Backup Advice ??

StarTrek133

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Sep 5, 2022
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Hello Everyone,

I need some advice .. I finally got all the parts needed for my Synology backup .. I currently have Rsync tasks up and running to do a push every night to the Synology ..

But my question is , is that a good option for backing up the Truenas box .. or should I used replication and snapshots ??

As I am new to doing things with Truenas I am not sure .. So any advice would be great ..

Thanks for your help and time ..
 

chuck32

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Welcome!

You didn't share much about your backup process, but at first glance rsync should work fine. I guess it depends on your requirements and how you set everything up to determine if it's a good fit for you.

But my question is , is that a good option for backing up the Truenas box .. or should I used replication and snapshots ??
Synology doesn't support ZFS as far as I know, so you can't go that route. Although I'm happily corrected here.
 

StarTrek133

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Welcome!

You didn't share much about your backup process, but at first glance rsync should work fine. I guess it depends on your requirements and how you set everything up to determine if it's a good fit for you.


Synology doesn't support ZFS as far as I know, so you can't go that route. Although I'm happily corrected here.
Hey Chuck32,

Not sure what other information is needed .. So please let me know ..

I am just looking for the best way to do backups of Truenas Core to my Synology ... when I did some googling I found a video about setting up Rsync so that is what I followed ... But thought I would double check to make sure ...
 

ChrisRJ

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If it works and does the job, I would really leave it there.
 

chuck32

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Not sure what other information is needed .. So please let me know ..
If you have any reason to believe rsync is not for you, we'd need information on what requirements you may have that you do not feel met with rsync.
"I use X - is it good? " is too broad to give a specific answer to without knowing your needs. That's all I meant.

It seems that you don't have any special requirements, then
If it works and does the job, I would really leave it there.
applies ;)
 

StarTrek133

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Thanks for the advice .. I guess where my confusion is when I go to the Synology and I look at the folders that the Rsync tasks are going too it looks just like a copy of the folders that are on TrueNas .. So I am going to assume that if I delete something off of Truenas when it does the nightly push that it would also delete it off the Synology ...

Its doesn't strike me as what I am used to for backups with windows based servers ... in that case the backup take a pic of the server at that time and backs it up ... if needed I can go weeks back and see all if needed and restore something ...

This Rsync seems more like copy and paste what is currently there ...

Hope that makes more sense ...

I just want the best setup I can do that will backup the data on the Truenas to where I am not going to lose anything ... Have already had that happen before , which is why I switch what I had setup to Truenas ...
 

Patrick M. Hausen

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This Rsync seems more like copy and paste what is currently there ...
Correct if --delete is included in the rsync options. I am not familiar with rsync tasks so I don't know if there is a checkbox in the UI to control that rsync option. What is definitely closer to your perception of a backup being a "snapshot at some point in time" is the builtin ZFS snapshot and replication task capability of TrueNAS. The destination backup system must run ZFS and SSH for that to be usable, best another TrueNAS but any current FreeBSD, Debian, Ubuntu, ... with ZFS will do.

HTH,
Patrick
 

beagle

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If you want to keep versions on your Synology have a look at this post that suggests auxiliary parameters to add to the rsync job to save versions on a separate folder. I've been using a similar solution to backup to an old Qnap.

rsync -avxxhH --progress --delete-delay --backup --backup-dir=.versions/`date +%Y-%m-%d-%H-%M` --exclude="/.versions" username@server.ip:/mnt/poolname/path/to/directory/ /media/path/to/usb/folder/

 

StarTrek133

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Thanks for the information ...

Here is the video I followed mostly for getting it setup ... It does use SSH protocol to do the push ...


Also here is a pic of the current task ...

My other reason for using the Synology was I want a system that would also work with windows , as I have my windows computer backing up to it as well .. Also wanted something small so in case of fire or whatever , I can just grab the synology and run and I have all my data ...

Yes I know I could setup cloud backups as well .. but when your backing up 10+tb of data that gets pricy ... and I am working on the cheap ..
 

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chuck32

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My other reason for using the Synology was I want a system that would also work with windows , as I have my windows computer backing up to it as well .. Also wanted something small so in case of fire or whatever , I can just grab the synology and run and I have all my data ...
TrueNAS and SMB shares work well with Windows, I only have Windows clients ;)

Well you're probably better off not being at home to grab your NAS in case of a fire though.

At least offload your data to a HDD and place that somewhere else that is not your home.
And think whether all 10 TB need to be backed up, at least cloud sync your documents / family photos etc.

I haven't set it up yet as I'm still trying to figure out how that would work for files that change lot,
 

ChrisRJ

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There are at least two general problems with such YouTube videos.

The majority (no idea about this one, since I didn't watch it) of them contains wrong information, omits critical details, etc. After all, they are primarily entertainment.

The videos usually spend most of the time going through the actual process. In and off itself that is ok. But, and here is where the problems come in, they typically do very little to explain why exactly this approach was chosen. Backup is a much wider field than most people think. So discussing the requirements, and then the limitation of the chosen approach is critical.

Again, this is not criticism of the linked video but a general observation.
 

chuck32

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The videos usually spend most of the time going through the actual process. In and off itself that is ok. But, and here is where the problems come in, they typically do very little to explain why exactly this approach was chosen.
Well put. To jump on this train, I find these videos are great start to get a visual impression on what a certain procedure entails, however the next logical step should be doing some research and reading documentation, asking questions here or somewhere else if some things are not clear.
 

StarTrek133

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Thanks everyone for the advice .. So I guess I am good then .. seeing how the Rsync has been working fine the last couple of days ..

Thanks again for the help and advice ..
 
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