Ensure certain files exist on all drives in array?

[Karyudo]

Is there an OS setting or Docker or plugin that can make sure a copy of certain folders or files is written to every drive in the array, for some extra redundancy?

 

I had a healthy drive experience some as-yet-unsolved BTRFS corruption, and until I get that sorted and see what is/was actually on that drive, I'm going to wonder if there was some personal data that existed there but nowhere else. It would be nice if I could specify that numerous copies of some files or folders should exist on all (or at least "several") physical drives, so no matter what happens, there's always a complete set of files available, without having to rely on a successful rebuild of a drive from parity.

 

Does such a feature exist anywhere in the unRAID-sphere?

Edited December 15, 2019 by Karyudo

[Karyudo]

No replies at all, huh? Should this be in a different forum area? If so, which one?

[itimpi]

There is no such feature in Unraid     
 

the commonest need along these lines is to back up appdata files from the cache to the array.    You can use the CA Backup plugin to automate this.    There is also a plugin that can do a similar thing for VM vdisks.    Anything beyond that you will have to do for yourself.

[JonathanM]

<shrug> This area is fine.

 

No, this is not a feature. You can do it manually, with scripting to make it happen on schedule, but it will require that you educate yourself on how user shares function, and how not to mess things up copying to and from places on the array.

 

Normally it's frowned upon to keep all your backups live on the same machine you are backing up, typically you would want them on drives in another physical location, separated as much as is practical.

 

If you have that much free space on the array, maybe you should remove some drives and use them for a normal backup, as it would be much safer.

[trurl]

5 minutes ago, jonathanm said:

Normally it's frowned upon to keep all your backups live on the same machine you are backing up, typically you would want them on drives in another physical location, separated as much as is practical.

 

If you have that much free space on the array, maybe you should remove some drives and use them for a normal backup, as it would be much safer.

^THIS

 

You must always have another copy of anything important and irreplaceable. Lots of ways to lose data besides disk failure or corruption, user error being a common one.

 

You don't have to backup everything. I don't consider a lot of things on my server important enough to backup. I have 2 copies of important and irreplaceable offsite.

 

You get to decide what is important enough to you.