seeking advice for best practices for backups and quick recovery

[limawaken]

hi guys!

 

what should I do to ensure that my server can be quickly restored and my data recovered in the event of failure?

 

i have 1 parity disk, 1 SSD cache disk and 9 data disks of various size and ages.

among other things i have pfsense running as a vm and unifi controller as a docker, so if unraid goes down so does my internet connectivity (and my life).

appdata, vm and docker images all on cache disk.

 

 

i hope there are some good ideas, because i'm starting to think it was big mistake to have a pfsense vm in unraid because anytime i need to stop the array the internet goes down.

 

1) cache disk

how do you backup your cache disk? is it just as simple as copying everything in the cache share? this will save all my vms right?

is adding another cache disk a good option for cache disk backup?

i want to be able to startup unraid and vms and dockers as quickly as possible, without having to reinstall or reconfigure anything first.

what tools or plugins would be good for this?

 

2) data disks

i figure that having a backup solution for my disks would be better than having dual parity disks.

if 2 disks failed at the same time, only the data for the 2 disks would be gone and parity would no longer be valid, right?

if i have backups of the disk shares, i would replace both disks and just copy the backup of the disk shares back to the disks.

having backups is also better in case a file is accidentally deleted or overwritten.

what tool or plugin would be good for doing this? i suppose that the backup target would best be another unraid server.

 

3) flash disk

i actually have 2 unraid licenses. can i clone my current flash drive to my backup flash drive so that if my current one dies, i can just plug in my backup and go?

is there a tool that does the backup automatically? so i can leave the backup flash drive plugged in to unraid for automatic backup, and its right there if i ever need it.

 

 

thanks guys!

 

[JonathanM]

3 hours ago, limawaken said:

among other things i have pfsense running as a vm and unifi controller as a docker, so if unraid goes down so does my internet connectivity (and my life).

I recommend keeping a hardware pfsense box or even just a plain old router preconfigured to power up and put in place to keep the internet live. Unifi doesn't need to be running for normal wifi, so all you need is a router, pretty much any old pc with a pcie and onboard ethernet can be a backup pfsense box.

 

3 hours ago, limawaken said:

how do you backup your cache disk?

I don't. I use CA appdata backup plugin for container appdata, and VM's are backed up with guest native backup software. The destination for those backups is an unraid box at another physical location.

 

3 hours ago, limawaken said:

i figure that having a backup solution for my disks would be better than having dual parity disks.

Definitely. How that is accomplished can be addressed so many different ways, discussed in multiple locations on this forum.

3 hours ago, limawaken said:

i actually have 2 unraid licenses. can i clone my current flash drive to my backup flash drive so that if my current one dies, i can just plug in my backup and go?

Yes and no. The config folder holds everything needed, but you have to keep the license key file with the physical stick. Backing it up is semi manual for now, hopefully there will be an automatic solution soon. For now, you click on the word flash on the main tab of the GUI, and click "flash backup".

[limawaken]

7 hours ago, jonathanm said:

VM's are backed up with guest native backup software

I’m sorry for my noobness, does this mean a backup software that is installed on the vm itself? Or is it something like veeam which does entire vm backups but runs on another server? Can veeam be configured to backup unraid vms, by the way? Like how it connects to a VMware server then we just select the vms that we want to backup. 

 

7 hours ago, jonathanm said:

you have to keep the license key file with the physical stick

Ok this I understand. I think I can figure this one out.

 

i was kinda thinking of something like having another unraid server, then just installing some backup solution apps or dockers or maybe VMs on it. Then setting them up to backup the disk shares (like the flash share, cache share, disk1, disk2, etc.) of my first unraid server.

does that make sense? Would the flash and cache backups be complete enough to quickly rebuild a faulty flash drive or cache disk?

[JonathanM]

47 minutes ago, limawaken said:

backup software that is installed on the vm itself

Yep. I currently use the built in windows backup on my token microsoft VM, and urBackup on my linux VM's and the windows VM as well. All pointed to shares on an Unraid box.

52 minutes ago, limawaken said:

Would the flash and cache backups be complete enough to quickly rebuild a faulty flash drive or cache disk?

Flash backup is done as I described earlier, cache is much more complicated. Open files are difficult to back up reliably, and most people use their cache drive as a spot for things that keep files open. That's why I use the appdata backup plugin and internally back up my VM's.

[sota]

On 6/5/2020 at 2:08 PM, jonathanm said:

I recommend keeping a hardware pfsense box or even just a plain old router preconfigured to power up and put in place to keep the internet live. Unifi doesn't need to be running for normal wifi, so all you need is a router, pretty much any old pc with a pcie and onboard ethernet can be a backup pfsense box.

 

I keep an old Linksys wireless router configured in a box for this exact reason.  I mean, who doesn't have a couple of them still lying around as it is?   It's just enough to get me back online to start searching for repair options/instructions of all hell breaks loose.