Can you backup from one nas4free box to another?

[maguiver]

Hello,

I am setting up a nas4free box that I want to keep in my house that all my computers backup too and to use it as a file server. I want to build another box that I can keep at my neighbors house that the first nas box will back up to nightly. Is this possible? How, where should I look for the info. Thanks

[armandh]

yes it will do it
called Rsync
I would advise against it
I back up alternately to different NAS and drives
my theory is,
a copy of a copy is not always as good as a copy of the original.

with a copy of a copy any imperfection in the first copy is perpetuated
with two copies of the original both have an equal chance at perfection.

while such an error is unlikely
why trust ones il-fate to even a remote chance

I hope you bury a conduit
else you will likely find the wifi the slowest link in the chain

[maguiver]

My neighbor is only 200 feet away, So I was just going to run some Cat 6 along the wall from my house to his. With a gig card It should OK I think.

How do I set it to back up to to different NAS's?

Are the Backups Incrementals? and if so wouldnt one be more up to date then the other if it backed up different days or can you do them at the same time?

Once I get the backups complete, can I use the backups like a file share or are they strickly a backup?

Lastly, Can I copy everything to my Backup NAS drive( A gig of stuff) then have the NAS backup future changes? or do I need to let it back up everything from scratch?



Thanks in advance

[armandh]

On the client computer drive to be backed up I use Acronis True Image to do the backing up
tons of options including incremental and mounting an image
it will back up easily to any "mapped network drive"
computer>network>workgroup>NAS4Free>attached drive with pool name/right mouse>map network drive
such network drives, even if in different boxes, are seen in the regular file tree
some times on booting the client computer it cannot find all the network drives
usually a time out issue such that when I go to my computer and click on the Xed out drives they open
[and the X disappears]

windows 7 requires the professional editions to back to mapped drives with its image process

but less than an image, backing up some folders, is just drag and drop
programs such as Quick Books with its own separate backup can back to folders in the network drives
with two NAS you might select one on the even days the other on the odd

[sjordan]

Yes you can do this easily with zfs send if you are using zfs. You can also setup snapshots. My setup does a zfs snapshot every 3 hours on primary server then does a zfs send nightly that sends the changes over. Zfs send from what i understand will do all of this quicker than rsync. I have tested and verified this. Btw I do all of this through a few scripts ran in cron.

Also with this setup you can use the backups as shares if you want. I personally would only do this if you lost primary

[Ecnerwal]

My neighbor is only 200 feet away, So I was just going to run some Cat 6 along the wall from my house to his. With a gig card It should OK I think.

From sad personal experience: you are increasing your lightning-strike footprint gigantically. You might really want to shop around for used fiber-optic network equipment (I assume new would be way beyond budget) for that reason. Glass for the outside cables is really nice every time there's a thunderstorm.

The other factor here, is how far do you trust your neighbor with a copy of all your data.