Mac backups with OMV using rsync

martinweiss · 1. Januar 2013

I would like to backup my Mac using AFP and rsync.

I have followed the instructions here (by user norse). I have succeeded in mounting and sharing folders from a Time Machine disk.

Would it be better to use NFS or SMB instead of AFP?

I don't want to backup using Time Machine.

tekkb · 1. Januar 2013

I'm not a Mac user but smb should work fine. I would probably only use nfs if you have some need to mount the share.

macnb · 2. Januar 2013

All three will work.
AFP is native to MAC OS and thus more likely to give you better performance than the others.

martinweiss · 2. Januar 2013

Yeah, but what I thought was that maybe it's better to use NFS with OMV.

I did manage to make HFS+ work using norse's suggestions in the link I gave, but he says there are permission issues using his method.

But maybe I should just reformat the disks as Ext to avoid those problems?

SerErris · 2. Januar 2013

I am a little bit confused, about what you try to achieve. You are mixing up RSYNC with NFS vs. CIFS vs. AFP and with the underlying file system (ext vs. HFS+).

If you use NFS/CIFS/AFP the underlying filesystem (EXT or HFS or NTFS or XFS whatever) does not influence the higher protocols in any way. The goal of CIFS/NFS and AFP was to put in an additional abstraction layer.

RSYNC is on its own a protocol to sync file between servers. Even if you can use it as a local copy tool, it was planned and constructed having a typical unix client/server architecture in mind. So normally one machine (client) is synchronizing a file system with another machine (server). This protocol has in general nothing to do with CIFS/NFS/AFP but you can of cause use rsync to copy files to yourselfe in another directory (or network mounted filesystem).

However, the best thing to use RSYNC is, to configure OMV as an RSYNC server and using RSYNC client on MAC.

Talking about the other stuff:
use ext4 for the share filesystem on OMV
If you use a local copy agent (like a backup tool) use AFP to connect the share to your MAC. MAC itself cannot handle CIFS very well und you will get a drop in performance with CIFS. However if you want to share the same directory between Windows and MAC clients, use CIFS.
NFS is also possible, but I am not sure if MAC likes NFS or not.
If you use RSYNC as said above, setup OMV as a RSYNC server!

martinweiss · 2. Januar 2013

Sorry. I have not expressed myself clearly.

Initially my question was about NFS/AFP. I then realised the problems I have been experiencing probably have to do with HFS support. So what I'm trying to figure out now is which file system I should use. Ext4 or XFS.

Why not use XFS if I'll be using the server for backups?

SerErris · 2. Januar 2013

XFS was ahead of ext3 in large file handling, but is not anymore for ext4.

ext4 got some serious tuning paramters to optimize the writes (and you should use it esp. in your case), that makes it even faster in most scenarios. ext4 will for example preallocate blocks for sequential writes, so that you will not scatter your filesystem or files accross various blocks, but keep them in order in a coherent space.

My personal opinion is: ext4 removes the need for most use cases for xfs and is much better supported. XFS is nowadays a quite old filesystem and it had its strength. But other filesystems are now ahead. Esp. if it comes to deleting files ext4 is now very fast, where ext3 was not.

Please read my ext4 tuning thread to learn about the required mount options and the other parameters in regards of ext4. Those are much more important then the few percent of performance advantage of XFS over ext4 or vice versa.

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