NAS to NAS sync via Inet connection

[stixwrx]

I have read many many articles on this site and have been searching the forum posts etc. for a reference to this use case.

Using any of the retail SOHO dual drive NAS appliances is it simple to configure a NAS to NAS syncing operation?

So for example, deploy one NAS box at one office location and another at a geographically different location and then sync the data from the first NAS appliance off site to the other? Essentially a poor man's off site replica data set. It may actually be most desirable to so this at the folder/share level instead of the drive/volume level but either one would do the job.

In some of the NAS appliance reviews on this site I have seen what appears to be very similar built in functionality to this but I have not seen anything that really spells it out. I read the Rsynch article and that seems very much like what I want to be able to do except I want to use retail NAS appliances.

Just to be clear the desired result would be to sync the "primary" office NAS with the remote NAS at worst once every 24 hours. The data on the remote NAS would not be changed outside of the sync. The usage could change if 2 way replication is simple to achieve but that is not a requirement.

Thanks in advance for any insight.

 

[thiggins]

There are many NASes that support rsync in some form (Buffalo, Qnap among them). But getting the site to site secure connection is your problem. A nice on-demand VPN connection would do it though.

 

[bliko]

As tim said a vpn between to sites would be a good idea. However if your nas supports it you can also user rsync over ssh if you don't want to setup a vpn.

Rsync is without a doubt the best utility to use.

If you don't have a large ammout of data: Rather than backing your data up to a second nas it may be better to back it up to some kind of online storage facility, or web-space?

For a couple of people i've setup remote back-up to their grid-server account at: http://mediatemple.net/ from their nas using rsync + ssh. This service has rsync, ssh, and cron - three essential items for remote backup. You can either initiate it from your nas or from the grid-server. You can also use it for hosting your website.

There are many guides on how to setup remote backup using rsync and ssh, just google it. It is likely that the enthusiast community for your particular nas manufacturer will also have tutorials on how to achieve this.

The choice of nas is up to you, aslong as your nas supports rsync and it is relatively simple to setup, then it will be fine.

I have written rotating and incremental backup shell scripts for the D-Link nas' , which i can easily post online for u if u decide to go for a d-link nas.

 

[stixwrx]

Rsynch and SSH are the kind of thing I was looking for. Thanks very much for the reply and advice.

I have been looking at the Dlink NAS products but I have not had any specific criteria to make a selection other than dual drive to support raid 1.

Based on your reply the Dlink supports Rsynch however how can one tell if a device supports Rsynch or not. Is there something in the Mfg Specs that indicates it or is it something I have to search out via forums like this product by product?

The data set is only around 100GB with lots of small changes and the average file size is around 800KB.

I have attempted to use the filters for the NAS Charts to get various product views but I am just not knowledgeable enough to be able to select an appropriate product yet even if all the info is in there.

I'm not technically certain why but I like the Buffalo, the Qnap, and the Dlink and I was also checking out the Hammer Storage Myshare. As most uninformed product chasers I am trying to shop on price to keep the cost down and obviously with my data set size I don't have to buy the largest disks I can find. I plan to buy the largest the project budget allows however I would rather spend the money on the proper features, then performance, and then disk space. That is of course based on the expectation that I can at a future date replace the drives with larger ones should the need arise. (Knowing full well the potential process involved to save off the data and then copy back to new drives once ready.)

Thanks again for your responses!

 

[bliko]

If the product supports rsync through its firmware it will say in the manufacturer specs, however if not you will have to look at the enthusiast communities to find out on a case by case basis weather rsync can be enabled or installed.

For D-link products in particular, there is a relatively easy to install package called funplug which provides the functionality you are looking for. More information can be found here: http://wiki.dns323.info/ I would suggest the Dns-323 (cheap + will do what u ask)

Some general information on nas' can be found here: http://www.nas-central.org/wiki/Main_Page and of course the smallnetbuilder site.

Generally speaking the nas' with more out-of-the-box features have higher preformance and higher cost. However after installing some small packages ('hacks'), featureless, lower preformance, cheap nas' can become full-featured and extremely usefull. The d-ling dns-323 is a good example of this.

To an extent, your ability to add features to nas will depend on how carefully you can follow online tutorials...

 

[stixwrx]

That sounds very much like what I am looking for. Installing a Linux or package or two is no problem and having a good on-line tutorial is a bonus.

Thanks very much.