Suggestions for replication box

[chufi]

I got my main freenas box up and running 4x2TB RaidZ2 and have timemachine and crashplan pointed at it. I am now looking at offsite replication. It seems like the best thing would be to have another freenas box offsite and replicate the zpool to it. Given that box would only be used for replicating a zpool it seems like there ought to be something cheap/lower cpu power that could be used. The main box I built with the supermicro board wasn't particularly expensive but surely there are some older desktops that support ECC that would be very cheap that could handle this type of job with the addition of the appropriate HDs?

Another question on the software side: When replicating a zpool, can I run it first when the machines are on the same gigabit network to get the initial big copy done then move the backup machine to the remote location and switch the hostname/ip of the destination and have it only send over the incremental blocks for the snapshots? I assume this is how it works and that would be fine but wanted to ask. I would probably have to install some kind of dynamic dns client in a jail in order to get a hostname I can point at given the joys of home internet connections.

 

[Ericloewe]

I got my main freenas box up and running 4x2TB RaidZ2 and have timemachine and crashplan pointed at it. I am now looking at offsite replication. It seems like the best thing would be to have another freenas box offsite and replicate the zpool to it. Given that box would only be used for replicating a zpool it seems like there ought to be something cheap/lower cpu power that could be used. The main box I built with the supermicro board wasn't particularly expensive but surely there are some older desktops that support ECC that would be very cheap that could handle this type of job with the addition of the appropriate HDs?

My recommendation (assuming you built something along the lines of Supermicro X10 motherboard + Xeon E3) is to build a nearly identical system, but using a Pentium G3420 or similar (they're dirt cheap and still support ECC - but not AES). You can also go for a cheaper motherboard if it still suits your needs (though the cost difference is likely to be minimal, unless you drop from an X10SL7-F to something without an LSI 2308).

Another question on the software side: When replicating a zpool, can I run it first when the machines are on the same gigabit network to get the initial big copy done then move the backup machine to the remote location and switch the hostname/ip of the destination and have it only send over the incremental blocks for the snapshots? I assume this is how it works and that would be fine but wanted to ask. I would probably have to install some kind of dynamic dns client in a jail in order to get a hostname I can point at given the joys of home internet connections.

I recommend you use VPN to connect them. But yes, you should be able to replicate via GbE and then through the internet, as far as I know.