Back up musings - Looking for the best way of meeting my limited backup needs

[Elliot Dierksen]

I have seen a number of threads recently about rsynch, zfs replication, and hardware failures. This got me thinking about my own backup strategy which isn't very good at the moment. In addition to my FreeNAS systems listed in my sig, I also have a ReadyNAS NV+ v2 (4 bays) with RAID5 of 4 x WDC WD20EFRX-68AX9N0 (WD Red 2TB NAS Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM). That one mostly does some CIFS shares and runs my Logitech Media Server (because I have been too lazy to try and do it on FreeNAS). This one has (alleged) support for NFS and rsynch, but my experience trying that tells me that the write process is being handled by a 1 armed, 1 eyed retarded squirrel using a chisel and stone tablet. :-( I killed the rsynch process after 4 days. Ugh!

Below is what my primary pool looks like:

Code:

root@freenas2:/mnt/RAIDZ2-I/VMWare/alfred-2015 # zpool status -v
  pool: RAIDZ2-I
 state: ONLINE
  scan: scrub repaired 0 in 0 days 02:49:58 with 0 errors on Sat Jul 14 07:22:24 2018
config:

		NAME											STATE	 READ WRITE CKSUM
		RAIDZ2-I										ONLINE	   0	 0	 0
		  raidz2-0									  ONLINE	   0	 0	 0
			gptid/bd041ac6-9e63-11e7-a091-e4c722848f30  ONLINE	   0	 0	 0
			gptid/bdef2899-9e63-11e7-a091-e4c722848f30  ONLINE	   0	 0	 0
			gptid/bed51d90-9e63-11e7-a091-e4c722848f30  ONLINE	   0	 0	 0
			gptid/bfb76075-9e63-11e7-a091-e4c722848f30  ONLINE	   0	 0	 0
			gptid/c09c704a-9e63-11e7-a091-e4c722848f30  ONLINE	   0	 0	 0
			gptid/c1922b7c-9e63-11e7-a091-e4c722848f30  ONLINE	   0	 0	 0
			gptid/c276eb75-9e63-11e7-a091-e4c722848f30  ONLINE	   0	 0	 0
			gptid/c3724eeb-9e63-11e7-a091-e4c722848f30  ONLINE	   0	 0	 0
		  raidz2-1									  ONLINE	   0	 0	 0
			gptid/a1b7ef4b-3c2a-11e8-978a-e4c722848f30  ONLINE	   0	 0	 0
			gptid/a2eb419f-3c2a-11e8-978a-e4c722848f30  ONLINE	   0	 0	 0
			gptid/a41758d7-3c2a-11e8-978a-e4c722848f30  ONLINE	   0	 0	 0
			gptid/a5444dfb-3c2a-11e8-978a-e4c722848f30  ONLINE	   0	 0	 0
			gptid/a6dcd16f-3c2a-11e8-978a-e4c722848f30  ONLINE	   0	 0	 0
			gptid/a80cd73c-3c2a-11e8-978a-e4c722848f30  ONLINE	   0	 0	 0
			gptid/a94711a5-3c2a-11e8-978a-e4c722848f30  ONLINE	   0	 0	 0
			gptid/aaa6631d-3c2a-11e8-978a-e4c722848f30  ONLINE	   0	 0	 0
		logs
		  gptid/01054460-64dc-11e8-ac23-e4c722848f30	ONLINE	   0	 0	 0
		spares
		  gptid/4abff125-23a2-11e8-a466-e4c722848f30	AVAIL

errors: No known data errors

  pool: SYS-MiRROR
 state: ONLINE
  scan: scrub repaired 0 in 0 days 00:00:11 with 0 errors on Sat Jul 14 04:43:30 2018
config:

		NAME											STATE	 READ WRITE CKSUM
		SYS-MiRROR									  ONLINE	   0	 0	 0
		  mirror-0									  ONLINE	   0	 0	 0
			gptid/7fad0884-6a69-11e8-9272-e4c722848f30  ONLINE	   0	 0	 0
			gptid/1aa38786-6a68-11e8-9272-e4c722848f30  ONLINE	   0	 0	 0

errors: No known data errors

  pool: freenas-boot
 state: ONLINE
  scan: scrub repaired 0 in 0 days 00:02:06 with 0 errors on Wed Jul 18 03:47:06 2018
config:

		NAME		STATE	 READ WRITE CKSUM
		freenas-boot  ONLINE	   0	 0	 0
		  da19p2	ONLINE	   0	 0	 0

errors: No known data errors

I don't have my secondary server on all the time because it is in my office, and it with the D2700 external array are too loud and add significantly to the room heat. My rate of change on files is pretty low other than the 3 VM's I run all the time (FreeBSD mail server, Vcenter, APC powerchute appliance), so I really can't justify anything too crazy. I am working on increasing the space in my secondary FreeNAS because neither that or the ReadyNAS has enough space to back up everything on the primary. I don't think ZFS replication will work for me because I would likely want to back up the media files on the ReadyNAS to secondary FreeNAS as well. I think the backup would need to be something I can kick off manually since I won't always have the backup target up all the time. Mainly I am looking for some tactical guidance from the group to meet my limited needs. Rsynch seems like my best bet, but it was kind of slow. That might just be that the first pass is like that.

Thanks in advance.

 

[m0nkey_]

Rsync is slow over SSH. You could try Rsync over NFS to see if you gain any speed improvement.