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[SnafuFlux]

Kevin and Jamie, thank you for your help!

You can remove the drives from your NAS and either mount them in Linux, or in Windows by downloading and installing an EXT filesystem driver from: http://www.ext2fsd.com/

In theory, you should be able to remove these drives and re-insert them into another identical unit, in the same order.

I would only be able to pop out the drives and read them in linux if they weren't in RAID, right?  And order wouldn't matter if I was doing daily backups instead of placing them in RAID, correct?

A RAID is most definitely not a safe backup on its own.  It is most suitable for data that changes quickly, and if something fails with one of the two drives in RAID 1, the data is there to be rebuilt on a replacement.  If both drives go out (power surge/failure, internal fatal failure in the NAS SATA drivers, accidental reformatting as non RAID-1 on rebuilding after a failure or changing a drive) your data is history unless you either do a lot of work yourself or pay someone else to do it (and may still be history even then).   In theory, if the DNS-321 dies gracefully without taking one or more drives with it, a RAID can be rebuilt on a new DNS-321 from the one live drive - but don't bet your irreplaceable data on it!

So it sounds like to me, my idea of using daily backups rather than having the drives in RAID is the best solution for myself.  It sounds like it's more versatile.  Meaning, In any failure scenario, if the drives still work (at least one), I won't have lost any data. 

... one drive permanently mounted to use with the device as a file server, one as backup plugged into the device only when backing up and physically removed ...

I very much want to go with this idea.  I assume I'm going to need ffp to do this.  I have seen there are several different options for backing up data from one drive to the other.  Would you suggest a script that works the best?

Finally, I've read that people have had various degrees of success while trying to implement nzb/usenet downloaders.  I see some instructions on how to install it on dlink-323, I'm wondering if anyone has tried it on a 321.

thanks again, gents!

[jamieburchell]

Kevin and Jamie, thank you for your help!
I would only be able to pop out the drives and read them in linux if they weren't in RAID, right?

In RAID1, both of your drives contain your data so you can remove either and read the data in Linux or on Windows with a file system driver.

And order wouldn't matter if I was doing daily backups instead of placing them in RAID, correct?

If you are putting the drives in another NAS of the same model, you should insert the drives in the same order.
I'm not sure what you mean about doing daily backups.

So it sounds like to me, my idea of using daily backups rather than having the drives in RAID is the best solution for myself.  It sounds like it's more versatile.  Meaning, In any failure scenario, if the drives still work (at least one), I won't have lost any data.  
I very much want to go with this idea.  I assume I'm going to need ffp to do this.  I have seen there are several different options for backing up data from one drive to the other.  Would you suggest a script that works the best?

There is a sheduled downloaded built in to the NAS, never used it though. Personally, I have FFP installed and have written a script that runs at bootup. The script:

- Checks to see if there is a USB drive attached
- Mounts the USB drive
- Uses rsync to backup key directories from Volume_1 and 2
- Emails me with the rsync log file, a disk usage overview and SMART stats for each drive in the NAS.

Each month, I simply insert one of 4 hard drives in a USB enclosure attached to the NAS, power it up and reboot the NAS and walk away. As rsync is simply copying and deleting the difference between the source and destination the whole process doesn't take long at all. Of course this depends how much your data changes in a month.

I wanted to include SMART stats for the USB drive too, but even with the latest version of smartmontools I believe the Linux kernel in the NAS is too old to support it.

[SnafuFlux]

In RAID1, both of your drives contain your data so you can remove either and read the data in Linux or on Windows with a file system driver.

 

forgive my ignorance.  I thought if the drives where in RAID1, they'd be encrypted, if you will, in such a way that they'd only be readable by the device that put them in RAID.

If you are putting the drives in another NAS of the same model, you should insert the drives in the same order.
I'm not sure what you mean about doing daily backups.

what I meant was, if I was not using RAID1, but rather doing backups (rsync), and I was to remove both drives and throw them in a new DNS-321, would I need to put them in the same order.  If so, why?  would they not just be two drives with the same data on them? 

Personally, I have FFP installed and have written a script that runs at bootup.

I like this script, but the 321 doesn't have USB.  And I know not enough about linux to be competent to do so.

as always, I appreciate your time!

[jamieburchell]

When the NAS formats the drives (either in a RAID1 config or as separate) it creates extra partitions for the Linux swap file and other workings such as disk identification files. For this reason I'd be careful swapping drives around.