New User.... Best use of old hardware and drives

Kids are just old enough now that I can get away with this. Still boarderline. No pets of concern. Probably my biggest risk is me. This sits on my desk beside me at my gaming rig. Who knows what will happen at any given moment in a fit of rage ;-)

Heh. Obviously no small children or pets allowed.

Thanks for the link. I have skimmed through it for now.

One aspect I forgot that I will need to sort out prior to crashplan is getting the stuff to be backed up onto the unRaid. Under my current config I have a few Windows based machines with shares to the data the I backup. On my windows based server I run a app that pulls the data on a schedule to a common location that Crashplan backs up for me. I figure this way I maintain the data on the orginal machine and have one local backup. Crashplan then provides me an offsite backup for a really bad day.

Now I need to find a way to do the same thing with unRAID/Linux. Not sure if there are any pre-made tools or if I will need to come up with a script/cron job. Again linux is not in my comfort zone so it takes a lot of reading and prep to figure this stuff out. Any thoughts or direction on this is truly appreciated!

Mike

If you you need some help with CrashPlan there is a guide in my signature.

Not sure I get the complete picture… Well I assume you have a number of Windows machines you need to backup and it should be done to your unRAID server?

Personally I store all my files directly on my unRAID server except for a limited number of files that I backup regularly. I am using SyncBackSE on my Windows machines for that purpose. Easy to use and doesn’t require any client on the server. You can setup scheduled task if you like.

I also do full image backup of my Windows machines (when I feel there is a need) so that I can recover from a crash.

There are other options for backup as well like the Docker container Syncthing. It need a client on the Windows machine as well but it runs silently in the background as a service. Have tested it but not fully evaluated it.

There is an (extremely) useful plugin to unRAID called Unassigned Devices that can be used to mount disks installed on your unRAID server but not assigned to the array. It can also mount USB disks and shares (SMB or NFS) on remote servers. I have a SMB mount to another unRAID server for example. However, haven’t tested this to a Windows machine yet.

CrashPlan will be able to see devices/disks mounted with this plugin so it’s possible to backup files that are outside your unRAID array as well. This is what I am playing with right now to see how useful it can be.

I was a little tired writing that and also playing World of Tanks.. Lets try again ;-)

4 Windows computers in the house. I backup the user folders from these to my server using Free File Sync which I run on the server. Each night it reaches out to the Windows PC's and copies and changes back locally (to the server). At which point CrashPlan see the changes and starts backing up the data (I am not a Crashplan subscriber but I have PC on the internet that I backup to).

So in the ideal world I need something on unRaid to sync changes from the windows PC to a share on unRaid and then have Crashplan do my backup. At a glance I think I may need to run rsync and set it as a cron job. If I get real fancy have it push notification out after each success or failure.

Not sure if there is anything that might be a little easier for my feeble brain though. Something that point and click maybe ;-)

Not sure I get the complete picture… Well I assume you have a number of Windows machines you need to backup and it should be done to your unRAID server?

 

Personally I store all my files directly on my unRAID server except for a limited number of files that I backup regularly. I am using SyncBackSE on my Windows machines for that purpose. Easy to use and doesn’t require any client on the server. You can setup scheduled task if you like.

 

I also do full image backup of my Windows machines (when I feel there is a need) so that I can recover from a crash.

 

There are other options for backup as well like the Docker container Syncthing. It need a client on the Windows machine as well but it runs silently in the background as a service. Have tested it but not fully evaluated it.

 

There is an (extremely) useful plugin to unRAID called Unassigned Devices that can be used to mount disks installed on your unRAID server but not assigned to the array. It can also mount USB disks and shares (SMB or NFS) on remote servers. I have a SMB mount to another unRAID server for example. However, haven’t tested this to a Windows machine yet.

 

CrashPlan will be able to see devices/disks mounted with this plugin so it’s possible to backup files that are outside your unRAID array as well. This is what I am playing with right now to see how useful it can be.

Just install crashplan desktop on the windows PCs. Have them backup the users folder to unRAID.

Hmmm, multitasking I am running rsync every night to another server at home and have also tested rsync on Windows to unRAID but never liked that but that was some time ago when I knew very little about rsync. Sounds like SyncBackSE is something to evaluate, there is a free version you can play with and see if you like it. Can’t you run FreeFileSync on the Windows machines? Or do you prefer to pull backups instead? You could setup Ubuntu VM on unRAID with FreeFileSync. It’s possible to map shares on unRAID to Ubuntu (I am actually running CrashPlan on Ubuntu VM).

Just install crashplan desktop on the windows PCs. Have them backup the users folder to unRAID.

I don't believe this would work well. Crashplan from my understanding backs up to a encrypted container. Backing up from the windows to unraid would be fine. Every backup from unraid to the cloud would result in having to backup the entire archive for a single file changing.  I will look at it to confirm however.

Hmmm, multitasking I am running rsync every night to another server at home and have also tested rsync on Windows to unRAID but never liked that but that was some time ago when I knew very little about rsync. Sounds like SyncBackSE is something to evaluate, there is a free version you can play with and see if you like it. Can’t you run FreeFileSync on the Windows machines? Or do you prefer to pull backups instead? You could setup Ubuntu VM on unRAID with FreeFileSync. It’s possible to map shares on unRAID to Ubuntu (I am actually running CrashPlan on Ubuntu VM).

I have in passed preferred to pull the files. This way users cannot monkey things up (users are family that like to break my stuff).  I will continue to investigate and have a look at syncback (I have used it a long time ago). I will be setting up a VM for blueiris so I could keep using free file sync in there.. I have been trying to keep VM function to a minimum though.

More reading and research needed.

Yet another question... Any easy way to check what's burning up the processor? I am sitting at 70% utilization most of the time. I suspect it's plex but I am not sure.

Yet another question... Any easy way to check what's burning up the processor? I am sitting at 70% utilization most of the time. I suspect it's plex but I am not sure.

htop

or install the cadvisor docker app which while not particularily designed for this will display the info.