I operate FreeNAS 11.3-U1 and rolled up the following backup:
1) Dell PowerVault MD1000 switched on every Friday to replicate the main pool. He are the steps what I do:
After booting the storage pool I manually import the pool. Then I wait for the existing replication tasks to do their job. When this is finished I disconnect the backup pool and switch off the disks.
Question: is it possible to create a batch file to connect the pool, wait for replication to finish, disconnect the pool and send me a email so I know that I can switch off the MD1000? In future I'd like to have this automated, i.e. to use a power PDU to switch on the MD1000 at given time and let FreeNAS send a command to switch off the outlet after the replication has finished.
Glad if someone could propose a proven or better scenario as the main goal is not to run the power hungry MD1000 24/7...
2) To make sure I have a frequent synchronisation of my data to backup while not running the power hungry MD1000 I attached 3 USB-Harddrives to my server, created pools and let FreeNAS run periodic snapshot. That works well and I like to know what to do in case I need to access the backup data and therefore I would like to practice it now. I want to read the pool on the external USB-Disk from another computer running Windows and I see two options:
a) install FreeNAS, import the pool, create shares and access the data
or
b) install FreeBSD in VMWare-Player running on my Windows machine, connect the USB to the computer, create shares and access the data from Windows.
BUT - maybe there is a more elegant way how to access the ZFS-pool on the external disk? Let say I was traveling and wanted to take my data on a small 2,5" drive with me, such as pictures or videos, to be able to watch them on my Windows laptop. Earlier I experimented with external USB-Drives formatted with NTFS but found it cumbersome to get data on it. From within FreeNAS GUI this was not supported and when attached to a workstation I needed to to use 3rd party backup software to replicate and synchronize the pool. Also when the disk was longer on the shelf it took too long to update the data. I was advised by the forum that best was to stick to native format of FreeNAS which is ZFS and meanwhile with the replication I am also comfortable. I can create as many customized replication tasks I need, attached as many of USB-Drives as many USB-ports I have and anytime I take the USB-drive with me I can be sure that it has the latest data on it.
I would be happy if someone had a better idea to achieve the same task.
Last but not lease I would like to know why all of my newly created replication tasks are pending until I go and select RUN NOW?
1) Dell PowerVault MD1000 switched on every Friday to replicate the main pool. He are the steps what I do:
After booting the storage pool I manually import the pool. Then I wait for the existing replication tasks to do their job. When this is finished I disconnect the backup pool and switch off the disks.
Question: is it possible to create a batch file to connect the pool, wait for replication to finish, disconnect the pool and send me a email so I know that I can switch off the MD1000? In future I'd like to have this automated, i.e. to use a power PDU to switch on the MD1000 at given time and let FreeNAS send a command to switch off the outlet after the replication has finished.
Glad if someone could propose a proven or better scenario as the main goal is not to run the power hungry MD1000 24/7...
2) To make sure I have a frequent synchronisation of my data to backup while not running the power hungry MD1000 I attached 3 USB-Harddrives to my server, created pools and let FreeNAS run periodic snapshot. That works well and I like to know what to do in case I need to access the backup data and therefore I would like to practice it now. I want to read the pool on the external USB-Disk from another computer running Windows and I see two options:
a) install FreeNAS, import the pool, create shares and access the data
or
b) install FreeBSD in VMWare-Player running on my Windows machine, connect the USB to the computer, create shares and access the data from Windows.
BUT - maybe there is a more elegant way how to access the ZFS-pool on the external disk? Let say I was traveling and wanted to take my data on a small 2,5" drive with me, such as pictures or videos, to be able to watch them on my Windows laptop. Earlier I experimented with external USB-Drives formatted with NTFS but found it cumbersome to get data on it. From within FreeNAS GUI this was not supported and when attached to a workstation I needed to to use 3rd party backup software to replicate and synchronize the pool. Also when the disk was longer on the shelf it took too long to update the data. I was advised by the forum that best was to stick to native format of FreeNAS which is ZFS and meanwhile with the replication I am also comfortable. I can create as many customized replication tasks I need, attached as many of USB-Drives as many USB-ports I have and anytime I take the USB-drive with me I can be sure that it has the latest data on it.
I would be happy if someone had a better idea to achieve the same task.
Last but not lease I would like to know why all of my newly created replication tasks are pending until I go and select RUN NOW?
