Using RAID 1 for rotating backups

[Luc]

Hi there,

I am a new AS-202TE user in a SME for backup purpose. I would like to use RAID 1, and thus make regular rotating backups with several disks for slot 2. Do I need to switch off the NAS for each disk replacement ? Is there a risk to replace the disk in slot 2 without shutting down the NAS ? What happens if the NAS was writing some data at that time ?

Thanks a lot,
Luc

[orion]

That's a rare usage. In case of cache and application data in RAM, it's not safe to do this kind of backup job when NAS is working. If you don't care about data integrity, it might be a way to go. But I don't think that's what you want. Yes, you can switch off NAS to do this kind of backup:

• Power NAS off after RAID-1 in synchronized state.
• Remove slot-2 disk.
• Power NAS on, then insert a new disk to slot-2. NAS will do synchronization job automatically.

[MikeG.6.5]

You may be better served to use the My Archive function instead. Backing up the relevant data to these My archive disks in rotation so you always have at least an incremental back up. So if you have 5 disks, one always in the system, and 4 to swap in as My Archive drives, and you do the back ups once a week, then there will only be a chance of losing data from the week, which can usually be recovered fairly easily.

Color code the trays, so you have 4 colors, the first Friday of the month always gets Red, for instance. A problem with that is if you have a month with 5 Fridays.... A work around to that would be a color coding on a calendar of some sort, easy to see at a glance which drive to use...

You have to prepare each My Archive drive before it's first use, but after that, you should be able to swap them in and out at will. Kick off your back up and go grab a cup of coffee and maybe a meal, get in a nap, another cup of coffee, etc... Until the back up is done.

Let us know how you do this and how well it works for you.... It's an interesting thought exercise, at least for me.

[Luc]

Thanks a lot for your answers!

I had a quick look at the myArchive function, which seems interesting. But in my case, unless I miss something, I see one main advantage in the RAID 1 option : the data are always secured with a mirrored disk (except during the synchronisation process). Moreover, there no action from my side except switching the disks, as the synch process is automatic.
Thanks again !
Luc

[Kerry]

Personally I'm using Myarchive as what Mike G said. I set up backup schedule in Backup and Restore once a week though.

[MikeG.6.5]

Thanks a lot for your answers!

I had a quick look at the myArchive function, which seems interesting. But in my case, unless I miss something, I see one main advantage in the RAID 1 option : the data are always secured with a mirrored disk (except during the synchronisation process). Moreover, there no action from my side except switching the disks, as the synch process is automatic.
Thanks again !
Luc

Raid 1 isn't meant to be an "automatic" back up. Rebuilding the raid is potentially a more time consuming process than a backup would be, and it's going to create a lot of wear and tear on the drives that would be needless. Remember MTBF means with Raid 5 on these large disks you are likely to have a failure replacing a bad drive. Throw this constant thrashing of the drives rebuilding a Raid 1 every week or so, and you are assured of a drive failure sometime in the very near future.

IMO, not worth the added risk. This is exactly one of the reasons the My Archive feature was built to do.