Looking for confirmation that I'm thinking about this correctly...

[Jaknell1011]

I have a FreeNAS box setup, and I am running an ISCSI file extent as a datastore to 3 VMWare ESXi hosts. My question has to do with ZFS snapshots.

I have a Synology DS1512+ NAS and am considering taking snapshots from the FreeNAS and moving them to the Synology NAS as a means of backup. If I do this, will I be able to recover my data if my FreeNAS box goes down?

It looks to me like if I did restore a snapshot I would restore the extent itself as a whole. I think since this is an extent I would not be able to restore specific files, but just the entire thing. Is this correct?

I plan on using a scheduled backup solution for the actual VMs so that I can restore a specific VM if need be, so this solution would be specifically for protecting me if the ENTIRE FreeNAS box crashes on me.

Would this scenario work for what I am trying to do? Is there a better way to go about doing this? Am I crazy and completely wrong? Any help in setting things straight is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

***EDIT*** I just realized I failed to mention that IF the FreeNAS were to die on me, I understand I would have to rebuild a FreeNAS box to restore the snapshot on. Basically, it dies, I get another server with the same drive configuration and install FreeNAS/copy my config and do a restore.

 

[bigphil]

The Synology doesn't have a ZFS file system, so you cant "move" snapshots to it. You might be able to use Rsync to copy the data. I think your best bet is to take the drives out of the Synology box build another FreeNAS box and setup a ZFS replication task.

 

[Jaknell1011]

I thought once the ZFS snapshot was created I could store it on anything. I guess I was looking at it almost as an "image" of the filesystem. Would using rsync basically be doing this? Create a snapshot, rsync it over to the SynoNAS and just have them reside in a NFS folder on the Synology? No?

 

[bigphil]

Nope. Its part of the file system. You can setup an rsync job between the two boxes. you could seed your data with rsync and then continue to use it to write any changes to the other device. Its nothing like ZFS replication though where you could recover from a point-in-time snapshot which sounds like what you want. To do that, you'd need two FreeNAS boxes.

 

[Jaknell1011]

Is there another option to backup the information (mainly the extent) to that SynoNAS?

 

[bigphil]

Not that I'm aware of.

 

[Jaknell1011]

If I use NFS instead of ISCSI for my ESXi datastore, would it make backups easier?

 

[HoneyBadger]

If I use NFS instead of ISCSI for my ESXi datastore, would it make backups easier?

In theory yes, because you could perform backups at the file level (ie: scp system.vmdk user@remotehost:/backups/system.vmdk) but you'd still need to work your way around ensuring that the files aren't locked or in a state of change.

Why not use something like Veeam, which has a free version, and let it handle the heavy lifting?

 

[Jaknell1011]

I may just disregard backing up the actual FreeNAS itself and go that route. I have been looking into Veeam and Unitrends Free solutions and may just worry about that as my backup solution. I was hoping to backup the FreeNAS itself AND do backups of the VMs through a specific VM backup software like Veeam or Unitrends. I know this is redundant but you can never have enough redundancy when it comes to backup.