Need leads for guest backups

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Apr 26, 2015
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Hi,

I've been using the snapshot method with my old 9.3 servers for quite some time but wondered if there are any newer, better ways with newer versions of FN.
Looking around, I keep finding the old methods or discussions on 'what if' but nothing that specifically shows if there are any improvements in terms of backing up live guests and incrementally as well.

The vcenter and hosts are all 6.7 and licensed.
 

sretalla

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I suppose not since my FN servers are 9.3. I'll read what you're showing me.
 
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I must be missing something. This looks just like the old snapshot feature on my 9.3 servers.
 

Heracles

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Hey NasProjects.

Know that snapshots are not backups. Not only they are online and onsite, they are in the very same system as the original and are actually more like pointers to the data than an actual copy of the data itself. Should something happens to the main instance of your data, there is a very high chance that your snapshots will have suffer the same...

You have more info about backups in my signature...

Also, know that a backup is not working until you successfully restored it.
 
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Sure, I know how vmware works in terms of taking a snapshot and backups. I'm just trying to better understand how FN could help since vmware always requires a third party solution for full or incremental backups.
 

sretalla

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I must be missing something. This looks just like the old snapshot feature on my 9.3 servers.
So if you're using the vmware snapshots feature already, then your FreeNAS system is forcing ESX to take a snapshot (which gets the VM to quiesce) and then take your FreeNAS snapshot (this is different to just taking a regular FreeNAS snapshot without the VM having quiesced first).

Those are of course incremental, but are viewed as full copies if mounted. You can use any of the pruning scripts (available in the forums, search for @fracai ) or expiry to manage how long and how many you keep.

That's about all there is to snapshots.

Clearly, as mentioned by @Heracles , there's no substitute for an actual backup of that snapshot once it's taken in case your pool dies.
 
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All clear now. Thank you for all the input and help.
 
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