January 4, 201412 yr Got my box all up and running smooth, no errors, all I could ask for. So I'm a glutton for punishment. garycase's suggestion to backup hit home. I have about 16TB of media I want to backup. So this evening I bought a Thermaltake BlacXDuet shoe, put an extra 1TB drive for the learning curve, connected it to my box via eSata cable. So I'm all dressed up and no place to go. unRaid can see this 1TB Hitachi drive when the array is offline as if I was going to add it to my array, but I don't want to do that. What my head says I'd like to do is have a FAT32 format and systematically copy movies, TV shows to the drive as backup and when the drive is full, simply store it and if I lose a drive copy over the files I need from the stored backups.. Little by little back up my box. Sounds good in theory, but no cigar. I'm using mc and I can't find the drive, I don't know what it's called or where it is and the same thing with Teracopy on my windows machine. Where is this drive, I know it's there, unRaid can see it, but I don't know where else to look. I've checked about every file in mc, I don't know. I'd like to stay within the server so the files don't have to migrate through Windows or OSX, drive to drive. Any ideas??? Oh well, unRaid did't like something I did, I lost my parity drive, so I had to shut down, re-add my parity drive and I'm in the process of a re-sync. Any ideas to make this plan work, I don't want to lose my parity drive again, but I'd sure like to figure a way to backup. (puzzled) Re-sync should be done in AM. I wonder what I did to wipe out my parity drive? Ahh, this would.nt be any fun if I didn't have any challenges…...
January 4, 201412 yr I'm not sure how to set that up in Linux => I do all my backups via a dock connected to my main PC (a Windows box). With a Gb network, there's really no difference in the time it takes to do the backups ... and it's far more convenient (for me anyway) to have the dock near my main system instead of the server. By the way, if you're buying new drives for the backups (as opposed to using older smaller units you've replaced), I'd get 3-4 TB drives, which you can get for ~ $40/TB (or even less) if you watch the sales. Far fewer drives to do your initial backups ... and once you're caught up, you'd likely only need one drive every year (or even longer) to stay up-to-date.
January 4, 201412 yr Author Gary, after today's fiasco with this, I'm going to get a eSata caed for my windows box and connect it to that as I don't want to screw with my unRaid server for awhile, and get better versed with the learning curve. My question would be what copy program do you prefer? I'm thinking 3TB drives as that's the max on the Thermaltake. I was just using the !TB as a practice run.
January 4, 201412 yr I'm thinking 3TB drives as that's the max on the Thermaltake. I was just using the !TB as a practice run. If the Thermaltake's support 3TB drives, then they'll also support 4TB, 5TB, 6TB, etc. (as the larger ones become available). The issue is whether or not these devices support drives > 2TB If they do, then there's no further size barrier until you hit PetaBytes HOWEVER ... looking at Newegg's site, it indicates the Thermaltake's support "up to 2TB" => so they may not support the larger drives. This unit definitely supports > 2TB drives: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817707295
January 4, 201412 yr ... Note that if you already have the docking unit, you could just use 2TB drives. The cost/TB is essentially the same ... you just have a few extra drives to store. I think I've already mentioned this in a previous post, but just in case, these are great little storage boxes to keep your backups in: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1133579&CatId=9
January 4, 201412 yr Author The Thermaltake box says that it accepts drives up to 3TB, however, the website says 2TB. I bought it for the 3, so back it goes. After some fresh thinking and a pot o' joe, I figure to use my Windows box with this "http://www.microcenter.com/product/266839/SATA_Hot_Swap_Rack_with_Lock" and then I won't deal with any externals, and won't have to worry about size. They also have these little cases that look like the old translucent cigarette case back in the 60/70's as storage. That should go the trick, but still, what copy program do you use? Still brings up the point, what do I use to pre clear a disk, can this still be done on the widows box?
January 4, 201412 yr Probably the reason your parity got redone is because you did not safely shut down from the webGUI. If you don't you will always get a parity check. Not really that difficult to do what you set out to do. You should use NTFS instead of FAT32 though. The simplest way to get an external drive mounted in unRAID is probably to use the SNAP plugin, but you can also do it from the command line. I do this all the time. Make backups of critical files and then store them at my office so they are offsite. Since they are NTFS I can also read them easily without unRAID. Take a look at these links and let me know if you need further advice. SNAP plugin Mounting external NTFS drive read/write
January 4, 201412 yr The hot-swap rack is an excellent idea. As long as your disk controller is set to AHCI mode, you can insert/remove drives without powering down, and as you've noted, the size won't be an issue, since they're connected directly to your SATA ports. I use Teracopy to copy files to my array and to my backup drives [with the verify option ("Always test after copy") set]. You can't pre-clear on your Windows box UNLESS you boot it to a spare UnRAID USB flash drive (the basic version is fine) and simply dedicate the box to the pre-clear while it's running. Obviously if you do this, be ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that you choose the correct disk to pre-clear !! (Otherwise you'll pre-clear your Windows' disk(s) !!!)
January 9, 201412 yr Author I got it setup, I don't know that it's hot swap, but it's easily accessible. As of now I'm backing up some files (TV Series) to a Toshiba 3TB. I'm figuring to only use about 2.4TB (80%) in case some needs to be added or moved. How much do you allow free space on your backup drives? Are you using the Pro edition of Teracopy, is it worth the money? BTW, Thanks for all the help!
January 9, 201412 yr I got it setup, I don't know that it's hot swap, but it's easily accessible. As of now I'm backing up some files (TV Series) to a Toshiba 3TB. I'm figuring to only use about 2.4TB (80%) in case some needs to be added or moved. How much do you allow free space on your backup drives? Are you using the Pro edition of Teracopy, is it worth the money? BTW, Thanks for all the help! I use the free version of Teracopy. And I fill my backup drives up -- when there's less than a DVD's worth of space left I consider it full and start a new one.
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