking for a way to backup my storage on the NAS its self.
I can attach a drive there but I just don't see any sort of guides that describe a way to do this.

 

[MrToddsFriends]

I was looking for a way to backup my storage on the NAS its self.
I can attach a drive there but I just don't see any sort of guides that describe a way to do this.

Perhaps this posting helps:
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...-pool-off-while-another-on.56970/#post-400105

In your case the backup pool would consist of your single HDD connected via USB. Step 4 "Perform the transfer / backups" could be a ZFS replication or a RSYNC task or whatever you prefer.

 

[Inxsible]

I was looking for a way to backup my storage on the NAS its self.

What's the point of that? You need offsite backup. Something like a secondary backup FreeNAS machine.

 

[Linkman]

What's the point of that? You need offsite backup. Something like a secondary backup freenas machine

Use more than one, and regularly rotate them offsite? Then you have two external backups and the FreeNAS, and if one external is always rotated offsite, then you meet the 3-2-1 "rule" (at least other than the time when you are actually swapping the two externals... :) )

Make them ZFS and directly connected == easy snapshots and replication.

 

[Bizquick]

OMG I'm so dumb. I just figured out how to do what I wanted to start with.
the whole thing is builtin to FreeNAS. I'm such a dumb poop.

The whole time I was thinking that the Rsync could only be using with another FreeNAS server not itself.
So I didn't create a task to do that.
Once I tried it to use itself. It looks like its working.

So now I have my dataset backing up to the USB drive. and if for some reason I lose my array I would think I could import this drive and do some sort of restore.

 

[masetime]

Would you mind providing the sort of quick step-by-step instructions that you were needing so that other novices like myself don’t have to go through the same struggle that you just did?

It would be much appreciated! ;-)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[Bizquick]

Well I'm not sure it worked out all the way yet.
Cause I tried to take the drive off and use it on another FreeNAS box by importing it. And it wouldnt import.
So I might have some more testing to figure this out. I think I'm part of the way there.
If I had to restore to the same FreeNAS box I think I would be ok. But if Ihad a major failure and had to redo everything. Not sure this would work out.
If I had newer hardware I would just create a VM to do what I want. But my current hardware doesnt support headless VM instructions so that's a failed approach.
unless I can bring back the Virtualbox plug in method for VM's.