remote backup and on to external backup

[AlFromCochrane]

Hi again fellows,

I am looking for advise on the best way to configure my hardware (listed in Signature) for proficient backup.

My front end NAS is the TS-873. I've retired the TS-431 with the idea it can make a good "nas to nas" backup device. Additionally I have the Nexstar NTFS unit configured as backup to the TS-431. I will also swap drives from the Nexstar to a safe deposit box at the bank. All 3 devices have plenty of storage space.

On the TS-873 front end, I've configured snapshots to protect locally. I want to configure Nas to NAS 873 to 431 sync, then also have the 431 sync to the nexstar in real time.

Please advise if you see a better way to use this hardware to give me the most protection against lost data. Perhaps I need to change the strategy to scheduled backups in the remote backup chain somewhere?

And there is a bottle neck i see. The Ts-431 is running raid 5 and spends more than 24 hours once weekly to synchronize. In fact, I have just re-created the raid 5 volume. It contains only empty default folders. The ts-431 units have only 0.5 GB of non-upgradable ram. So everything takes mucho time. The best speed I can get is about 29000K/s as seen in PuTTY via mdstat. (I set the min to 50000). And that drops below the 29kk if I log into QTS. It has run now for 11 hours and is only 42%. I see problems with anything real-time or scheduled daily.

Given that I have some snapshot coverage on the front end running raid 6, and I have the Nexstar to back up the Middle TS-431, should I: a:) turn off synchronization on the middle TS-431, or b:) go jbod on it to avoid Synchronization altogether? Advice?

And last but I wish to sneak it in. Perhaps this is answered somewhere on the forum, but any sort of one word searches has not revealed an answer for me. I did add to the wishlist for froum enhancement is to improve the search facility to support phrase searches. Resources are understandably slim. I get that So I must ask this. Does it matter to Raid synchronization whether there is data on the volume or not?

I think it matter not, but my experience is limited to testing with the TS-431 with barely any ram.

Thanks in advance to anyone with more experience willing to advise.

[elvisimprsntr]

Personally, I would look at the health of the drives to determine why the RAID is synchronizing and/or upgrade the NAS

I have two NAS and a USB3 for grandfather, father, son backups.

Clients |on demand> NAS |daily> NAS |weekly> USB3 |fire rated safe|

[AlFromCochrane]

Thanks elvisimprsntr


Looking at my post of last night, i see i made a grave mistake in wording due to narrow thinking. It is indeed sychronizing right now because i rectreated the raid 5 volume as inficated. My mistake is that i was stuck on just that. It is the scrubbing that occurs on a weekly basis. Both actions take muchu time with all 4 disks thrashing away. This is the result of its 0.5 gb of ram. When in either state, the NAS is unusable expecially for any further disk i/o. This NAS is not upgradeable. It actually functioned fine for my front end purpose until the raid scrubbing was introduced. Thats why i replace it Dimping raid on that box would dump need for scrubbing.

I will look at your backup tips when the sync is done. Thanks again.

[Don]

I would schedule the scrubbing monthly instead of weekly.

The entire disk is done whether it contains data or not.

[AlFromCochrane]

Don,

Thank you for both, your advice, and answer (been chasing that answer from the beginning). The TS-431 is still synchronizing. 25 hours and at 62% I have minimal apps installed and services active. Not even QTS loaded, just SSH. Once it is done I will change by backup strategy to scheduled backups (as apposed to real time sync) as per elvisimpprsntr's backup recommendations. Then I will see if it chokes up on scrubbing day. If it makes it through, I'll leave it as Raid 5, and change scrubbing to monthly. Sur am please with the new TS-873

Thanks again fellows.

p.s. my spelling is so bad when using my smartphone to reply, although I am getting my reading eye fixed in a few months.