BackBlaze B2 Update Question(s)

[KazuyaDarklight]

v11.2 - U3 on Primary, U4 on Backup.

We have 2 units. "Primary" and "Backup", the Primary runs normally and Backup takes in snapshots from Primary via Replication Tasks. We want to use B2 for our offsite backup/DR. With that in mind, am I best served by running the Cloud Sync on Primary, pointed at the actual raw data (maybe with retention turned on in B2), or Backup with the Sync just scooping up all the snapshots?

Any recovery is going to be held up by our ISP speed but while I like the idea of "Backup" handling all backup duties in principle, the Snapshot scenario seems like it would be trouble since we would need to download ALL the snapshots in order to start working with any of our data. Correct? We wouldn't really have the chance to prioritize particular directories?

If that is so, then my follow up question would be, if I point the sync task at the raw data and turn on version retention in B2, when I need to pull data back later, is it going to automatically pull the latest version of the files or is it going to download all the different retained file versions?

Thanks for your time.

 

[dlavigne]

Did you find the answer to your questions?

 

[KazuyaDarklight]

50/50, I think I'm just going to have to experiment with a tiny test pool to really get a feel for how it acts in different conditions. One thing I can say, which is kind of a big one. From what I can see, it seems like the cloud sync function essentially ignores snapshots and just looks at a pool in its current/most up-to-date state. So experimenting with how the system handles versioning on the B2 side should ultimately tell us whether its reasonable to expect versioned data being available after a restore or if we are "stuck" with whatever was live at the time. Of course we'll have bigger concerns than a mis-saved or accidentally deleted Excel doc in the event both our boxes go down, but still.

 

[KazuyaDarklight]

So the current (11.2U6) implementation of B2 sync fails to delete files in B2 after they've been deleted from the pool, regardless of retention configurations on either side. I've submitted a bug (https://jira.ixsystems.com/browse/NAS-103369), if this affects you, you can watch the issue status there and if you can, I recommend voting for the issue so development is aware of its impact on the user base.