ZFS Replication advice

[macmuchmore]

Hi - I have 1 FreeNAS server running 11.3-U3.2. It has 3 shares, one for movies, one for software, and one for general data. In addition, I have it configured with 2 jails, one for a Plex server and one for a Unifi Controller. It is running very well, but I would like to back up at least the 3 shares, but ideally I would want a failover backup FreeNAS server. I will be building the server this week, and was wondering if I can utilize ZFS replication to accomplish this task. I have watched the following video from Lawrence Systems (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et7JyacV_hA) and think I have a fair understanding of how to set it up, but I am unsure if this will work for my situation. I guess what I am asking for is advice - should I just backup my shares? Can I backup the entire server to server #2 and use it as a failover? (meaning the ZFS replication would duplicate the entire server, and if #1 fails, I could just go to #2 and turn on the services I use)... Currently I just back up the data on the shares, but would like to automate that. Anyways, any suggestions or advice would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[MikeyG]

You can set up replication tasks to back up any datasets recursively to another FreeNAS server. If the primary one goes down, you could then fail over to the backup and use it for "production" assuming all shares are properly configured on it.