What do I use to backup my NAS drives?

[louncov]

Hi guys, new to the Forum & NAS. Just purchased a D923 with 3 drives. Drives 1 & 2 are mirrored in "Storage Pool 1" and drive 3 is a standalone in "Storage Pool 2". Everything has been migrated from my old drives to Storage Pool 1 and everything working well, but I want to perform a backup of Storage Pool 1 to Storage Pool 2, then remove disk 3 and store it offsite, but I'm not sure what to use. Do I use Hyperbackup? Snapshot Replication (Shared Folders or LUNs)? Also, I don't see an 'eject' option for Storage Pool 2. Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance, Tony.

[DSM 7.1 & Windows 10 Home]

 

[Rusty]

Welcome to the forum!

Do I use Hyperbackup?

That is correct, but pulling the drive out that has been configured as a single SHR volume, or maybe as "basic" volume, doesn't mean you will be able to mount it to a PC of some sort and just restore data.

If your intention was that, then just pull the drive out, wipe it and use it as an external disk connected to your NAS, do not have it configured as a volume.

If you continue to use the drive as a standalone volume inside the NAS then using that volume as a backup of your main one (with 2 drives), that is not really a backup as it is still inside the same NAS, but you are already aware of that.

In any event, HyperBackup is the tool, but consider using that single drive in an external configuration if you want an easy access to the backed up data on the offsite (depending how you plan on using it on the other location).

 

[dimfil]

The matter has already been covered by @Rusty but if you really insist on using Hyper Backup while the drive is still inside the NAS as a storage pool, the Hyper Backup Explorer could help you recover files later from the backup set if you connect the drive to a PC.
But, again, this is not quite a backup and you are advised to follow Rusty's suggestions.

 

[louncov]

Hi Rusty and thanks for your quick reply. A couple of points I may have omitted: I just want to remove the drive and store it as an offsite backup...I am not going to restore the data to another PC. If I need to restore, I would like to load it back into the NAS drive (back into Storage Pool 2) and copy files back to Storage Pool 1. Is that possible with HyperBackup using Storage Pools? I don't see an 'eject' option for my single drive in Storage Pool 2 to remove the drive, so I suspect not. I did remove it manually and (surprise, surprise) Storage Pool 2 crashed (which I thought it might). When you say "using a single drive in an external configuration", you mean attaching another drive as an external USB? If so, will Hyperbackup recognise that USB drive and still save to it? Thanks, TC

 

[fredbert]

The internal storage isn't intended to be popped in and out on a whim. The better option would be to use Hyper Backup to local USB drive, and that can be ejected after the task runs. An alternative is to use Hyper Backup to a second DSM NAS running Hyper Backup Vault, or networked device running rsync or WebDAV. This would then isolate the backup from being accessible to other processes running on the main NAS.

Running Hyper Backup on the NAS and using the restore feature will enable you to recover the configurations and data: either using an existing HB task's vault or you can select a different vault, useful when restoring from scratch.

 

[Rusty]

When you say "using a single drive in an external configuration", you mean attaching another drive as an external USB? If so, will Hyperbackup recognise that USB drive and still save to it?

Yes to both questions.

@fredbert already responded and definitely follow his suggestion. Pulling out drives that are configured as volumes/pools is not recommended so avoid doing that.

Configure it as external drive even if you intend to backup and use that same drive with this NAS alone.

 

[louncov]

Thank you all for your insight & wisdom. I have a much better idea now. FYI. I have deleted Storage Pool 2, removed the 3rd drive, loaded into an external HDD housing and attached it as an external USB drive. It has recognised it & I formatted it as exFAT. I am now playing with Hyper Backup and all seems to be going well. Thanks again for your quick responses.