Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[jb33zy]

This is an interesting idea to me.  Which online backup storage services would you
consider viable for this type of function?

iBackup.com comes to mind but there are plenty of others.

[mig]

iBackup.com comes to mind but there are plenty of others.

Well, iBackup.com is definitely viable service.  iBackup.com uses rsync and stunnel for
encryption, for Linux clients.  Both packages work fine on the DNS-321.  However, it
does seem a bit pricey (~$1/GB), especially since this charge is a monthly fee and the
DNS-321 is a  lower budget (sub $100) device.

[asbaum]

Two thoughts on backup.

One, don't mirror the drives, get a much larger second drive and write .bat files (mon.bat, tue.bat, wed.bat, etc) that uses "robocopy .... /mir /r:0 /w:0" and schedule them on a pc to mirror the root of the first drive to folders mon, tue, wed for each day of the week on the second drive.  So, if your first drive is around 160gb and your second drive is 1TB, you can get 5 daily backups if not a few weekly ones too.  That's assuming the 160gb will hold you for a couple years (when you will probably upgrade anyways).

Second, the units are cheap enough even with 1TB mirrored drives so you buy another and again write .bat files as noted above with "robocopy .... /mir /r:0 /w:0" to mirror the first DNS to the second one in folders.

I purchased them strictly for backup purposes for my clients (backup of server flat files), so the .bat files with nightly robocopy (I've had problems with synctoy, the gui robocopy, locking up with dll errors so I like robocopy) to specific folders is the process I use.

Karen's replicator is a free tool that works very well, too:
http://www.karenware.com/powertools/ptreplicator.asp
Automatically backup files, directories, even entire drives! Karen's Replicator copies selected files from one drive/folder to another. Source and Destination folders can reside anywhere on your network.

Everyone has different needs and different drive size requirements, I understand that.

[jesbo09]

May not be interesting or high tech, but I back up my DNS-323 (user data that is) over the ethernet to 8-mm tape.  I picked up a used Sony TSL-SA500C 4-tape autochanger on e-bay which is connected to a spare windows PC I used to use as a server.  I hated to have the server sucking electricity 24x7, so I replaced it with the DNS-321. I power up the server on weekends and let it take a full backup of the DNS-323.  Takes a while since it only moves about 450 MB per minute, but there are lots of hours during the night to do this.  IN case of a DNS-323 failure, or accidental file deletion, I usually have a recent copy of the data somewhere on tape.

[jb33zy]

I knew other people were wondering this as well. What does D-Link think about this lack of backup feature? I suppose their official statement would be the DNS-321 is supposed to be your backup device, but most I think are probably not using it in this fashion but a combination of a backup device and file server. In which case, it needs to be backed up.

Like I said earlier I'm just attaching a USB drive to my desktop and copying when I feel like doing a backup. I would love a "set-it-and-forget-it" setup though.

[fordem]

I knew other people were wondering this as well. What does D-Link think about this lack of backup feature?

Can you name a NAS - either SOHO or business class that has a "backup feature"?

[jesbo09]

I knew other people were wondering this as well. What does D-Link think about this lack of backup feature? I suppose their official statement would be the DNS-321 is supposed to be your backup device, but most I think are probably not using it in this fashion but a combination of a backup device and file server. In which case, it needs to be backed up.

Agreed.  While I use a DNS-323, it can apply equally to the DNS-321.  My 323 came with the Memeo Backup software - which I tried and actually used for a while. It monitors specific directories on my PC and makes sure that any changes are replicated to the DNS-323 when they occur... Thus you always have a backup of critical files on the DNS device.  Thats all well and good and serves a useful purpose for backing up data on your PC.  IT doesn't address backups where the DNS is the primary storage (Media files, pictures, etc.).  I actually even abandoned use of Memeo, as it accesses the DNS backup directories it uses via a samba share and it apparently accesses those areas frequently enough that the DNS will not sleep the hard drives - even when the monitord directories/files on the PC are not being altered. So in the end, I do daily automated incremental backups of PC's to the Backup share on the NAS, and then weekly I do a backup of the NAS to tape. Some may argue its overkill, but so be it.

[asbaum]

Can you name a NAS - either SOHO or business class that has a "backup feature"?

Yes, Buffalo Linkstation NAS (I use these too):
http://www.buffalotech.com/products/network-storage/linkstation/linkstation-pro/
........the LinkStation Pro can accommodate additional external USB hard drives for expanded networked storage or as backup targets.

Also, Synology
http://www.synology.com/enu/products/CS407e/index.php
Network Backup is designed for you to back up data from CS407e to another Synology product that also supports Network Backup function or rsync-compatible server.


and the higher end Synology NAS boxes offer this (am considering these as well):
Disk Station is available with Disk Station Manager v2.1 firmware, which offers mail server capability via 1-click installation Mail Station add-on (web mail, SMTP, POP3, and IMAP). In addition to storage, user, and privilege management capabilities, firmware provides multilingual support and RAID management. Included Surveillance Station 2 supports 139 IP camera models as well as audio streaming, auto-discovery, and AJAX technology, while File Station 2 simplifies web-based file operations with its capabilities.

[smcpartlin]

The Buffalo devices are quite nice actaully.  A little more money but quite nice.

[PCWerks]

We have been buying these NASs to be used AS backups to our clients networks.  We have the device setup in a LAN network and then install DirSync (http://www.archersoft.com) on their server.  Every night at midnight, the DirSync software copies everything from the server, as well as every other windows PC on the network, to the DNS-321 under a "Backup" folder - each computer has it's own folder on the NAS.  We use DirSync is because it has been the best backup/directory syncing software we found, and I tested at least 2 dozen of them myself.  There are lots of free ones you can use, like Cobian Backup, that do the same thing, but not quite as well.  The best 2 features about these types of softwares are (In my opinion)...
1) You can set it to only backup what has changed, so the first backup takes hours, but every backup after that could take minutes.
2) DirSync keeps Deleted Files for a configurable amount of time, as well as any number of different "versions" of backed up files.  With a 1TB drive in the DNS-321, I set the software to keep Deleted Files for 30 days and up to 10 different versions of files.  This means that if I have a file on my computer and it's backed up to the NAS, if I delete it from my computer, I have up to 30 days to go back and get it off of the NAS.  And if I have files that change daily (like my Outlook .PST file), it will keep the last 10 different versions at all times.  So if my Outlook file gets corrupted, I have up to 9 other versions to go back to.


Like I said, we use these NASs as the backup themselves, but the same thing applies to anyone using these to store data that wants a backup of the data.  The backup has to be somewhere else, like another DNS-321, or a USB Drive attached to a PC on the network, or even another PC on the network itself.  But if you install DirSync (or any other backup/syncing) programs on any PC on the network, you can schedule toe backup to run daily, weekly, or whenever you want.

I have a few clients that have 2 DNS-321's, each with a single 1TB drive in each one.  I don't put 2 hard drives in them because 1TB is enough space for now, and mirroring doesn't help (for the cost) because these are a backup to data that is already on the computers anyway.  But they each have 2 NASs that are configured identically, and they switch them out once a week.  Some of them take one NAS home with them each week for an offsite backup, and some lock them in the office in fire-proof safe that is fire-proof for hours (not for a few minutes like cheap safes).

Anyway, if anyone has any questions, feel free to let me know.

Josh
PC Werks
http://www.mypcwerks.com