Inside HBS I have an unidirectional synchronization process between two Qnap on geographically distant sites.
The folders involved have slowly changing content, almost static,
so after inital synchronization it is a relatively fast activity, because only modified content is sent through the net.
I would like to enable versioning, so I’m forced to abandon synchronization and move to backup job, is it correct ?
The total size of the folders is 8 TB and all the files are already on destination Qnap, is there a way to use them as initial seeding of the backup job instead of a new massive file transfer ?
Second question: if I have 3 main folders is it better to create a single backup job or one for each folder ?
Do you need to access the content from both or just content from one? I’m asking because instead of doing backups between sites, you could use the snapshot replica function. It’s very fast and it does allow you to use local data on the vault side to do seeding.
I don’t know if HBS allows you to use the local data to seed. Good question…
Do you need to access the content from both or just content from one?
Do you mean if users access files from both Qnap or only from one of them ?
Don’t know snapshot replica, can you give more details, possibly step by step ?
Suppose the following: Qnap A is the production NAS while Qnap B is for data protection. Currently I have an uniderectional synchronization A->B scheduled every day. Do you suggest to create snapshots on B ? Can snapshots be scheduled ? Is there the same flexibility as with smart versioning for backups ?
Yes. Snapshots are quick, can be scheduled and are very flexible. They have versioning capability and scheduling capability. As I understand it (someone correct me if I am wrong) but a snapshot is a bit level “picture” of your volume at a given point in time. You can recover the entire volume from a snapshot. Snapshot replica is the process of storing your snapshots on a remote (Vault) NAS.
The only caveat: Both NAS must be running the same OS (ie: QTS on both or Hero on both) and you need to have the same or larger drive space available on the second NAS. Even though snapshots are very efficient when it comes to space, if your first NAS goes hard down, you could recover the entire set of volumes on the second NAS. That’s why you have to have similar storage spaces.
I checked and the snapshot way seems impracticable to me. Perhaps Qnap B configuration was overlooked when it was done and there are no storage pools, only a static volume.It is not time to start from scratch.
You are not using storage pools?
Unfortunately not, on destination Qnap I have only a static volume which doesn’t support snapshots. About the duplicated thread you linked at the beginning I’m not Mateo_adkins.
OK. Well, that’s a bummer that you can’t use snapshots. I’m not sure then about the seeding of the backup. Short answer is that I don’t think HBS will do that. You may just have to bite the bullet on that one and transfer your data all over again. Not sure what kind of upload speed you have. You may want to get that remote NAS and bring it to your main location, do your initial backup over the LAN and then put it back in the remote location. I don’t know how practical that is for you either. Maybe someone else can make a suggestion or can answer the question on seeding.
As to your second question, I don’t see a need to create multiple backup jobs for each folder. One job should be fine.