unRAID backup Server


DragonZeal

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I'm trying out unRAID and already have a main server up and running.

Now I just installed my backup server and I have some questions:

1. Should I configure the same user shares?

2. What is the recommended way to backup from main to backup?

3. Do I also need a parity drive on my backup server?

 

Thanks for helping out.

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I just finished setting up my backup server a few days ago and have been playing around with a few different setups.

 

1. It has 1 share for the backup. If the main goes down, i don't care about having the backup run how the main does, I mainly care that the data is there and can be put back into use somewhere.

 

2.Crashplan works but is slooooooow and yields encrypted data on the backup server. On a 10Gbe line directly connected between both my boxes, it could only muster 300ish mbps, the same as on a gigabit line. This was even after playing around with read/write buffer and giving it 100% cpu usage ability, which it never utilized. Directly copying the array yields 1.2-1.5gbps for me (running parity on both.) I originally used Midnight Commander but switched to Krusader because it "seemed" slightly faster, though I doubt there was a difference. It really just keeps me from having to open terminal, or having terminal log out during a transfer, causing the transfer to stop.

 

3. I first setup my backup server without parity. It would write at 150+MBps since it is just directly writing files to the drives one at a time. I also setup some hard disks as a raid 0 cache and yielded about 300MBps when transferring from a ssd (running only sata II). But 95% of my data is on hard disks that max at about 150-180MBps read. Some less. I eventually ended just setting it up as a standard parity array for backup. I thought about what might happen if my main goes down, and while copying the data to a new main server, I lose a backup disk. So since I can write to the backup array between 70MB to spikes/some smaller sustained sections of 140MB, I decided to just use the added protection. It's going to be slow, so I embraced the slowness.

 

 

There are some folk that use rsync and some other things on here. I'm not much of a terminal person, so i don't. Recently there have been requests for unRaid to have built in duplication/backup to another ever. I think an unRaid time machine function or something with file versions would be excellent. But I'll take a built in tool that scans and only copies over changed files just as happily.

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Crashplan works great for me...

 

The free version. I have a crashplan docker running on my primary and backup unraid server and backup one to the other.

 

Advantage over every other option is that it does versioning and this means cryptoware does not have a chance.. It also works without having to do anything about it.. The initial load takes some time but daily incrementals only take minutes.

 

Works great.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks for the replies.

I'm going to test a W10 VM with SyncBack.

 

I have a question about the backup server.

Should I setup user shares or disk shares?

 

I would advise to set up as little shares as possible, meaning: do not export them or make them mountable.. This will make sure that ransomware does not get an opportunity to access your data and corrupt it..

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  • 9 months later...

I realize I'm somewhat necroposting this, but as I've been migrating my unRAID server to larger parity/data drives, and realizing the amount of time it's taking to rebuild 10TB drives (I'm already thinking how to migrate to dual parity), the idea setting up a backup server has become more interesting to me.  Specifically I saw a post suggesting using old, decommissioned drives from the main server in the backup server.  Which got me thinking/wondering, if performance isn't a concern, an we're talking solely a backup, what's the cheapest possible way to build a backup server with bunches of small drives?  Are USB cages practical?  The complication, of course, is that if you're using spare, decommissioned (because of size) drives, the backup server will end up being "bigger" than the main one....

 

Or is there some other way to build a backup server cost effectively?  Without having to mirror the new/expensive drive configuration of one's main server?

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I had that problem to backup my largest server, it's currently 20 x 4TB drives with dual parity, so 72TB data, and I wanted to use my old 2 and 3TB disks for the backup server, so I used two towers connected by a SAS expander, 18 disks on one plus 12 on the other totaling the same 72TB.

 

Don't recommend using USB or eSATA enclosures, if you need external use SAS enclosures or SAS expander, they are extremely reliable when using the appropriate external SAS cables.

 

The hardware needed can usually be bought relatively cheap if you already have the rest, the HBA, expander and cable cost me around 125€.

 

 

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On 11/9/2017 at 11:42 AM, tdallen said:

Good question.  Unfortunately the error handling and control of USB, along with the throughput limitations, make it impractical for managing a large number of drives.  Do you feel like you want to back up all your data, or just critical data?

 

So, my critical data is already backed up (crashplan).  So this is really for "everything else", hence why cost effectiveness is paramount.  Honestly I haven't even checked to see if I've actually got enough drives, I've got spare PCs, but not anywhere to put that many drives right now.

 

 

On 11/9/2017 at 11:49 AM, johnnie.black said:

I had that problem to backup my largest server, it's currently 20 x 4TB drives with dual parity, so 72TB data, and I wanted to use my old 2 and 3TB disks for the backup server, so I used two towers connected by a SAS expander, 18 disks on one plus 12 on the other totaling the same 72TB.

 

Don't recommend using USB or eSATA enclosures, if you need external use SAS enclosures or SAS expander, they are extremely reliable when using the appropriate external SAS cables.

 

The hardware needed can usually be bought relatively cheap if you already have the rest, the HBA, expander and cable cost me around 125€.

 

 

 

Yeah, that's kind of what I was wondering.  What did you get for an HBA and expander?  I don't really need external, but I've got ~48TB of capacity right now, so I'd need physical and logical space for 15-20 drives.

 

This may end up being a situation where dual parity will just have to suffice.

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