Weekly manual backup to external USB hard drive

[takkischitt]

Hi

I am completely new to FreeNAS, but have got a setup up and running quite well so far after plenty of reading on here and on the wiki. It is used as a file server and backup for around 5-10 computers in an office.

Below is an outline of my hardware and FreeNAS version...

Build FreeNAS-9.2.0-RELEASE-x64 (ab098f4)
Platform AMD Turion(tm) II Neo N54L Dual-Core Processor
Memory 1898MB

It has 2 x 500GB drives in stripe to make 1TB.

What I am wanting to do is plug in an external USB hard drive (2TB) and start a manual backup (a mirror) of the information which is on the NAS once a week, preferably in an accessible format when away from the NAS i.e. if I plug the backup, external USB hard drive into a computer, I could access the data and use it there. I don't need to backup file changes or anything like that, a simple mirror would be fine.

I am thinking it may be best, and easiest, to do this via one of the computers on the network using some sort of backup software and just doing the backup across the network. It may be time consuming the first time round, but probably not too bad from then on as the data usage of the computers isn't big, mostly small files/documents etc, so the backup software will only transfer the changed files, new files and remove deleted files.

Can anyone advise on issues or better methods, baring in mind I'm an absolute Linux noob and the GUI is about my limit, currently.

 

[gpsguy]

First off, hopefully you are using UFS, since you only have 2Gb ofRAM. ZFS on FreeNAS requires a minimum of 8Gb. Check the BIOS and ensure that you have the VGA memory size set to the minimum. It's under:
Advanced/PCI Express Configuration/VGA Memory Size/32Mb

With the price of hard disks, why, oh, why, would you stripe these disks for a file server used by "5-10 computers" in an office? At a minimum, I'd use a mirror. You'd still need backups, but with a stripe, if either disks fails, you loose everything.

If you want to backup (don't use the word mirror) to disk connected to your Microserver, that disk would need to be formatted either UFS or ZFS. They probably won't be usable (or at least not easily) from your other computers.

As you said, backup over the network would probably work better for you. If you're running Windows, I'd create a scheduled task that ran at least once a day. You could use Robocopy.

btw, FreeNAS isn't Linux. Read up on Unix.

If you need to upgrade the RAM in your box, go straight to 16Gb. With the right RAM, it'll work. I have 16Gb ECC RAM in my N54L.

 

[takkischitt]

Hi gpsguy, many thanks for the informative reply...

First off, hopefully you are using UFS, since you only have 2Gb ofRAM. ZFS on FreeNAS requires a minimum of 8Gb. Check the BIOS and ensure that you have the VGA memory size set to the minimum. It's under:
Advanced/PCI Express Configuration/VGA Memory Size/32Mb

This is my first venture into FreeNAS, so apologies if I'm making some very basic mistakes. I have set up the volume as ZFS. All seems to be running ok however? But if this is not the best practice, I can start fresh and create a volume in UFS. I will also adjust the VGA memory in the BIOS.

With the price of hard disks, why, oh, why, would you stripe these disks for a file server used by "5-10 computers" in an office? At a minimum, I'd use a mirror. You'd still need backups, but with a stripe, if either disks fails, you loose everything.

Before I got the HP Microserver I was running a pretty basic little NAS box which was mirroring the drives, but I was up to about 400GB usage (there is a lot of pictures and things on one or two computers, hence the space being used). So I decided to just stripe those disks and then buy an external drive to keep off site backups on.

If you want to backup (don't use the word mirror) to disk connected to your Microserver, that disk would need to be formatted either UFS or ZFS. They probably won't be usable (or at least not easily) from your other computers.

As you said, backup over the network would probably work better for you. If you're running Windows, I'd create a scheduled task that ran at least once a day. You could use Robocopy.

Yes, I think I will manually do it across the network using backup software on one of the computers. I have SyncBackPro and it seems to be working well at the minute. It'll take a while first time round, but after that it should be quick enough.

btw, FreeNAS isn't Linux. Read up on Unix.

Linux/Unix... I'm as clueless about both, but thank you, at least now I'll definitely be looking for the right stuff.

If you need to upgrade the RAM in your box, go straight to 16Gb. With the right RAM, it'll work. I have 16Gb ECC RAM in my N54L.

Is this a definite necessity? I will be setting all the computers to backup at different times + there is little use above and beyond the odd small file going back and forth on the server every now and then... would I still need more RAM?

 

[DrKK]

SyncBackPro (by 2brightsparks software) is an outstanding program, and I highly recommend it. You can continue to use that, if you know what you're doing, and it's a good backup solution for an external drive situation.

Everything gpsguy is saying is spot on. You can spend $300 (at least, in the UNited States, I dont know where you are), and get 8GB of ECC RAM, and 2x2TB WD reds, and have a N54L system that's about...ten thousand? times better than what you have for FreeNAS.

 

[takkischitt]

SyncBackPro (by 2brightsparks software) is an outstanding program, and I highly recommend it. You can continue to use that, if you know what you're doing, and it's a good backup solution for an external drive situation.

Yes, it's great. I use it on each computer to backup to the NAS, then on one computer I just have an extra profile in SyncBackPro which backs up the FreeNAS to an external hard drive connected to the computer. Had that set up with the previous NAS, and it worked well.

Everything gpsguy is saying is spot on. You can spend $300 (at least, in the UNited States, I dont know where you are), and get 8GB of ECC RAM, and 2x2TB WD reds, and have a N54L system that's about...ten thousand? times better than what you have for FreeNAS.

I'm in Northern Ireland. Can you explain to me why I would need the extra RAM, however?

 

[gpsguy]

We've had several, at least 3 user's in the past week or so, lose their pool, by running ZFS on a system with insufficient memory. Like yourself, it had been working, but ... And, adding more memory after the fact, still didn't help. With just 2Gb of RAM, UFS is your only safe option.

If you want the benefits and features of ZFS, you'll need to replace the memory. Since there are only 2 slots, rather than put 8Gb, just go to 16Gb. I know the manual doesn't show it as being supported, but I have a N54L with this memory and it boots okay, every time.

Kingston 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
ECC Unbuffered Server Memory Model KVR1333D3E9SK2/16G

Sure, it costs about $200 USD, but if you go to 8Gb, you might find that you need to replace it again in the future, if you add bigger drives in your drive bays.

I have set up the volume as ZFS. All seems to be running ok however? But if this is not the best practice, I can start fresh and create a volume in UFS.

Is this a definite necessity? I will be setting all the computers to backup at different times + there is little use above and beyond the odd small file going back and forth on the server every now and then... would I still need more RAM?

 

[takkischitt]

Think I'm going to go for 2 of these...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kingston-Te...8&qid=1390239576&sr=1-9&keywords=DDR3+1333MHz

When you said...

We've had several, at least 3 user's in the past week or so, lose their pool, by running ZFS on a system with insufficient memory. Like yourself, it had been working, but ... And, adding more memory after the fact, still didn't help.

did you mean that adding the RAM *after* losing their pool didn't help or adding it even before it failed, doesn't work... meaning I would need to start from scratch once the RAM is in? It's just I'm in the process of backing up the computers and stuff, but there's not much point if I'll just need to start again once the new RAM is in.

Thanks for this, btw. Much appreciated!

 

[gpsguy]

That's non-ECC RAM. You want ECC RAM. See the thread about ECC vs non-ECC RAM.

No, *you* wouldn't need to start from scratch.

The examples I referred to were folks with failed pools, where insufficient RAM was identified as one of the problems. The user tried to recover their data by adding RAM after the fact, but the pool was already damaged/unrecoverable.

 

[takkischitt]

Interesting read, thank you.

This appears to be the correct RAM, I think...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B0064R7LH8/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1390245810&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX110_SY165

So this would be probably the most stable setup I could get, without ripping the bag out of it?

 

[gpsguy]

Yes, that's exactly what I have in my N54L.

 

[takkischitt]

Yes, that's exactly what I have in my N54L.

Thank you for the help!

 

[takkischitt]

Just installed the RAM and have plugged everything back in again, but I cant find the FreeNAS on my network. I had the IP address set up as a static address, but it isn't active and I've been through all the attached devices IPs on the router and none are the FreeNAS.

Can anyone help?

 

[takkischitt]

This is what I get when I plug in a display...

 

[takkischitt]

In case anyone else stumbles across this. I just ended up formatting the USB pen and putting on the FreeNAS image again, then restoring my config backup. Seemed as though something had corrupted the USB pen.

All back up and running, with 16GB ECC RAM now, instead of 2GB.

 

[rm-r]

also - referring to the original title of the post - for ZFS - http://forums.freenas.org/threads/zfs-send-to-external-backup-drive.17850/ has the perfect answer - works wonderfully for me!

 

[takkischitt]

Thanks rm-r!