Getting my feet wet wrt. snapshots and replication to “Backup/Secondary NAS”
I made my first “manual” dataprotection → Replication task yesterday.
Replicating my linux server dataset on my primary nas to my secondary nas.
2.8TB taking approx 8hr. The snapshot was named manual-%…
Now i would like to “automate” my snapshot and replication.
Background:
Due to energy costs i’ll use the NAS’es as pure backup boxes, turning them on once a week (sunday around dinner time).
Primary NAS will rsync pull data from select sources, and save them in my Rust-Pool1/Backup/ dataset.
It’s a “Home setup” , so for now we’re talking about 2…5 servers, each have their own Backup/ dataset.
I did watch the STUX Tiered Snapshot YT video, but i have a different “setup”, where minutes/hour/daily will not make sense.
Goal:
To make weekly snapshots of my server datasets, and xfer “select” server DS snapshots to my Backup-NAS (Backup have approx half the space of primary).
Initial snapshot retention “two month / 4 weekly”
Plan:
1: Rsync pull linux (per) server data via “own CLI rsync job” - GUI seems too restrictive
2: Create per server dataset snapshots - named --%… - This naming would hopefully make pruning not clash with other snapshots ???
3: Replicate select server datasets to the backup nas.
Q1:
I expect step 2 & 3 is a per server (dataset) job.
Would it be smarter to make a “replicate to backup” sub-dataset in Backup, and put the servers to replicate to the backup nas there. That would mean less flexibility (ie. different retention) , but just two jobs. Remember it’s a home solution so i expect a limited amount of servers.
Q2:
When do i Scrub ?
Before or after the rsync pull from the servers ?
Q3:
Do i have to adjust the scrub cronjob times ?
I suppose 00 00 * * 7 - Mean “Sat–> Sun” Transition , the NAS isn’t powered on there.
Q4:
Would it be more feasible to have the NAS turned on ie. Sat @23:30 , in order to run the “internal default jobs”
Are there any “hidden internal jobs” that would be affected by a “just weekly schedule”
Q5:
The snapshots i (replication task) have taken for now, are apparently set to never expire.
If i make a new automated snapshot with retention and replicate it to the backup nas (same DS name). Can i then remove the “Initial no expire” snapshot, and the snapshot data will still be there (it was an 8h xfer) ?
I would expect that the snapshot data is bound to the dataset , and not to the snapshot name … ???
Q6:
By prefixing the snapshots with a “function oriented name”, i’m avoiding the “zettarepl” purge to match other prefixes … Correct ?
Q7:
On one of my replication tasks i now see a possibility to chose a periodic snapshot task , i suppose as “trigger”
I don’t think i saw it , when initially making the repl. task …
What’s the pre-req for that line showing up ??
TIA
Bingo