backup all internal drive to an external drive

[skaman]

Hi to all,
i've a question about my qnap and the backup system. I've about 1.7TB of real space on my NAS (raid 5) and i bought a 2TB drive (with an esata interface) for backup it nightly.
In past i did it! I'm sure of that... there was a way to clone the internal drive to an external drive daily.
Today (maybe some firmware upgrade?) i can't find a way to do it. There is a menu called "Backup\External drive". But for every job i can only choose 5 source folder to 5 destination folder. This is a problem because I've about 30 folder. Ok, maybe i can create 6 job with 5 folders everyone... but it seem so uncomfortable to me.
I'm just doing a configuration mistake? How can i choose to clone "all the internal drive" to the "external drive" daily?

Sorry for my silly question... but i'm pretty sure to did it in the past (with some previous firmware).

Thanks

Sandro

[P3R]

Ok, maybe i can create 6 job with 5 folders everyone...

Yes, that's what I would do.

[jakesearle]

Nah-- there has to be an easier way -
I was able to do it before i upgraded the firmware to 3.6.1. It was simple and straight forward - click click click and everything from the NAS was backed up onto a ext HDD. The issue of having to create backup jobs for individual folder is messy. Can anyone help?

[Eduardo]

Nah-- there has to be an easier way -
I was able to do it before i upgraded the firmware to 3.6.1. It was simple and straight forward - click click click and everything from the NAS was backed up onto a ext HDD. The issue of having to create backup jobs for individual folder is messy. Can anyone help?

I use rsnap. One click, backup all my shares, file versions, filters, etc.

Edit: http://forum.qnap.com/viewtopic.php?f=258&t=47281

[P3R]

I was able to do it before i upgraded the firmware to 3.6.1. It was simple and straight forward - click click click and everything from the NAS was backed up onto a ext HDD.

Yes it was simple. In fact it was so simple that many users felt very limited by it and requested something more advanced, so Qnap responded with what we now have. It's the classic battle where some customers want something simple and some wants every feature possible. Not everyone can be happy. That's the background on why the backup software was changed.

There are some stupid things in the new backup software (like the five folder-pair limitation) and yes it does requires more work setting it up but that is a one time task only.

Rsnap is interesting and have other advantages but is definately not dead simple to use either. The one click Eduardo is referring to is AFTER installation and configuration, a job that in my opinion takes much longer than configuring the new integrated backup software. Also, I don't know if rsnap supports an external disk as destination(?) and rsnap isn't supported by Qnap!

[skaman]

Ok guys.. thanks for your suggestions.
rsnap seem an interesting tool... but i need something simple and easy to maintain. The integrated feature of QNAP software is tested, developed and updated directly from QNAP. So, in my case, i still prefer use the integrated function.
I agree with P3R when he speak about about differents point of view of ther users... something simple vs something featured. But, in this case, it's sufficient do some fixes to make something perfect:
- The possibility to choose "/" as "Source Folder" (it mean it backup everything.. and i think this is the more important thing)
- Can add more than 5 folders for a job.
Obviously they are only suggestion... but i hope the qnap team is going to evaluate them.
For now i made 7 task from 5 folder each one.

Thanks again for suggestions

Cheers
Sandro

[vwd]

Hi,

I noticed that my scheduled 'backup everything to external drive' had stopped working some months after a firmware upgrade. And after looking at the admin panel realised what has happened - that the feature to back everything up had been removed in a previous firmware update.

Apart from being able to back up everything or '/' being in the source items list, another item that should be available for backing up (via the current interface) is TimeMachine backups/bundles. It's missing from the Source items list too. It's one of the main reasons I bought the QNAP, and would love to be able to back everything up from it (including my TimeMachine backup) to the external drive.

Thanks.

VWD