NASLite Network Attached Storage

Hiya,
Just wondered if you may be able to help, I'm a little confused on backing up, could my set up be made more simple?

I've my main pc with it's original HDD which has the OS on, program files, and day to day files. It also has a 500GB that stores pics and music. Now and then I back up the day to day files on to the internal 500GB, using Robocopy.

I then mirror my main pc's internal 500GB to an external firewire 500GB, using Robocopy (connected to the main pc). I do have a problem with recycler and system volume information not wanting to stay deleted, but get round them being a pain by excluding them on the mirror, and let them be.

I then mirror my main pc's internal 500GB to my Naslite-2 pc that is very old, it has its original 8MB HDD with Naslite on, and a 500GB HDD for storage. Once again I use Robocopy. It's been a good few years since my Naslite has been actually switched on tut tut tut amazed at how time flys. Robocopy seems to allow something to happen that does not permit the extra files that are on the nas to be deleted...

I've been reading the naslite instructions and found the bit about mirroring from a pc HDD on the network to a nas HDD, which I think I will investigate further, hopefully avoiding the 'no access' can't delete the extra files thing.

So, if I can set naslite up to mirror my main pc's 500GB, that would be fab. Is there any way to, also, set the nas to mirror the main pc's 500GB to the firewire HDD conected to the main pc?

I hope the above is reasonably clear....

Many thanks for any thoughts,
Cheers
DC

Ah, just worked out that to mirror a remote HDD, the HDD needs to be on another naslite computer, and can't be any HDD on the network.....
Is this right?

I'm not sure whether the remote needs to be NL, but at least be attached to something Linux; Windows won't work. So, basically, yes, you're right.

Thanks for the confirmation, yes other machines are XP.

As I seem to be having problems with robocopy somehow not being able to delete extra files on my nas when mirroring, do you know of any other back up program that maybe able to do the job with out me having to know too much, and yet also get rid of the recycler and system volume information at the same time?

Much appreciate any thoughts,
Cheers
DC

Personally ... for Windows, I use Norton Ghost to make daily incremental (& full monthly) backups to a second local (windows) HDD. You can then copy the NG image files to any network (or external) drive. NG might better handle the problem with those pesky files than RoboCopy. You could keep RoboCopy to copy the NG images to NL.

If I need to restore something I use NG's built-in facility that allows you to mount the images. The copy on NL is for redundancy. NG is not free, but has worked for me relatively problem free for a long time. Now using Win7; used an earlier NG under early WinXP versions too. The $ spent is worth having the data safeguarded. And I have used the full monthly NG backup images to restore a complete C: drive (more than once in 6 years).

Thanks for the tip, I have been reading that NG is quite will regarded. Hope you don't mind a question or two..

-Will it back up only the folders that I want, and leave everything else, or is it a complete disc mirror?
Mainly I want the data backed up from d: (music and pics) not really fussed about c: (progs and OS) if c: does go, I think a format and re install may well speed things up a bit.

-You mention about keeping Robocopy to back up the NG image to naslite, does that mean to say NG can't talk / image to naslite?

Thanks for your time and recommendation
DC

NG is really more of an entire disk imaging ... but to tell you the thruth, I have not investigated all of it's features carefully. So typically, I want the whole disk backed up anyway, and it does it with one large full image each month (or when I schedule it), plus daily (or when I schedule them) small incrementals.

It might (or probably) be able to just backup folders. But that's not something I've checked.

If I want to retrieve something ... I like the feature where you mount the image as if it was a virtual read-only disk drive. You can browse it and pull files off of there at your leisure.

Reason to keep Robocopy: for highest data integrity I don't trust NG to place the image directly over the network onto NL. That's in part not because I think NG can't be trusted, but Windows can get flaky accessing network drives and the hardware (possible Network hiccups). And it's slower -- NG does the imaging while the PC is up and running normally. So I find it safer to store a local image copy, then later (when I remember) I manually copy to NL. I used to have a script that automates that last step on WinXP, but that failed under Win7 and I've been too lazy to resurrect that feature. RoboCopy will help you do that, I'm sure.

I very much appreciate your comments, thank you.

I'll investigate NG a bit more then, good to know you can pull off a file if you need it. Mind you its the local backing up that is not really the problem, across the network is where the no access to delete extra files occurs, maybe I'll investigate both NG and Robo a bit more.

I don't trust my pc 100%, due to having been bitten a number of times, I always have to check manually that the new info is there backed up and I can open it and see it

Thanks for your comments, once again, I find them useful.
Cheers
DC

With NG you avoid that problem, because the "backing up" does not result in file-by-file copy across the network. Instead, NG executes locally (under Windows) on each and all of the desired files, compresses (and encrypts with password if you want) to a single image file, then writes (and grows) it locally or across the network. The pesky file permissions on remote files don't get in the way.

Glad to help

Ah ha, now that sounds like NG may well be worth an investement.

So in theory, I could leave NG to mirror one internal XP disc to a local external firewire HDD and also across my network to my NL machine. Two copies of one important disc, Sounds like there is a plan.

I do like the idea of pulling off a file to check it is really there

I don't suppose you know if the image file can be left uncompressed, I don't want to loose any bits of my audio files

Wonderfull to have your help!!
Many Thanks Again
DC

Usually compression will only work with compressible files like text etc. It will not compress your audio files since they are not in a format that NG is setup to compress.

Mike

Actually ... the NG compression may or may not be applied to the music files. But that's really not germane (pertinent, applicable, makes no difference). Because you can't access the music file directly anyway. NG takes an entire folder or harddisk and compresses all of it into an image file using its own compression method. When extracting a file from the image (or when restoring an entire folder or disk) NG works the compression algorithm in reverse to reproduce the original file(s)/folder/disk content. NG does not care what format those files are/were.

So no worries about data loss due to compression.

But ... the NG image is not really a "mirror" of your existing disk that is easily accessed in real-time (like a complete duplicate or mirror (RAID) is expected to be). It's more of a backup. And if your original data is destroyed you need to go thru the steps of restoring the data. That might mean restoring a single file or an entire folder, or in the case of HDD failure, the entire disk onto the replacement media.

You make my point again regarding the compression. It will apply it to the parts of the file where it's compression will work and skip over the likes of music and video files. In the case of music compressed into MP3s which are part of the MPEG standard that works on audio, MPEG1 Layer3 specifically, these have already been compressed and so little or no compression will be possible except for the header info which is plain text. In the case of most video, again likely some form of MPEG, the compression has already been applied and so there will be nothing for NG to do but pass the files into the image unchanged. Compression only works on compressible information. Since NGs compression is designed to work with mainly text based information it will not really effect audio and video files or the like.

It is a good way to create images of disks for backup or re-imaging computers, allot of IT departments use it every day for just that. The GF is an IT person and she did it day in and day out with no hitches.

Mike

Good to know these bits of information, thank you for chatting.

My music files are all large files, same information that is on the original CD, with no compression applied, so I may guess they are easily compressed, and NG may well like to compress them...

Thanks for explaining the image thing a bit more, as I am quite used to pulling off or reading a file directly, depending what machine is on. I do now see the difference between the two ways of backing up, mirror and image.

NG makes perfect sence for a normal backup system, not sure if I fall within that field, I think I will try and work out the tricky bits with Robocopy, and have also have a bit more of a read up on NG. I may will rethink how I use the discs and NG is there as an option

Wonderfull to hear from people with experience rather than a shop saying yes yes yes it will do exactly what you want.

Many Thanks once again,
DC

I could be wrong but I don't think that NG has the proper compression algorithm to deal with PCM data. For sure it doesn't have it for compressing video files or transcoding them.

Mike