Backing up a NAS to a NAS with or without a Mac involved?

[infobleep]

Hi there

I have recently got a Synology DS1512+ and the expansion pack DX510. The idea is to use the DS1512+ to store my data and the DX510 to back up to. I have looked at the Synology internal backup solution but although they claim to offer differential backups, I've not been able to get it to work. All it seems to do is wipe the previous backup with the latest. Even if it wasn't doing that, I can't see how to easily a restore to a previous point in time.

I've read that Time Machine can't be trusted with NAS drives so I've not gone there. Carbon Copy Clone works, although I've not tried it myself. However like Time Machine, this requires my Mac to be on and I'd rather have a solution which works even when I'm not at home.

Is their any solution out there similar to how Time Machine works, which would allow my Synology to back up even when my Mac isn't connected? Clearly my MacBook data won't get backed up but I can do that via Carbon Copy Clone anyway, which I'd hope would allow me to restore to a previous point in time quite easily anyway.

What I don't want to happen is end up with loads of differential backup files that I cannot easily piece together after a failure has occurred. This once happened to me when using a PC and it was easier for me to buy a £50 program to recover the data than go through the differential backups because I couldn't automatically piece them together.

Thanks for reading

 

[murphychris]

Synology internal backup solution but although they claim to offer differential backups, I've not been able to get it to work.

You've called them and they say what?

I've read that Time Machine can't be trusted with NAS drives

Can't be trusted in what way? There are more frequent changes to Time Machine network support in AFP than there are updates to account for these changes in Netatalk, the open source AFP server. But recent versions for some time now have supported Time Machine's network requirements over AFP. So you'd have to be much more specific and limiting your research to the past 9-12 months or less.

Is their any solution out there similar to how Time Machine works, which would allow my Synology to back up even when my Mac isn't connected?

NAS replication or backup features should work. If they aren't working, then you should ask for support, that's why you bought from Synology rather than putting together your own Linux based NAS - which most certainly can do what you're talking about.

What I don't want to happen is end up with loads of differential backup files that I cannot easily piece together after a failure has occurred. This once happened to me when using a PC and it was easier for me to buy a £50 program to recover the data than go through the differential backups because I couldn't automatically piece them together.

Backing up a NAS incrementally will take more storage than what's presently on the NAS. By a lot. So you either care about the NAS data in the current state its in, and rsync that to disks or another NAS, or you care about the incremental states as well in which case what you really want is a (live) replicated NAS, i.e. a duplicate NAS. That's doable technically, but I can't tell you if it's a Synology feature.

 

[infobleep]

Thanks for your reply murphychris

My comments on backing up time machine are based on people's comments on forums including MacRumors and recent comments at that. People say backups have corrupted. I don't wish to test this for myself. It may be isolated cases.

With regards to the incremental backups, I've followed the documentation and guides that Synology supply in setting this up, as well as reading one or more posts on their official forums, where I have also posted. I'm not the only one to come across the issue and there hadn't been any replies from Synology staff on the issue by that point.

I know companies such as Synology provide one to one technical support but I would hope that hey also monitor their own official forums and comment in there. This way the advice is put out more widely and it means other people may not have to contact support, freeing their time to help others. I'm a great believer in the power of online forums for getting technical queries out to people.

I will be contacting Synology, I've just been quite busy trying to figure out how the different functions within the Synology work, in-between going to work and trying to get Olympics tickets.

 

[murphychris]

My comments on backing up time machine are based on people's comments on forums including MacRumors and recent comments at that. People say backups have corrupted. I don't wish to test this for myself. It may be isolated cases.

Someone would have to do a study to have meaningful conclusions, but I've experienced this corruption with DAS at least as often as with NAS so I don't think it's inherently network related, but rather JHFS+ related. I use Time Machine backups because they're frequent and easy and so long as the backup isn't corrupt the restores have been successful. But my 2nd and 3rd backups are both predicated on non-Apple file systems.

I know companies such as Synology provide one to one technical support but I would hope that hey also monitor their own official forums and comment in there.

Why? Apple doesn't do this with their own forums.

 

[Ifti]

I have a similar setup to the OP (equipment in sig).
I also use my DX510 to backup my main NAS.

I simply have a schedule set to backup every other day. This only creates the one backup, but they way I see it, I dont need much more.

My data is on my MBP. This is backed up to my NAS.
Nas also has all my movies etc - not a major biggie if I lose these as I have the discs.

NAS is running RAID5 for redundancy, hence Im covered with a single drive failure.

NAS backs up to the DX510 also.

I then periodically backup the most important data from my NAS onto external drives to store off site.


Hence, I have 4 copies of my data - my MBP, the NAS, the DX510, and off site.
The off site drive also has backup images of my MBP.

For me, thats plenty enough!

 

[infobleep]

Someone would have to do a study to have meaningful conclusions, but I've experienced this corruption with DAS at least as often as with NAS so I don't think it's inherently network related, but rather JHFS+ related. I use Time Machine backups because they're frequent and easy and so long as the backup isn't corrupt the restores have been successful. But my 2nd and 3rd backups are both predicated on non-Apple file systems.



Why? Apple doesn't do this with their own forums.

Well I personally think they should. I use a GIS software made by a company called ESRI and as well as dedicated 1 to 1 support, which of course you pay for thourgh an annual software license, they also monitor their forums and reply.

Whilst I understand ESRI's software is far more expensive than what Apple or Synology produce - talking about £3000 per software license, Apple are richer than ESRI and so could afford to monitor their forums. If they didn't own the forums then I wouldn't hold this view.

 

[infobleep]

I had a response from Synology support via e-mail. They said Timed Backup would do what I require. I then do a search via Google, to get the documentation and any other helpful hints online.

The first forum thread I came across said the following: [http://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?f=163&t=54214&p=209466#p209466]:
Timed Back up is not a backup of the system. That is it doesn't backup the system configurations. It's more of a version history solution. It deletes by age but not by disk space remaining. In addition to that the documentation is sparse in it's details. That forum thread was started on the 19th July so it very relevant to now.

Saying all of this, it will be the best solution for me and I'll be able to do a separate backup of the system files.

Currently I run time machine but also use carbon copy clone to make a backup of my Mac hard drive so that I get a bootable version of it.

 

[infobleep]

I had a response from Synology support via e-mail. They said Timed Backup would do what I require. I then do a search via Google, to get the documentation and any other helpful hints online.

The first forum thread I came across said the following: [http://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?f=163&t=54214&p=209466#p209466]:
Timed Back up is not a backup of the system. That is it doesn't backup the system configurations. It's more of a version history solution. It deletes by age but not by disk space remaining. In addition to that the documentation is sparse in it's details. That forum thread was started on the 19th July so it very relevant to now.

Saying all of this, it will be the best solution for me and I'll be able to do a separate backup of the system files.

Currently I run time machine but also use carbon copy clone to make a backup of my Mac hard drive so that I get a bootable version of it.

UPDATE: The Synology DS1512+ can only run 8 backup tasks with for me if more than enough.

Ignore my previous comments, now removed. I had made a mistake.