Help with FreeNAS backup

[jheal85]

Hey FreeNAS community. I'm fairly new to the FreeNAS software and Linux in general when it comes to backing up systems.

My question is how do I make an exact mirror of my current FreeNAS install and its volumes to an identical machine. The hardware and harddrives are identical.

Both systems are Dell 710s with two RAID1 configurations handled by the Perc controller. One RAID1 is for the OS and one for storage. The storage RAID1 is comprised of 2 2TB drives.

I would like to set up a weekly or monthly backup that mirrors the primary system to the backup system via Ethernet. They will have a dedicated interface just for this backup.

I tried using the GUI to backup volumes but cant seem to copy over the iSCSI block devices which is what Oracle VM prefers to use for the OCFS2 file system.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

[nightshade00013]

http://thesolving.com/storage/how-to-sync-two-freenas-storage-using-rsync/

 

[jheal85]

I tried this but the iSCSI blocks do not appear under the path section.

 

[nightshade00013]

Then you will have to mount the iSCSI into a vm or device and back it up some other way to another system Probably the easiest way would to be to back it up in the system it's running on.

That or backup the whole pool from one to another. It should grab everything including the iSCSI as far as I understand it.

Any particular reason why you are using iSCSI.

 

[jheal85]

How would I go about backing up the whole pool?

Oracle VM seems to favor iSCSI for the OCFS2 clustering file system.

 

[jheal85]

I found the following article and this might actually be what I need to do. I really appreciate the help nightshade

https://www.42u.ca/2016/11/19/migrating-data-to-new-freenas-hardware/

 

[Chris Moore]

Both systems are Dell 710s with two RAID1 configurations handled by the Perc controller. One RAID1 is for the OS and one for storage. The storage RAID1 is comprised of 2 2TB drives.

So, you are using hardware RAID to make a mirror and presenting that volume to FreeNAS for sharing to the network?
You know that is not how FreeNAS is supposed to work?
This is a recipe for disaster.

 

[jheal85]

So, you are using hardware RAID to make a mirror and presenting that volume to FreeNAS for sharing to the network?
You know that is not how FreeNAS is supposed to work?
This is a recipe for disaster.

Could you elaborate on this for me please. I am new to FreeNAS.

 

[Chris Moore]

Could you elaborate on this for me please. I am new to FreeNAS.

FreeNAS uses ZFS as the file system and all drives, including the boot drives, are supposed to be presented directly to FreeNAS an the ZFS file system will handle the redundancy of data. The servers should be equipped with SAS HBA cards, not Hardware RAID cards. This allows FreeNAS to directly monitor the health of the drives and report if a drive has so much as a bad sector.

 

[danb35]

http://thesolving.com/storage/how-to-sync-two-freenas-storage-using-rsync/

...or use ZFS replication, which is built into FreeNAS, and really should be the default answer to questions like these--even if OP's server config is a disaster waiting to happen.

 

[Chris Moore]

I there are many resources on this forum that will help you out. Some of these are linked in my signature, under the button.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[Chris Moore]

Hey FreeNAS community. I'm fairly new to the FreeNAS software and Linux in general when it comes to backing up systems.

FreeNAS is not Linux.
It's BSD Unix.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[Chris Moore]

How would I go about backing up the whole pool?

Oracle VM seems to favor iSCSI for the OCFS2 clustering file system.

Snapshots and replication are the things that you need for the software question.
However, before you get too much further into this, it's a good time to sort out the hardware issue.
Is this a business system or home-lab?

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I537 using Tapatalk

 

[Chris Moore]

Could you elaborate on this for me please. I am new to FreeNAS.

Probably the best thing is if you review these resources that will help you understand some of the basics because the things you said make it sound like you are jumping into this with a background in other platforms without any understanding of this one.

Slideshow explaining VDev, zpool, ZIL and L2ARC
https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...ning-vdev-zpool-zil-and-l2arc-for-noobs.7775/

Terminology and Abbreviations Primer
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/terminology-and-abbreviations-primer.28174/