hugh nicks
Cadet
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2012
- Messages
- 1
Hello everyone,
This is my first time posting here, and while I did look around for an answer, I'm afraid I couldn't find a match. My problem seems simple (I hope).
I'm building some new machines for a client of mine who does video editing. His business is taking off now, so he's hiring a new person. So I've designed a workstation for editing, and a NAS for storing. After a lot of research, I've decided to go with FreeNAS, but I digress.
I'm just waiting to hear back from him about if he wants to buy 6 or 8 drives, and that will help me finish ordering the system. So my client will be working on files that vary in size from 500MB to almost 1TB. But only a few per month right now. We know how much storage we'll need, and I've left room in the design for everything to be easily upgradeable.
But now I'm stuck.
Let's make the numbers easy right now..let's sat we have 6TB of free space on the array. My client loads 2 project on after they're completed, and now there's 2 TB on the array, and 4TB free. I set FreeNAS up to take a snapshot every 2 hours. I know that the snapshot is "like" an incremental backup, but will there now be 2TB (original projects) + 2.1TB (snapshot of the original, plus a minor editing change) totalling 4.1TB, in 2 hours? And another 2.1TB in 2 more hours (if more changes were made)?
Obviously we'll run right out of room.
So what are my options? Can I take a snapshot every 4 hours, only store 2 snapshots on the array, and erasing the oldest right away? Or am I completely wrong on how snapshots work?
But let's say everything worked out, and snapshot are being taken with no problem, and I've figured out my NAS. Now how do I backup my NAS? I know about rsync and such, but my client just doesn't have the money to buy another box right now. He owns an 8 drive Drobo that he wants to use to backup the NAS. Is that possible? I convinced him not to use the Drobo for his main solution because of the proprietary nature of it, and how you can lose everything if the unit plonks out. He knows first hand, because it happened before and he lost everything (before me).
So can we backup FreeNAS with a Drobo? If not, I guess our only other option would be a mirror. And we would want the 2nd NAS (the mirror) offsite, correct? It wont do us much good if the building burns down and the backups are melting right beside the originals.
Obviously rsync (or any sync) over the internet wouldn't work. There's no way he could pay for enough bandwidth to move hundreds of GB's or even Terabytes. I personally know that tape is going to be his best solution for archiving right now (he has to keep clients work for a minimum of 5 years), but LTO 5 drives run in the many thousands of dollars. It's just not something he can do right now.
Does anyone have any good solutions for backing up a FreeNas box? But not thousands of small music files or docs that can be compressed, I mean large, completed, edited video projects. Can we just save snapshots on to the Drobo, and if the array goes down, we can rebuild the array, and restore the snapshot? Is that even possible? Eventually, I'd like to have another NAS running in another location for him, but I need a solution for now.
I would really appreciate any feedback anyone has, as the parts are coming for the workstations in the next day or so, and I like to have all my solutions in a row. Thanks in advance for your help! I hope to post pictures of the builds once I'm all done too!
-hn
Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to be as clear as possible...
This is my first time posting here, and while I did look around for an answer, I'm afraid I couldn't find a match. My problem seems simple (I hope).
I'm building some new machines for a client of mine who does video editing. His business is taking off now, so he's hiring a new person. So I've designed a workstation for editing, and a NAS for storing. After a lot of research, I've decided to go with FreeNAS, but I digress.
I'm just waiting to hear back from him about if he wants to buy 6 or 8 drives, and that will help me finish ordering the system. So my client will be working on files that vary in size from 500MB to almost 1TB. But only a few per month right now. We know how much storage we'll need, and I've left room in the design for everything to be easily upgradeable.
But now I'm stuck.
Let's make the numbers easy right now..let's sat we have 6TB of free space on the array. My client loads 2 project on after they're completed, and now there's 2 TB on the array, and 4TB free. I set FreeNAS up to take a snapshot every 2 hours. I know that the snapshot is "like" an incremental backup, but will there now be 2TB (original projects) + 2.1TB (snapshot of the original, plus a minor editing change) totalling 4.1TB, in 2 hours? And another 2.1TB in 2 more hours (if more changes were made)?
Obviously we'll run right out of room.
So what are my options? Can I take a snapshot every 4 hours, only store 2 snapshots on the array, and erasing the oldest right away? Or am I completely wrong on how snapshots work?
But let's say everything worked out, and snapshot are being taken with no problem, and I've figured out my NAS. Now how do I backup my NAS? I know about rsync and such, but my client just doesn't have the money to buy another box right now. He owns an 8 drive Drobo that he wants to use to backup the NAS. Is that possible? I convinced him not to use the Drobo for his main solution because of the proprietary nature of it, and how you can lose everything if the unit plonks out. He knows first hand, because it happened before and he lost everything (before me).
So can we backup FreeNAS with a Drobo? If not, I guess our only other option would be a mirror. And we would want the 2nd NAS (the mirror) offsite, correct? It wont do us much good if the building burns down and the backups are melting right beside the originals.
Obviously rsync (or any sync) over the internet wouldn't work. There's no way he could pay for enough bandwidth to move hundreds of GB's or even Terabytes. I personally know that tape is going to be his best solution for archiving right now (he has to keep clients work for a minimum of 5 years), but LTO 5 drives run in the many thousands of dollars. It's just not something he can do right now.
Does anyone have any good solutions for backing up a FreeNas box? But not thousands of small music files or docs that can be compressed, I mean large, completed, edited video projects. Can we just save snapshots on to the Drobo, and if the array goes down, we can rebuild the array, and restore the snapshot? Is that even possible? Eventually, I'd like to have another NAS running in another location for him, but I need a solution for now.
I would really appreciate any feedback anyone has, as the parts are coming for the workstations in the next day or so, and I like to have all my solutions in a row. Thanks in advance for your help! I hope to post pictures of the builds once I'm all done too!
-hn
Sorry for the long post, I just wanted to be as clear as possible...
