[kwlug-disc] NAS in 2013

[unsolicited]

On 13-11-12 03:16 AM, Paul Nijjar wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 12:54:25AM -0500, Khalid Baheyeldin wrote:
>> On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 12:34 AM, Paul Nijjar<paul_nijjar at yahoo.ca>  wrote:
>>>
>>> Suggestions? Corrections? Horror stories?
>>
>> Are the clients to this backup server UNIX-ish only, or a mix of UNIX-ish
>> and Windows and OS/X?
>
> UNIX and Windows. The iSCSI is some crackpot idea I have to use
> Windows Server Backup (which wants "raw" local disks to be most
> effective, not network shares).

Do you really mean raw? i.e. Unpartitioned space or at least with a 
filesystem unknown to Windows?

If you actually mean local, you might look into junction points to see 
if they suit you. (links, or ln, in Unix parlance.)

>> Will this box be mainly write only (to save the backup to), or will it be
>> serving the backup stuff to same or other machines?
>
> It is mostly write-only except that once a week it will mirror itself
> offsite (which admittedly can get tricky with raw block devices).

Now I'm confused.

You're taking a bunch of machines, Linux and Windows, Servers and not, 
and backing them up to this new machine. I presume you must use Samba, 
for the workstations, and Linux may very well come for that ride.

You want to use Windows Server Backup, which needs 'raw' disks, and have 
it land on this box. (Junction point?)

Then you want to replicate this box off site once a week. For this, 
'raw' no longer applies. You're on a Linux box at this point, presumably 
going to another Linux box. Samba, NFS, or rsync, now applies. No? 
(Amanda? There's another out there, too, the name of which escapes me at 
the moment.)

- FWIW, not dealing with Windows servers here, my windows workstations 
each run Macrium Free or Paragon Free (due to being unable to use 
windows backup except to external drives that do not exist for me) 
nightly to image C: to a spot on D:. Linux equivalents run mondoarchive. 
D:'s are then rsync'ed off to a central 'server', taking the C: image 
with them. (Was win xp, now kubuntu.) And the 'server' replicates itself 
to two other machines. Giving me last night, local, the night before on 
the server, and the night before that on its replicas. [I have never had 
to restore an image, but initial testing looked positive - the iso's 
booted fine, and recognized / verified the images of the time. So YMMV.] 
{After a new machine is configured, I'll often use clonezilla, FWIW.}