Backup Strategies to NAS (trying to utilize FreeNAS to the greatest potential)

[anRossi]

The point of this post is to ask other people using their FreeNAS box for housing backups what their strategy is. Also, to get some feedback on my own personal back up strategy, outlined below.

So to get the discussion going, my backup philosophy/strategy follows:

My FreeNAS box is my primary backup strategy. I don't use it as a file share or for doing anything more than being there to receive my backups. My secondary is an external drive I plan to reconfigure (as soon as I get the data on it backed up) to receive ZFS snapshot backups. In case of fire, I grab the external drive, my cat, and get out.

I generally dislike Apple, but if there's one thing I admire from them, it's their Time Machine back up software. I am finding it difficult to find a good alternative that works for Windows (and Linux to a lesser extent) without spending a bunch of money trying out different products.

Currently, I am using this script (running in cygwin on windows) to back up my linux and windows boxes:
https://github.com/Mondane/timebackup

It's a shell script that sort of emulates the style of backup that time machine does.
Basically, it uses hardlinks to save space from copying files that are unchanged. I find it to be nifty. It uses rsync, which makes it slow. But I can browse the file history and access a file at any point in history.

But now I know that FreeNAS (with ZFS) has these newfangled "snapshots", which could offer similar functionality with a much simpler script (e.g. copy files to FreeNAS, take snapshot, copy files to same location, take snapshot, etc. Only the differences between snapshots will take up space AFAI understand). So maybe that would be a simpler backup strategy that utilizes the strengths of the underlying system. What makes or breaks it is how easy it is to access older versions of files.

I also recently learned about "Backup PC" ( http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/ ) and might be interested in making a FreeNAS plugin for that if it suits my needs better than the above two systems. It seems more complicated, and might not run simply on my windows box without extra effort.
It also looks like it requires you to use it to restore backups; with my current system, I can just go to a SMB share and grab my backups, and I assume using ZFS snapshots is a little more involved, but about as easy.

 

[cyberjock]

Honestly, I'm not really sure why you are discussing this here. I see no FreeNAS problem, and aside from snapshots(which is well documented in the manual), I'm not seeing anything that needs to be discussed from the FreeNAS side of the house.

 

[anRossi]

Perhaps I misunderstood the purpose of the Off-topic forum. I thought it was to discuss things tangentially related to FreeNAS, like how it's used, etc. For example, your forum topic is the opposite side of the coin: how do you backup your FreeNAS box.
I'm looking for more anecdotal tales of using FreeNAS for back ups, to see how other people use it in ways I may have not considered.
If you think that is not an appropriate topic here, I'll remove the thread.

 

[enemy85]

I just discovered the rsync service to backup my pc to freenas, just using a rsync client on my pc. Have a look at this service to see if it is useful for u!

 

[cyberjock]

Perhaps I misunderstood the purpose of the Off-topic forum. I thought it was to discuss things tangentially related to FreeNAS, like how it's used, etc. For example, your forum topic is the opposite side of the coin: how do you backup your FreeNAS box.
I'm looking for more anecdotal tales of using FreeNAS for back ups, to see how other people use it in ways I may have not considered.
If you think that is not an appropriate topic here, I'll remove the thread.

Nope, you are 100% correct. I did noticed you posted in the Offtopic section, which is why it's still here. If you had posted elsewhere I probably would have moved it here instead of deleting it. I really don't like deleting threads unless they clearly have zero value to be added by keeping around. I was trying to point out that your question may be better answered elsewhere. I didn't understand what you were trying to say so I couldn't make any recommendation.

Sorry for the confusion.

On topic: I backup my desktops and laptops with OO Diskimage Pro 7(Windows based software). Note that the OO Diskimage Home(or whatever it's called) doesn't let you backup to network drives; only the Pro version does. It works very well for me, and I have a script that cleans out the folder when more than 2 copies of my backups exist at the same time. Acronis Backup also has worked well for many people. Both of those programs offer a 30 day trial that is free, so there's no obligation on your part to test a program and see if it is suitable for your needs.

Others prefer to do a more "manual" approach with a program like Clonezilla(free and open source).

 

[pirateghost]

I use the heck out of BackupPC. It is simply excellent. I have a VM on my Proxmox cluster that only runs BackupPC. It connects to all my servers, and all my laptops/desktops in the house and does an awesome job at backing things up, and has pulled my butt out of the fire a few times. I honestly cant recommend it enough if you have a lot of computers to backup/maintain.

If you only have a few, I would look at utilizing Rsync built into FreeNAS along with the snapshots and you have a pretty damn good backup solution. If I didnt already have BackupPC in production long before I started using FreeNAS, I would probably have gone that route, but I love the option in BackupPC to restore individual files back to the machine it originated from or download them elsewhere. It handles deduplication and versioning.

 

[Starpulkka]

This is intresting topic as im also had intriqued in my mind some day askin freenas users same question.
In america show mythbusters there was a test that you pack stuff in your car and end result was that you put 100 people to do that and there was 100 different style of packing stuff in a car.

Im currently using xcopy for that but lately havin study to move on robocopy perhaps. Rsync feels still alien to me. (if xcopy hangs it might skip a files where robocopy would continue).
Copies are on 3 places. And for windows i have test rig computer where i can quicly make norton ghost images from entire windows hdd. Ofcourse those "important" wedding videos are on a hdd in a bank locker.

netuse.bat

Code:

net use w: \\192.168.1.106\kone6 xxxxxxxxxx /user:xxx

varmkop.bat

Code:

rem tiedostojen varmuuskopiointi

rem hakemiston tarkistus
if not exist w:\varmkop_tiedostot GOTO directoryerror

xcopy c:\Users\xxx\Documents w:\varmkop_tiedostot /d /s /i /f /y

GOTO end

:directoryerror
echo w:\varmkop_tiedostot-hakemistoa ei löytynyt

:end
Exit

And for checksum for time being i use ef checksummanager.
Perhaps from this topic i learn someone better way to do copies. Googled days and still did not find perfect way for me.
Update as for xcopy it does miss some files i have used robocopy many months now and robocopy is recommended

Code:

rem tiedostojen varmuuskopiointi

rem hakemiston tarkistus
if not exist w:\varmkop_tiedostot GOTO directoryerror

robocopy c:\Users\name\Documents w:\varmkop_tiedostot /S /E /NP /Z /R:2 /W:5 /XX /NJH /LOG+:c:\Users\name\Documents\ROBOCOPYLOG.TXT"

GOTO end

:directoryerror
echo w:\varmkop_tiedostot-hakemistoa ei löytynyt

:end
Exit