How do you back up your FreeNAS?

[seanwang]

Hi Guys,

How do you back up your FreeNAS data? Sync to cloud or backup to external media?

Regards,
Sean

 

[tvsjr]

Replication to another FreeNAS system.

 

[Chris Moore]

I want to use off-site replication, but my second server is in the same room with the primary. It is really just a safeguard against a system outage for hardware not related to the disks.

 

[seanwang]

Ideally it should be backed up to some storage at a different location (e.g. cloud) . Backup to storage/server in the same location provides protection only to hardware failures.... hmmm...

 

[adrianwi]

80% replicated nightly to a 2nd FreeNAS box with about 20% uploaded to CrashPlan.

 

[scrappy]

Crashplan Small Business. It's still the cheapest option for backing up >4TB data unless you can invest in a second server and have an offsite location available to place it.

 

[Hazimil]

Crashplan Small Business, but would also like to do a local USB backup - but not figured that out yet.

 

[Chris Moore]

Crashplan Small Business, but would also like to do a local USB backup - but not figured that out yet.

Not sure what hardware you have, but you can get a single drive and add it to the NAS as a separate pool, then use something like rsync to copy over the directorys that you want backup of. It can be scheduled to run through cron.

USB is not a reliable way to connect the drive to the system.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[Hazimil]

Not sure what hardware you have, but you can get a single drive and add it to the NAS as a separate pool, then use something like rsync to copy over the directorys that you want backup of. It can be scheduled to run through cron.

Yeah I know that, but this way you cannon read the files other than on a FreeNAS server. Ideally, what I'm after is an option to have a clear copy of files (NTFS format), which could then be accessible from an PC.

USB is not a reliable way to connect the drive to the system.

I know, but for producing a backup, should be fine. I wouldn't use for live data.

Jonathan

 

[Chris Moore]

(NTFS format)

Microsoft has a tool called SyncToy that you can schedule to run on your Windows computer. Connect the USB drive to the Windows computer configure SyncToy to do a one way sync of the files on the NAS to the USB drive and setup a schedule for it to run during a time when you are not usually using your computer. That way you have the files backed up, one copy on the NAS and a second on the local USB drive.
SyncToy can also do a two way sync if you want to be able to modify the files on the USB drive and have them update on the NAS.

 

[Hazimil]

Microsoft has a tool called SyncToy that you can schedule to run on your Windows computer. Connect the USB drive to the Windows computer configure SyncToy to do a one way sync of the files on the NAS to the USB drive and setup a schedule for it to run during a time when you are not usually using your computer. That way you have the files backed up, one copy on the NAS and a second on the local USB drive.
SyncToy can also do a two way sync if you want to be able to modify the files on the USB drive and have them update on the NAS.

Yeah aware of that, but was hoping to do it locally to keep the traffic of the network. However, it may have to be the way to go - unless I can do something via a Jail/VM... Will look into that.

 

[steve.long]

80% replicated nightly to a 2nd FreeNAS box with about 20% uploaded to CrashPlan.

I've hit a wall because of my lack of technical ability. Perhaps you have some pointers.

Here's my setup:

I have two FreeNAS mini XL units. One will be onsite, one will be offsite. The onsite NAS sits behind a Sonicwall at a location with a static public IP address.

The offsite sits at the company President's home and does not have a static public IP address.

I'd like the onsite FreeNAS to replicate to the offsite every evening but I don't know where to configure what. I've considered setting up a Jail with an OpenVPN install on the offsite, though I suppose I could also do it on the onsite, but I don't know where or how to install the client for OpenVPN. Would it also go in a Jail on one of the FreeNAS units?

 

[Nick2253]

USB is not a reliable way to connect the drive to the system.

I don't necessarily agree with this sentiment. USB is definitely inferior to direct SATA connection all else being equal, but for a backup drive, I don't know that this conventional wisdom applies.

In a live pool, typical USB drives have a ton of weaknesses, largely because of the classic Mass Storage BOT that USB drives used. Random I/O with BOT is terrible, there's a lot of latency, and bandwidth suffers. However, new USB controllers and enclosures that support UASP go a long way to erasing these problems. And even without UASP, for a backup drive, these weaknesses are pretty minimal, since the drives are not mirrored/parity, data is being streamed to the drive, and no one/nothing is trying to access it outside of the backup task.

The advantage, obviously, is that USB drives are portable, which is often what you're looking for in a local backup: attach the drive, backup, and then return the drive to your safe. eSATA enclosures also meet this need, but eSATA has a length limit that makes it impractical for certain use cases.

 

[Chris Moore]

I have not tried using USB with a FreeNAS system in several years. Time changes things because new drivers are created and sometimes things become better. It may be different now, but my last experience trying to copy data from a USB drive to the FreeNAS was that it caused system instability and the system rebooted spontaneously. It wasn't something I wanted to risk. After it happened to me a couple times, I have not tried it again.
I have used eSATA as a means to transfer data and that works very well.

 

[leenux_tux]

Send snapshots to another server.

My FREENAS system is also NFS storage for a separate ProxMox system, however, I also have a ZFS pool configured in the ProxMox box (OpenZFS). I manually ZFS SEND all my file systems every month from FreeNAS to ProxMox (incremental so it's fairly quick). I could automate it I guess but this is a SOHO system, much of the data doesn't change that often (movies/music ISO images etc). I ZFS SEND the ProxMox VM's more often, once a week.

 

[diskdiddler]

I finally configured a snapshot of my critical data (1/10th if total NNA data), once per day, lasts 4 days.

I also, manually run a weekly batch file, which does a robocopy from my NAS to a drive in my PC. (Essential data only)
I then back that drive up, to USB once a fortnight.


I'd LOVE to backup to a cloud service, but I get the impression many of the services to backup to, the plugin is out of data, or they just don't work well (easily / carefree setup) maybe not encrypted, or charge a large fee?

I'm waiting to hear about some kind of "thks is the one you want!!" Post, but I read Reddit datahoarder and here and it seems people are constantly having to change providers or fiddle.
(Screw crash plan)

 

[Chris Moore]

I'd LOVE to backup to a cloud service, but I get the impression many of the services to backup to, the plugin is out of data, or they just don't work well (easily / carefree setup) maybe not encrypted, or charge a large fee?

It is the fees that get me. I am not down for paying a monthly fee. I have two servers and snapshots. If I lose my data, it will be because the house burned down and if that happens, I have bigger problems.

 

[adrianwi]

I have two servers and snapshots, and if my house burns down, or someone breaks in and steals everything, I have big problems, made easier knowing I have 4TB of data safe on a CrashPlan server somewhere.

 

[monovitae]

So if you are going to do freenas to offsite freenas solely for the purpose of DR in the event site one is nuked from orbit. Is snapshots with replication the best way to do it?

Just curious because I recently set this up. Had a "FreeNAS1" at office with about 20TB of data in multiple datasets, that has been working fine for years. Setup brand new backup server "FreeNAS2" setup replication as per FN11 docs, with it on the local lan.

[Begin Rambling about Technical Spirit Quest]
It threw some random errors in the alerts dialog, but eventually it completed and showed the snapshots and datasets on the remote system. However I ran into this issue which someone brought up around April 2017 where on a fresh recieving system it doesn't have the parent data set and as such tries to copy to a non existant location, and then marks it read only etc. which ultimately one everything is said and done, prevents you from cloning a snapshot and properly mounting it as described in the documents. After pulling my hair out for a considerable time I had to turn read only off on the parent dataset and then do a mount -a, at which point I could create a clone of a snapshot, share it and verify the integrity of the backup.
[End Rambling about Technical Spirit Quest]

Anyway after going through all that the whole thing seems kinda like a shoestring operation, and I cant say that its particularly confidence inspiring, nor easy to access backups.

Is replication the best practice for this use case?

 

[Chris Moore]

in the event site one is nuked from orbit.

Wow... I don't, "nuked from orbit"... I might not need to worry about recovering my data after that. There are many options, rsync for example, but snapshots and replication is perfectly valid and is supposed to run faster, depending on bandwidth availability.

After pulling my hair out for a considerable time

It is for this reason that when I setup my two FreeNAS systems at home, I just used rsync

and do a file copy from one directory to another. I can access the files, as files, on either system when I need to without having to make any changes. I still have snapshots on the main system so I can mount an older point in time to go back and get something if I change it by mistake or delete a file by my own error and it has been long enough that the rsync already happened. The advantage (to me) of having two fully online copies of the data is that if I have to take a system down for maintenance, the data is still available on the other system and that is a nice thing.