Backup Strategy using QNAP

[gunnerman]

Hello,

I am a little concerned about our current backup strategy using the QNAP NAS. I am worried we may be using up more storage than need be.

Right now we have 2 TS-463U with identical config. 4 x 4Tb drives in RAID 10. One is used as a primary and the other as a backup. We have 4 shared folders on on the primary which I backup daily using RTRR to the secondary NAS using version management keeping versions of various times depending on the share. I also take weekly snapshots on the primary and keep them for 3 weeks.

As well as this I also backup the entire NAS to Azure storage once a month.

What I am worried about, is these are all replication jobs. There does not seem to be an automated "backup" that will create a new backup in a folder on a schedule. What I mean is, if I have a backup storage space on remote nas, call it "Backups", in that folder when a backup job runs it should create a new folder, call it backup_<folder_name>_<current_date>. That way the backup runs independent of other backups in that folder. Right now, the only way to do this is with Snapshot replication? I don't have the storage to replicate snapshots.

To combat this, I keep many versions of files, and duplicate jobs that run at separate times. Thus, in case I am hit with corruption or ransomware, it reduces the risk of replicating the corruption or ransomware to the backup. Unfortunately, versioned backups are kind of hard to deal with. Lots of folders with different versions.

I would love if there was the ability to make simple, real, backups. It would be nice to keep versions around for when users screw up and then a few simple backups around following 3-2-1 for easy restore and protection. Relying on file versions just seems like another area of complexity on something that should be very easy and very sure. I know I could do this easily enough with a cron job and a few bash scripts but I like to avoid this where possible. Am I missing something in the Backup Station settings?

[P3R]

What I mean is, if I have a backup storage space on remote nas, call it "Backups", in that folder when a backup job runs it should create a new folder, call it backup_<folder_name>_<current_date>.

That's how the Qnap versioning feature works, or at least it did before QuDedup was released in Hybrid Backup Sync 3. I haven't really used QuDedup yet as I like the non-proprietary format of the old versioning.

Am I missing something in the Backup Station settings?

In Backup Station you can have versioning if you install the versioning app (if that's still available). That app was never released into a stable version (despite the versioning beta app in my experience ran complete stable for more than a year) and therefore I can't really recommend it for production usage.

Backup Station is legacy software today and the backup solution from Qnap going forward is the Hybrid Backup Sync app. HBS did versioning the way you want it in the first two versions but when HBS 3 was released it had the new QuDedup feature moving to a proprietary backup file format (with the advantages and disadvantages that have) and unfortunately QuDedup was made mandatory instead of user configurable.

[janwer]

I'm working on it. My plan is:
1. Not using HBS3 for any serious backup. Too many missing files.

[P3R]

With the release of Hybrid Backup Sync 3.0.191108 QuDedup is optional when creating a new versioned backup job. So finally it works the way it should have from the start!

[storageman]

With the release of Hybrid Backup Sync 3.0.191108 QuDedup is optional when creating a new versioned backup job. So finally it works the way it should have from the start!

hahahahahahahaha
I can hear your phone ringing - Taiwan need you to come over and manage the Development Team. Some commonsense needed.

[Moogle Stiltzkin]

With the release of Hybrid Backup Sync 3.0.191108 QuDedup is optional when creating a new versioned backup job. So finally it works the way it should have from the start!

i'm very surprised it wasn't initially optional. i don't see how forcing this was a good idea. you just annoy your customers.

yes introduce the feature, but don't force it down their throats