XigmaNAS

I have a QNAP TS-209 II which is a bit old now and beginning to get slow so I thought being an electrical/electronic engineer and building computers in the past, I would have a go at a NAS.

My main question is.....

Currently I have 2 drives that are mirrored (RAID 1) and every so often I get an external drive and do a backup of the NAS, so I can keep it in an off site location. Does NAS4free give an option to do a complete copy of the mirrored drives onto another drive? I was thinking of buying a 4 drive NAS case and using 2 drives for the RAID 1 setup and then when I want to make a backup of the NAS, use a third drive and do a copy. Is there an option to do this, or is it a case of running some kind of script to carry out the action. Obviously the NAS I want to build will not have a screen, keyboard etc. attached, so I don't want to have to plug that stuff in to do the backup. Is there an option for this on NAS4Free web browser?

I know what case I want to the project - http://linitx.com/product/cfi-a7879-min ... bays/12789

But what motherboard would be the cheapest I can get which has 4 SATA ports on it. I need 1 SATA port for a 4GB SSD for the operating system, 2 SATA ports for the RAID 1 and 1 SATA port for my backup that will be used every so often. Would a Gigabyte E-350 do the Job?


I think I'll stick 4GB of RAM into the system as well, as RAM is cheap these days.

Is there anything I have missed?


Thanks again for any help you can give


Craig

First this is a good thread to read

http://forums.freenas.org/threads/so-yo ... ons.12276/

also this is a very nice case

http://www.kustompcs.co.uk/acatalog/info_0790.html

you also want to consider using zfs mirror instead of raid 1.

there is no build in function but you can set up rsync to easily do the mirroring.
however mirroring onto a hard drive in the same system is not ideal.
better would be to attach a external drive and do a mirror every few weeks and store the drive somewhere else.
or just keep the qnap and power it up for a network backup.

nas4free supports ssh to get to the command line for doing everything.

there is no need for a ssd for the operating system. just use a usb stick with an embedded install, which is the recommended method.

and yes a e 350 will do the job.

Thanks for your reply.

I bassically want to put a backup drive in every month and do a complete backup of my NAS. This would then be stored in a different location. You said this could be done with rsync, can this be done via the NAS4Free websever, or would I need to plug in a keyboard and screen?

Why ZFS and not RAID1? I know there is loads of info about ZFS on here, but I haven't had enough time to read it all.

Thanks again

Craig

basically its a safer raid that puts emphasis on data integrity.

Thanks. I've just read a bit more about ZFS and a mirrored ZFS seems to be the way I need to go.

I'll be using the NAS with 3 mac computers and want to access the NAS via AFP. Is this a stable way to access the NAS as my QNAP seems to be a lot slower when using AFP instead of smb.

I just read another post about Backup when someone has 2 drives in a mirrored ZFS and once a month powers off the NAS and removes one drive and puts his backup drive in its place. The removed drive is kept away from his house. Is this a good way to achieve what I want to do with backing up my NAS? I assume that when the drive is removed and the previous backup drive is placed in the NAS, it gets 'rebuilt' to mirror the drive that was left in the NAS?