Backup restore testing requirement

[Robert Smith]

Hello, I am not using the FreeNAS yet, I want to figure out if it is a good choice for the following scenario.

I have a requirement to validate backups monthly (basically restore from backups every month). Here is what I was thinking about doing.

- On the NAS there will be one BACKUP pool and two master pools: MASTER-A and MASTER-B, both called MASTER.
- Only one of the MASTER pools will be installed on the NAS at a time.
- The MASTER pool is where NAS exposes storage to clients from.

The monthly restore validation session would look something like the following:

1. Take the NAS off-network.
2. Replicate the MASTER-A pool to the BACKUP pool.
3. Shut the NAS down, and remove the MASTER-A pool drives (to be taken off-site).
4. Install the MASTER-B pool drives in-place of the removed ones.
5. Start the NAS, and replicate the BACKUP pool to the MASTER-B pool.
6. Restore the network connection.
Each month the MASTER-A and MASTER-B pool drives would trade places, with one of the sets taken offline.

Is this a feasible scenario with FreeNAS. What would happen when I place a previously removed MASTER set back to the NAS, does FreeNAS recognize it? Do I need to do anything special for FreeNAS to recognize a previously removed pool?

I appreciate any suggestions or comments.

Thank you.

 

[cyberjock]

I think this is a terrible idea. Not only should you not be swapping around pools, but how do you plan to handle the shares? You going to go fix them every month?

This is not recommended at all in my opinion. If you want to do all that stuff build a second server. As it is, putting your one MASTER and BACKUP pool on the same server isn't really a good idea. That power supply decides to overvolt your components and you'll lose your MASTER as well as the BACKUP pool. You really want to use the other MASTER that is up to a month old?

Not to mention pulling disks out and putting disks in at regular intervals like this isn't a particularly good idea. Nobody that does professional storage servers is going to recommend plugging and unplugging drives as a regular part of backing up data.

 

[Robert Smith]

> how do you plan to handle the shares?



Well, I was kind of hoping FreeNAS would just bring those up for me automatically; I guess not. So, That answers my question. Thank you,