Backup NAS, how do you do it?

I was running my NAS with the following configuration for a while (HP Microserver):
Disk 1: Disk with the OS
Disk 2: 1tb in raid1
Disk 3: 1tb in raid1

Now I added a 4th disk for internal backup of the raid1

Disk 4: 500GB (will be changed to 1tb as soon as I have more data on the raid) for internal backup.

Now I have connected a external hard drive via a e-sata docking station to make external backups.

Disk 5: 500GB external backup.

OK, so before I left for a trip I wanted to backup the data quickly, so I put the Disk 5 into the docking station, created a share and used rsync to backup disk 4 to disk 5. Worked well as far as I could tell. But I am not sure if this was correct or if there is a better way to do this than to create a share, etc. Because when I came back from my trip I had some troubles booting the NAS because of missing disks (see my post here http://forums.openmediavault.org/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2292). I solved that (not sure how and if it was totally correct, but for now it works).

Any thoughts on this? I want the external backup, so that I am able to have 2 disks that I can take home and rotate (weekly backups, so each disk would have the data during 2 weeks).

Zitat von "davidh2k"

Raid 1 + Backupdisk internally? - Kinda weird.

Hmmm, I thought it would be a good thing to have a internal backupdisk, as the raid 1 saves me from hardware failure, but not from human failure. So the 4th would be to make sure that a stupid deleting mistake will not result in a total loss of the files.

Zitat von "davidh2k"

This is a business Server? Get an offsite backup, at least a second HP Microserver in a diffrent location in your Office!
Setup daily rsync jobs to do the backups.

What I do currently is doing an external backup on a hard drive in the e-sata docking station. I have two hdd that are rotated with a backup. Each week there will be a backup on one of the HDD and I will take them home. So each hdd will have the version of 2 weeks ago, before they are used again.

Zitat von "DaveVM"

Please see viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2050 about backup and this site. Which is a pretty strong about backups.

Watch this tekzilla video for a possible solution though unfortunately it is not an OMV solution.

Thanks for the tips. I'll have a look at this.

Zitat von "tekkbebe"

I think it is better to have a 2nd system for backups, even if it is old hardware. When you are using a usb external and not aware of how OMV works you can run into many issues with your config.xml and /etc/fstab. You need to make sure all shares undone, as well as unmounting, the external before you disconnect it to avoid the issues you had above. You will avoid this when using a 2nd system. You can have the 2nd system turn on just before rsync jobs are to run and have it turn off when there has been sufficient time for backups to run, thus saving power on older hardware. I have a WHS 2011 server acting simply as a fileserver now. Everything on my OMV is backed up to it. I also have a Fedora server I'm trying to slowly get all the data off and rebuild. This Fedora server will most likely serve as a backup server once I rebuilt it. It will work better with Rsync.

I understand the recommendation about the 2nd system. Unfortunately hardware is quite expensive here and I am only just starting to having a real backup (yes, before we had everything stored on the local computers and shared the folders... i know, i know...).

There should be an easy option in OMV where you could just connect an external hd (via usb or esata) and then be able to move files to this external hdd. I guess this is for newbies the most logical thing.

So the way I did it was the only way if you use external hard drives? I had expected that the HDD would show up just like in Ubuntu as an external hdd and I could just copy the internal hdd to the external hdd. But that obviously didn't work.

I will read through the links that were posted. I actually thought that my concept was OK for a small office (Raid1 + 1 backup disk internally + 2 backup disks externally), but I guess from the comments it is not ideal.

Zitat von "tekkbebe"

Yes, the usb backup plugin may be the best solution for you. This may be why Volker created it. Just attach a drive, create a filesystem, and mount it. Then use this plugin to make backups of shared folders. Then unmount the drive. Hmm... Nice. Test it Berritore and give us your feedback.

Ohhh, I understood this USB plugin as one way, backing up a USB stick on the OMV. I'll give it a closer look.

But I actually like to backup via esata, as it is a lot quicker than the usb connections (only USB2 on the HP microserver). But if the USB plugin works to backup on a USB drive, this for sure is great, because this will be the simplest solution for newbies. And the simpler and easier backing up is, the more often you do it, which is the important part, right?