Simple Question on Crash Plan

[TheDubiousDubber]

I tried doing search, but there is overwhelming amount of posts on CrashPlan issues when updating, etc. so it was hard to find relevant info. I just wanted to know if it is possible to do what I would like to do prior to wasting my time configuring it all. I have 3 computers I would like to back up. My PC which dual boots Mint and Windows 8.1, along with my OS X laptop. I plan to back them all up to CrashPlan on my headless FreeNAS box which I know can be done. What I would also like to do is then have my FreeNAS box backup the entirety of its own shares along with the 3 backups to the CrashPlan cloud. Is this possible? I'm unfamiliar with CP so not sure how the plugin or the client operates.

The other option I was unsure about was taking a different, but similar approach. I can use TimeMachine to backup OS X to a share on FreeNAS. I don't make changes to Windows or Mint that often so even a monthly backup of those would be sufficient which I can just make an image of each and copy over to FreeNAS share whenever I need. Then, I can use CrashPlan to just backup the entirety of my FreeNAS shares to its cloud.

Not sure what approach to take or what is or isn't feasible in the CrashPlan world.

 

[Jailer]

Crash plan does not do image backups, it's a file backup program. You would have to image the partition you want to back up and then crahsplan could back up that image.

If you do a bit of searching you'll find that crashplan on freenas requires a bit of periodic maintenance to keep it running. It was this reason that I gave up on crashplan. I got tired of it not connecting and having to manually reconfigure it ever time new updates, that are pushed automatically, came out.

 

[TheDubiousDubber]

Interesting. Thanks for the help. It sounds like it may be more worthwhile to do my own thing entirely. I like the idea of having an offsite backup as I currently don't have one. Most of my stuff is backed up to random drives here and there, which I wanted to remedy. I thought about building a second FreeNAS and placing it at my parents house and backing up my box to that, but the cost would be considerable in comparison to what CrashPlan offers. I thought about just backing up to external and keeping it off site as well, but 8TB externals aren't cheap either.

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

I plan to back them all up to CrashPlan ... What I would also like to do is then have my FreeNAS box backup the entirety of its own shares along with the 3 backups to the CrashPlan cloud. Is this possible?

CrashPlan will not backup CrashPlan backups (by design). Anyone selling an 'unlimited' backup storage solution will try to prevent clients doing what you propose. Otherwise nobody would need more than one license.

 

[anodos]

My semi-messy workaround is to have a crashplan on a linux VM with network shares mounted. Pretty reliable (did it a month ago, no downtime while constantly uploading), my internet is slow and so I don't worry about inefficiency of file sharing protocols.

I use clonezilla live CD to image systems over network to share that backs up on crashplan. At some point I may deploy FOG and test it out.

 

[pirateghost]

My semi-messy workaround is to have a crashplan on a linux VM with network shares mounted. Pretty reliable (did it a month ago, no downtime while constantly uploading), my internet is slow and so I don't worry about inefficiency of file sharing protocols.

I used to do it this way, but then I decided it was better to have it run in a plugin right on FreeNAS. aside from the reconfig issues with what seems like every update, it has been solid

 

[TheDubiousDubber]

I used to do it this way, but then I decided it was better to have it run in a plugin right on FreeNAS. aside from the reconfig issues with what seems like every update, it has been solid

So if I understand correctly you use Crashplan plugin in FreeNAS to backup all your data on the FreeNAS box to Crashplan cloud? Do you backup other computers to your FreeNAS? Either I totally misunderstood or you have some way of doing what I'm trying to do so curious to know details about your current solution.

 

[pirateghost]

So if I understand correctly you use Crashplan plugin in FreeNAS to backup all your data on the FreeNAS box to Crashplan cloud? Do you backup other computers to your FreeNAS? Either I totally misunderstood or you have some way of doing what I'm trying to do so curious to know details about your current solution.

I use rsync to backup what I need from my computers to my freenas. Typically this is just user profiles from the desktops/laptops.

This provides 2 things:
Zfs snapshots export out the user profiles to the users as 'Windows previous versions'
And
Automated backups to freenas without a special plugin or jail.

The second component to my backups is having crashplan plugin mount the storage where all these user backups are held. Crashplan backs these up to the crashplan servers for offsite backups to go along with my local backups.