- Joined
- May 17, 2014
- Messages
- 3,611
Thought I'd post an update. My full backups are working great with the Seagate 8TB SMR Archive disk.
It's backing up a RAID-Z2 pool with 4 x 4TB disks, so a single 8TB disk can do full backups. (After I set
the backup pool to same compression :). I've probably run 12 backups, of various types, (full or incremtnal),
over the last 18 months. All ran fine, no real problems. (Yes, I only run one backup every 2 months on THIS
disk.)
Backups run a bit slow, upto 18 hours, (6 hours for the pre-backup scrub and 12 hours for a high update
incremental backup). But, for me it was never about the time, it was the conviniance of a single disk that
could store my entire NAS pool. At the time I bought the Seagate 8TB SMR Archive disk, there were no
regular 8TB disks, either NAS type or enterprise.
Today, I might consider another solution, like one of the 8TB, (or larger), NAS or enterprise disks. If however
it was still cost effective to use Seagate SMR Archive disks, I would. Especially if they came out with larger
ones, like 10TB or 12TB.
For those interested, my backups use an external enclosure that I can hot-swap the disk. Sits on top of my
FreeNAS Mini and uses an eSATA cable for attachment. Today I'd probably have bought a FreeNAS Mini XL
just for a builtin disk slot that I could use for backups.
It's backing up a RAID-Z2 pool with 4 x 4TB disks, so a single 8TB disk can do full backups. (After I set
the backup pool to same compression :). I've probably run 12 backups, of various types, (full or incremtnal),
over the last 18 months. All ran fine, no real problems. (Yes, I only run one backup every 2 months on THIS
disk.)
Backups run a bit slow, upto 18 hours, (6 hours for the pre-backup scrub and 12 hours for a high update
incremental backup). But, for me it was never about the time, it was the conviniance of a single disk that
could store my entire NAS pool. At the time I bought the Seagate 8TB SMR Archive disk, there were no
regular 8TB disks, either NAS type or enterprise.
Today, I might consider another solution, like one of the 8TB, (or larger), NAS or enterprise disks. If however
it was still cost effective to use Seagate SMR Archive disks, I would. Especially if they came out with larger
ones, like 10TB or 12TB.
For those interested, my backups use an external enclosure that I can hot-swap the disk. Sits on top of my
FreeNAS Mini and uses an eSATA cable for attachment. Today I'd probably have bought a FreeNAS Mini XL
just for a builtin disk slot that I could use for backups.
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