Clone NAS drive with (e.g.) Acronis?

[sfx2000]

Interesting how we integrate backups into workflows...

I'm not that much different.

1) Online - backed up on TimeMachine for my Macs, rsync for my Linux boxes, and I really don't care about Solitaire Shell

2) Near Line - personal filesystems get a regular backup to the QNAP NAS box, and common files are there SMB - since I'm x-platform, SMB is a common entity and good support for OSX, Windows, and Linux - again, user directories

3) Cold-Storage/Offline - back up NAS box user directories and export a TimeMachine backup on a regular basis

For Source Code and Docs - previous Job, we had Perforce, which went into Project Directories for Source, but LiveLink for Docs... the Current Job, we use Git and a Wiki instance, along with SharePoint, which again, is constantly backed up...

For personal stuff/sandbox - Git/DokuWiki on the NAS box... which is backed up - see item 2 above.

In any event, sounds like you might have went with Acronis to back up the NAS drive image prior to updating to a new DSM release...

 

[stevech]

I plan to use Acronis to clone the NAS 2TB to another 2TB. As a bootable backup before attempting the update to new DSM 5.2 OS. I've not heard anyone try that. I hope the NAS will not look at the drive's serial number.

Acronis is used on PCs to backup with target = NAS.
NAS itself uses Synology DSM 4.3 backup to USB3 and SD card.
DSM5.2: I'm debating. I see nothing new in it functionally, except for more video/media/music - stuff I don't use. I may upgrade to 5.2 just to keep up with security fixes. The UI in 5.2 is "pretty", but to a geek like me, I prefer function to form.

As a work-at-home consultant, my most recent two customers do not permit source code to go out to an internet (cloud) server. One is in stealth-startup mode, the other is paranoid about theft of intellectual property. We exchange source and project builds via private SSL/SFTP servers. That's one thing my NAS does.

 

[sfx2000]

DSM5.2: I'm debating. I see nothing new in it functionally, except for more video/media/music - stuff I don't use. I may upgrade to 5.2 just to keep up with security fixes. The UI in 5.2 is "pretty", but to a geek like me, I prefer function to form.

Depends on what they're introducing perhaps - sometimes new features, sometimes combined with must-have security updates...

Gotta read the release notes and make a decision...

I'm QNAP on my NAS box - I'm on QTS 4.1, but the 4.2 release is actually pretty major, not just for Docker/LXC, but also major changes on the LVM/StoragePool side, so I'll likely do a full image backup there before even considering an update...

 

[stevech]

how will you do an image (not clone) backup w/QNAP? A linux utility or a QTS utility?

 

[sfx2000]

how will you do an image (not clone) backup w/QNAP? A linux utility or a QTS utility?

Don't need an image of QTS, but I'll have a dump of the shared filesystem... which is most important, eh?

The OS stuff, from QTS 4.1 to 4.2, I don't care much about, as long as I have my files...

 

[stevech]

I'm hoping to clone, so all the shares, user accounts, backup tasks, etc. are preserved should I need them.

 

[htismaqe]

Yeah, data risks... I don't buy cheap drives, use refurbs, etc. I don't use freeware for drive backups.

Yes, freeware can work. Paid-for products can have bugs. But so far. Acronis has come through for me when I needed it. Such as quickly booting a cloned OS drive on my PC when despite my best care, malware got in and I could not get rid of it in an hour. I cannot say drive failure led me to use clones or backups. Not in the last 8 years or so. Luck, or better QA in drives, or whatever.

My data and my time are more important that saving a few bux.

The Time Backup file versioning in my Synology has really saved my butt many times when I hosed up a file or had to revert due to honking up some C code on a project (consulting work). Or my financials.

It all depends on the support, IMO.

I use free tools for file backup and disk imaging but I have a direct line to both developers. In addition, I've donated money to both projects to ensure I have a voice. I've encountered a couple of bugs and both times, they were fixed within hours, not days or weeks. That's worth it to me. I have some paid software that you can't even contact via anything other than email and if you actually get a response, it's a miracle.

 

[htismaqe]

Don't need an image of QTS, but I'll have a dump of the shared filesystem... which is most important, eh?

The OS stuff, from QTS 4.1 to 4.2, I don't care much about, as long as I have my files...

That's kind of the way I am. I recently dumped all of my data to external and started over on my NAS because I changed the way my users were organized. It took me about 30 minutes to restore everything, including backup jobs and the like. I could see the benefit of cloning if you had a super-complex setup but I don't.

 

[stevech]

Well, I shut down the NAS and am now doing a drive clone of the main volume (non-RAID) from the NAS, to a new 3TB WD red drive. Acronis. I told it to leave leave the partition size as-is, since the source is 2TB and the destination is 3TB. This cloned drive is to be a tested reserve should the update to DSM 5.2 flop.
we'll see.

I just wanted to have a ready spare. Don't want to have to recreate all the configs using a start from scratch drive.

 

[sfx2000]

Well, I shut down the NAS and am now doing a drive clone of the main volume (non-RAID) from the NAS, to a new 3TB WD red drive. Acronis. I told it to leave leave the partition size as-is, since the source is 2TB and the destination is 3TB. This cloned drive is to be a tested reserve should the update to DSM 5.2 flop.
we'll see.

I just wanted to have a ready spare. Don't want to have to recreate all the configs using a start from scratch drive.

Is Acronis, and sorry for asking as I don't know/use their SW, making a disk image file, or a live filesystem/partition?

Curious minds - and probably good info for the collective as well

 

[stevech]

Acronis terminolog
Image - is a copy of one or more partitions, written in a proprietary format to a single file.
Clone - is a sector by sector copy of a drive, to a drive of equal or greater size.

I like clone as (with cheap disks these days), I clone/dupe my SSD to a rotating drive in 15 minutes. That copy is bootable, identical to the original. Great for fast recovery from malware, assuming you clone every week or so. In between clones, I use Image backups for files that changed between clone times.

Booting the clone when needed: saved my buns several times. I can clone the clone back to the original to revert to pre-malware times.

I won't spend all weekend doing a scratch format reinstall of OS and apps! Nope.

 

[htismaqe]

Windows sorely needs built-in imaging tools. Time Machine on OS X is freaking awesome.

 

[L&LD]

Cloning drives has been a problem for some of my clients that was more headaches than it was worth.

Issues with licenses for various software (very expensive software) and in the end, no time was saved. Worse off actually as the fears of 'breaking' the software for important machines took years off some of the managers lives in worry until they saw the system running again (manual install of windows and programs and dongles).

It might be okay for very basic installs, but a clone usually leads to the same issue that cropped up before it was restored eventually too (for issues other than viruses). And doing a clone each week? Hard enough to get people to backup their data, let alone their drive images.

I used to clone drives about 15 years ago. Today, I can do a manual install that is reliable and stable for years in less time than it takes to do weekly or monthly drive images and restore them if / when needed.

For example, for a usb Windows install drive it takes about 5 minutes to get windows installed on my system and another couple of hours to get programs and updates and drivers finished. And I know the install will be better than it was originally.

The best part is that the last time I had to do this is almost 3 years ago (roughly coinciding with windows 8 and shortly afterwards, 8.1).

 

[stevech]

I tried twice to clone the non-RAID volume disk from my Synology.
Try 1 had run for many hours then I dorked it by plugging another item into the USB hub. That glitched the power and killed the app. It didn't retry.
Try 2 ran overnight and more hours than I had patience for.

So, I took out the 2x 2TB.
Put in 2x3TB WD red.
Installed latest DSM OS. That was quick.
Then I put one of the old 2TB in and did a copy of all the working shares - about 1TB of data. That took a while (!). But tolerable.
Now I'm on the new OS. I like it. A few gains of new features. And more in-sync with important updates.
Then I put the 2nd new 3TB in, initialized, and ran a backup of the the volume 3TB (with almost 1TB of data on it), to the new blank 3TB as non-raid volume 2. (I prefer two volumes so if volume 1's file system gets compromised, volume 2 is not. RAID mirror doesn't give that protection.
That backup to volume 2 took a good part of while I was asleep.

I gave up on preserving my Time Backup - the last 6 months of all versions of all working files. It's 1.3TB and I thought I could put it on volume 2's 3TB. But alas. the copy time was crazy, because in that 1.3TB was 3.4million files. I kid you not! The speed of a copy of 3.4 million files, most small, will be a week, I guess. Lots of file system overhead. File create/read/write/close per second is not speedy. I still have the 1.3TB archive and will start a new one. Last time I told it to keep months of file versions and the last 28 versions of each. I think I overdid it.

About the last thing is to reinstate my SSL certificate.

Happy now. Despite my old ca. 2012 NAS hardware.
I'm still looking at when to upgrade hardware.

 

[stevech]

@L&LD
Agree, drive image restores are slow. It's nice to be able to mount them as a file system and get some files copied out.

Drive clones - fast to make, boot instantly.

clone != image

 

[sfx2000]

I gave up on preserving my Time Backup - the last 6 months of all versions of all working files. It's 1.3TB and I thought I could put it on volume 2's 3TB. But alas. the copy time was crazy, because in that 1.3TB was 3.4million files. I kid you not! The speed of a copy of 3.4 million files, most small, will be a week, I guess. Lots of file system overhead. File create/read/write/close per second is not speedy. I still have the 1.3TB archive and will start a new one. Last time I told it to keep months of file versions and the last 28 versions of each. I think I overdid it.

Wondering if that SW does something similar to Apple's TimeMachine, where there's many soft-links across image's... That's how TimeMachine on Mac works - whether local on disk, or otherwise - the initial snapshot is the full filesystem, and then everything is links from there - which over time, adds up... whether SparseImage or local filesystem - servers use SparseBundles...

Again, maybe just doing a dump of the current filesystem state - and then nuke/pave and start over...

 

[stevech]

Yes, Synology Time Machine uses soft links for unchanged files. Each soft link counts as a file so unchanged files get tallied.
The UI is the big deal.

 

[htismaqe]

I still have the 1.3TB archive and will start a new one.

Put it in a USB enclosure and mount it as an external disk on your NAS. Then you have it readily available, as if it were still there on your NAS.

For example, for a usb Windows install drive it takes about 5 minutes to get windows installed on my system and another couple of hours to get programs and updates and drivers finished. And I know the install will be better than it was originally.

Restoring from a system image like Apple Time Machine takes about 20-30 minutes max and there's nothing to setup afterwards. You literally start where you left off, provided that you have a recent image. A full-on disk clone is even faster.

I use to always reformat and reinstall but I haven't done one since probably Windows 7 came out. It takes way too much time comparatively.

 

[lexi]

how will you do an image (not clone) backup w/QNAP? A linux utility or a QTS utility?

I use this great utility to do an image backup with QNAP. It's free and easy to use.