FreeNAS-Main to FreeNAS-Back data backup

[MagiDeimos]

My home network has a FreeNAS server we currently use for a Media server. Recently we got our hands on a second server that we are setting up with FreeNAS to be a data backup box. How would I go about setting up the systems so the the main backs itself up (all relevant media [downloaded videos]) to the secondary FreeNAS system?

 

[bigphil]

With a replication task.

 

[MagiDeimos]

With a replication task.

I thought replication only did snapshots? Does it also do the full dataset of the directories and files?

 

[bigphil]

It makes an exact copy of all the data. It works in conjunction with snapshots so the replication task knows what to send to the backup server to keep it in sync.

 

[MagiDeimos]

Ahh okay thank you very much.

 

[MagiDeimos]

Is there a way to make it so that the second nas can be used either thru a method that makes it seem automatic should the first nas die that the second can pick up and shortly take over all the functions of the first nas, basically make it a redundancy backup? Or if not automatic then with a few manual steps have it take over all the functions of the first NAS?

 

[bigphil]

FreeNAS doesn't have HA failover ability...TrueNAS does, but that is the paid version. There is a nice script called Zrep that you can run to facilitate the data failover portion easily. If you've already configured replication, you'd need to re-configure it using this method, but it works very well. Be sure to take note of the compatibility section of that website to change the first line of the script so it works with FreeNAS. Keep in mind that the DNS and IP addresses of both boxes will be different so there may still be some other manual intervention to get everything going again.

 

[MagiDeimos]

Thank you that maybe very useful.