[BackupPC-users] Best NAS device to run BackupPC ?

Hi Laurent,

I have installed BackupPC on my very low-cost Synology DS110j. My device
is running DSM 3.0 and optware perl.

Installation was not easy at all and I think it will be the same on
other Synology devices.

Performance is also rather poor since my NAS has 128MB of RAM and very
little processor ;) You can forget about pool compression and more then
two simultaneous backups.

Despite that I'm very satisfied with this setup because I have 24 hours
for doing my backups and performance is not an issue. Device is small,
quiet and low power consuming.

Tom.

Post by l***@microworld.org
Hello backuppc-users,
I would like to backup all the machines of my company (12 laptops,
Windows/Mac/Linux) in a centralized way on a NAS device.
I like a lot BackupPC and if possible I would like to use it to run the
backups.
Now comes the choice of the NAS... What NAS device would you recommend
with a good ratio "performance / easy to install BackupPC on it" ?
The ideal situation would be a NAS with BackupPC pre-installed - or a
NAS with some available BackupPC packages ready to deploy.
I looked at Synology / QNap / WD Sharespace but in each case the install
of BackupPC seems tedious, and I'm not sure of the performances I will
get on such devices...
Thanks for your advices and your help
---
Laurent
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l***@microworld.org

2011-05-17 16:44:48 UTC

Thanks Tomasz,

I am not too afraid by the installation issues - even though I would prefer
something working out-of-the-box (or not far from that).

I am more afraid by the performance problems - and I wonder how it would
work on a more recent system. We have a lot of data, and it would be good to
have a reasonably fast system.

---
Laurent

Post by Tomasz Pawlik
Hi Laurent,
I have installed BackupPC on my very low-cost Synology DS110j. My device
is running DSM 3.0 and optware perl.
Installation was not easy at all and I think it will be the same on
other Synology devices.
Performance is also rather poor since my NAS has 128MB of RAM and very
little processor ;) You can forget about pool compression and more then
two simultaneous backups.
Despite that I'm very satisfied with this setup because I have 24 hours
for doing my backups and performance is not an issue. Device is small,
quiet and low power consuming.
Tom.

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Tomasz Pawlik

2011-05-18 07:56:48 UTC

In case of performance there could be other point of view. Everyone lay
stress on fast backups but for me performance is not a goal.

In my company there are many laptops (all windows) so I don't have time
for backing up after hours. Furthermore great speed of BackupPC server
comes with great client load. People are complaining and sometimes it is
hard to explain that there is no need to reinstall windows because
backup slows computer down.

So I use combination of VSS (Shadow Copy) and slow backups in
background. In such case and relatively small number of clients there is
no need for very fast processor and maybe some NAS device will suits you
just fine.

Tom.

Post by l***@microworld.org
Thanks Tomasz,
I am not too afraid by the installation issues - even though I would
prefer something working out-of-the-box (or not far from that).
I am more afraid by the performance problems - and I wonder how it would
work on a more recent system. We have a lot of data, and it would be
good to have a reasonably fast system.
---
Laurent
Hi Laurent,
I have installed BackupPC on my very low-cost Synology DS110j. My device
is running DSM 3.0 and optware perl.
Installation was not easy at all and I think it will be the same on
other Synology devices.
Performance is also rather poor since my NAS has 128MB of RAM and very
little processor ;) You can forget about pool compression and more then
two simultaneous backups.
Despite that I'm very satisfied with this setup because I have 24 hours
for doing my backups and performance is not an issue. Device is small,
quiet and low power consuming.
Tom.

run the

Post by l***@microworld.org
backups.
Now comes the choice of the NAS... What NAS device would you recommend
with a good ratio "performance / easy to install BackupPC on it" ?
The ideal situation would be a NAS with BackupPC pre-installed - or a
NAS with some available BackupPC packages ready to deploy.
I looked at Synology / QNap / WD Sharespace but in each case the

install

Post by l***@microworld.org
of BackupPC seems tedious, and I'm not sure of the performances I will
get on such devices...
Thanks for your advices and your help
---
Laurent

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Timothy J Massey

2011-05-17 15:25:12 UTC

Post by l***@microworld.org
Now comes the choice of the NAS... What NAS device would you
recommend with a good ratio "performance / easy to install BackupPC on

it" ?

Post by l***@microworld.org
The ideal situation would be a NAS with BackupPC pre-installed - or
a NAS with some available BackupPC packages ready to deploy.

Such a device does not exist.

Post by l***@microworld.org
I looked at Synology / QNap / WD Sharespace but in each case the
install of BackupPC seems tedious, and I'm not sure of the
performances I will get on such devices...

It is tedious, and the performance will not be great. BackupPC is
somewhat CPU intensive. I run it on VIA 1.2-1.5GHz based systems, and I'm
somewhat CPU limited. (But I only use a single internal drive, so more
CPU would not help much.)

I've toyed with the idea of putting BackupPC directly on an Iomega
ix4-200d, but given the difficulties, I haven't yet tried. That, and when
you add the idea of an external hard drive (for archives, not the pool),
the pretty form-factor of the NAS just gets ruined by a hard drive
dangling off the side, so why bother?

One option for using a NAS is to use a standard PC in front of it and
mount the NAS via iSCSI (**NOT** NFS!!!) and use the NAS' storage that
way. That will give you the best results: many have tried to use pools
mounted via NFS, and few (none?) have succeeded. BackupPC is pretty hard
on filesystems, and NFS is fragile.

Timothy J. Massey

Out of the Box Solutions, Inc.
Creative IT Solutions Made Simple!
http://www.OutOfTheBoxSolutions.com
***@obscorp.com

22108 Harper Ave.
St. Clair Shores, MI 48080
Office: (800)750-4OBS (4627)
Cell: (586)945-8796

Carl Wilhelm Soderstrom

2011-05-17 15:40:14 UTC

Post by Timothy J Massey
One option for using a NAS is to use a standard PC in front of it and
mount the NAS via iSCSI (**NOT** NFS!!!) and use the NAS' storage that
way. That will give you the best results: many have tried to use pools
mounted via NFS, and few (none?) have succeeded. BackupPC is pretty hard
on filesystems, and NFS is fragile.

I've put the data pool on a firewire attachment to a DRobo NAS. It does
drive up load substantially as the system waits on I/O from the remote
device.

--
Carl Soderstrom
Systems Administrator
Real-Time Enterprises
www.real-time.com

Timothy J Massey

2011-05-17 15:48:05 UTC

I've put the data pool on a firewire attachment to a DRobo NAS. It does
drive up load substantially as the system waits on I/O from the remote
device.

Tomato, tomaahto... :)

The point was basically "any block-level attachment (except maybe USB)".
The problem comes from NFS' poor handling of the zillions of hard links
that BackupPC wants to use.

iSCSO/eSATA/Firewire are all block-level protocols. NFS/SMB are
file-level protocols. It's the file-level protocols that either wont'
work at all (SMB) or work very poorly (NFS). If the system is given a
block device it can format with something sane (EXT2/4/XFS/JFS) then
you'll be just fine, modulo the performance of the connection between the
computer and the device.

Timothy J. Massey

Out of the Box Solutions, Inc.
Creative IT Solutions Made Simple!
http://www.OutOfTheBoxSolutions.com
***@obscorp.com

22108 Harper Ave.
St. Clair Shores, MI 48080
Office: (800)750-4OBS (4627)
Cell: (586)945-8796

Jeffrey J. Kosowsky

2011-05-17 17:11:16 UTC

Post by Timothy J Massey
The point was basically "any block-level attachment (except maybe USB)".
The problem comes from NFS' poor handling of the zillions of hard links
that BackupPC wants to use.

I haven't noticed any NFS problems due to hard links.
I get approximately the same speed of transfer operations when I am
reading/writing regular file or massively hard-linked ones.

In my experience, the issue with hard links (e.g., rsync copying of
the pool) has nothing to do with NFS (or any file system for that
matter).

Do you have any data supporting your claim that NFS suffers more than
other filesystems with massive hard links?

Again, the only issue I have with NFS is that it is relatively slow
when accessing large numbers of small files due to the protocol
overhead. But even so, it is quite workable even on a 100MHz ethernet.

Timothy J Massey

2011-05-17 18:00:43 UTC

Post by Jeffrey J. Kosowsky
I haven't noticed any NFS problems due to hard links.
I get approximately the same speed of transfer operations when I am
reading/writing regular file or massively hard-linked ones.
In my experience, the issue with hard links (e.g., rsync copying of
the pool) has nothing to do with NFS (or any file system for that
matter).
Do you have any data supporting your claim that NFS suffers more than
other filesystems with massive hard links?
Again, the only issue I have with NFS is that it is relatively slow
when accessing large numbers of small files due to the protocol
overhead. But even so, it is quite workable even on a 100MHz ethernet.

Woah! I take it all back! Feel free to use NFS: go nuts. Is NFS' honor
now sufficiently defended?!?

Do I have "data"? Like a peer-reviewed paper presented at a prestigious
conference? No. Like everyone else, I have anecdotes, and I know that
the plural of anecdote is not data.

However, I've got about 15 years of hard-fought experience that tells me
that there are too many corner-cases that makes NFS in this application
a... challenging choice.

Throw in the fact that in 98% of the time (and no, I have no "data" for
that statistic, either), when someone says "NAS" they mean "extremely
low-end NAS", and a device designed with the realization that 98% of the
time it will be accessed via SMB *exclusively*. For such a device, NFS
support is *merely* a checkbox. I've worked with 4 or 5 brands of these
things, and *EVERY* one of them has had *some* sort of weridness with NFS:
permissions, extended attributes, whatever.

For those willing to compile their own Linux kernel or build their own
distribution for an embedded device these are probably not limitations:
'tis just a flesh wound. For most everyone else, it's often not something
you want to fight through for a device that is designed to protect their
data against disaster...

But like I said, go nuts with NFS. And if it works, great.

Timothy J. Massey

Out of the Box Solutions, Inc.
Creative IT Solutions Made Simple!
http://www.OutOfTheBoxSolutions.com
***@obscorp.com

22108 Harper Ave.
St. Clair Shores, MI 48080
Office: (800)750-4OBS (4627)
Cell: (586)945-8796

Jeffrey J. Kosowsky

2011-05-18 06:41:15 UTC

Post by Timothy J Massey

Woah! I take it all back! Feel free to use NFS: go nuts. Is NFS' honor
now sufficiently defended?!?

<lots hyperbole and other stuff snipped>

Woah Woah Woah :)

I never claimed NFS was particularly fast or better than other
solutions -- I was just addressing your seemingly unsupported blanket
statement that you didn't think anyone had gotten BackupPC to work
with NFS and that NFS suffers particularly badly from hard links --
because the fact is that rightly or wrongly *many* people actually do
run BackupPC over NFS and it works just fine as long as you have a
non-buggy NFS driver.

Furthermore, I am not aware of any "corner cases" (as you call them)
that would cause BackupPC over NFS to fail in any unexpected way and I
have not experienced any issue with hard links.

So I merely asked whether you have data to support your blanket
assertions -- I was not claiming that NFS is any better (or worse)
than other similar situations -- in fact, I readily admit that there
are other network based filesystems that are likely to be superior.

I would be interested in any data or even anecdotes you have to back
up your assertions about NFS being buggy or unworkable for BackupPC --
otherwise, let's end this thread...

Holger Parplies

2011-05-18 14:33:29 UTC

Hi,

Post by Jeffrey J. Kosowsky
[...]
let's end this thread...

great idea, I second that!

Timothy's point, as I understand it, was that if you *do* have buggy NFS
implementations, you have the choice of either putting time into fixing that
or putting time into implementing a different option (iSCSI, ATAoE), and that
not everyone enjoys the challenge of hacking a proprietary NAS device. You
do, and that's fine. I wouldn't, but I spend time on other topics where I
*know* there's a simple solution or workaround readily available, but I
prefer to go the complicated way - just for fun or for good reasons.

Your experience seems to indicate that NAS devices occasionally *do* have
buggy NFS implementations and other pitfalls, right? ;-)

I believe many if not all options have been pointed out, so let's either find
something we *really* disagree on or move on ...

Regards,
Holger

Les Mikesell

2011-05-17 16:20:12 UTC

Is there some reason for using a NAS? The only real win would probably
be power consumption compared to slapping some big drives in an older PC.

--
Les Mikesell
***@gmail.com

l***@microworld.org

2011-05-17 17:11:42 UTC

The interest of a NAS is that it provides a strong RAID system with a
lightweight Linux system on top - and this at a reasonable price.
If you want a good RAID system on a standard server/desktop it becomes
really more expensive (as RAID systems are generally not in the default
configuration).

The drawbacks of NAS is that the CPU is usually quite weak (not enough for
BackupPC ?) - and also that they don't have a standard Linux distrib, so you
may not be able to apply Debian packages or RPMs...
---
Laurent

Is there some reason for using a NAS? The only real win would probably
be power consumption compared to slapping some big drives in an older PC.
--
Les Mikesell
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Les Mikesell

2011-05-17 17:33:15 UTC

Post by l***@microworld.org
The interest of a NAS is that it provides a strong RAID system with a
lightweight Linux system on top - and this at a reasonable price.
If you want a good RAID system on a standard server/desktop it becomes
really more expensive (as RAID systems are generally not in the default
configuration).

Run linux software raid - which is probably what the low-end NAS boxes
do anyway. Raid1 or 10 have little overhead - just avoid raid5.

Post by l***@microworld.org
The drawbacks of NAS is that the CPU is usually quite weak (not enough
for BackupPC ?) - and also that they don't have a standard Linux
distrib, so you may not be able to apply Debian packages or RPMs...

--
Les Mikesell
***@gmail.com

l***@microworld.org

2011-05-17 17:54:11 UTC

Great thread guys,

I think you convinced me to try to avoid the NAS solution and get a standard
Linux box instead with several disks.

Appreciated,
---
Laurent

Run linux software raid - which is probably what the low-end NAS boxes
do anyway. Raid1 or 10 have little overhead - just avoid raid5.

Plus you are stuck with whatever software they happen to run whether you
like it or not. One thing I'd recommend that will add some complexity
on a PC though, is putting the system on its own disk (or raid set) with
the backuppc archive on a separate set. You don't absolutely have to do
that but it will make life easier later when you want to separately
update/change the OS, move to a different box, or swap in larger drives.
--
Les Mikesell
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Timothy J Massey

2011-05-17 18:05:57 UTC

Post by l***@microworld.org
The interest of a NAS is that it provides a strong RAID system with
a lightweight Linux system on top - and this at a reasonable price.

Yeah... No. No it does not. It provides *EXACTLY* the same RAID system
that you can get with *any* old Linux system.

It may include a very attractive package: I love the size and shape of,
say, the Iomega ix4-200d. But all its got is a very standard SATA
interface and MD for RAID. Just like *EVERY* Linux distribution in the
last decade or so.

Post by l***@microworld.org
If you want a good RAID system on a standard server/desktop it
becomes really more expensive (as RAID systems are generally not in
the default configuration).

They are just as "in the default configuration" as that NAS device.

Low-end NAS devices offer nothing outside of packaging and turn-key
operation FOR THE SOFTWARE THEY INCLUDE. Everthing else is just one sharp
corner after another.

Timothy J. Massey

Out of the Box Solutions, Inc.
Creative IT Solutions Made Simple!
http://www.OutOfTheBoxSolutions.com
***@obscorp.com

22108 Harper Ave.
St. Clair Shores, MI 48080
Office: (800)750-4OBS (4627)
Cell: (586)945-8796

Carl Wilhelm Soderstrom

2011-05-17 19:06:33 UTC

Post by Timothy J Massey

Post by l***@microworld.org
The interest of a NAS is that it provides a strong RAID system with
a lightweight Linux system on top - and this at a reasonable price.

Yeah... No. No it does not. It provides *EXACTLY* the same RAID system
that you can get with *any* old Linux system.

Probably not even as good as you can put together yourself.

My advice is to get a 3ware RAID card and whatever disks you like for it.
There's some sharp corners on the management interface; but at least it
*has* a management interface that's consistent and sensible compared to the
Dell crap I've had to suffer through (on the occasions I could get it to
work).

Admittedly I work on machines that are usually 1000+ miles away, so the
quality of the management interface is very important to me. However, if you
can't manage your devices, they aren't much good to you.

Also, the 3ware driver has been built into the kernel for years. Support is
very solid.

--
Carl Soderstrom
Systems Administrator
Real-Time Enterprises
www.real-time.com

Les Mikesell

2011-05-17 19:30:55 UTC

Post by Timothy J Massey

Post by l***@microworld.org
The interest of a NAS is that it provides a strong RAID system with
a lightweight Linux system on top - and this at a reasonable price.

Yeah... No. No it does not. It provides *EXACTLY* the same RAID system
that you can get with *any* old Linux system.

That's good advice for large arrays or more complex raid levels, but
with the current price of disks it is pretty hard to justify compared to
simple mirroring. And I've always liked the fact that in the case of
software raid1 you can recover the data from any single disk connected
to any physically compatible interface even if that's all that is left
of the original setup.

--
Les Mikesell
***@gmail.com

Carl Wilhelm Soderstrom

2011-05-17 20:02:37 UTC

Post by Carl Wilhelm Soderstrom
My advice is to get a 3ware RAID card and whatever disks you like for it.
There's some sharp corners on the management interface; but at least it
*has* a management interface that's consistent and sensible compared to the
Dell crap I've had to suffer through (on the occasions I could get it to
work).

I found it to be a lot easier to deal with booting off a 3ware controller
than to reliably get redundant boot records on software RAID. That's the
main reason I prefer a hardware RAID controller.

As always, YMMV, and it's good to have choices and options.

--
Carl Soderstrom
Systems Administrator
Real-Time Enterprises
www.real-time.com

Les Mikesell

2011-05-17 20:21:13 UTC

I found it to be a lot easier to deal with booting off a 3ware controller
than to reliably get redundant boot records on software RAID. That's the
main reason I prefer a hardware RAID controller.
As always, YMMV, and it's good to have choices and options.

Working remotely, that makes sense - getting the grub setup right
depends on how bios handles the 2nd disk when the primary is dead. If
you have hands-on you can always boot a rescue disk and fix it.

--
Les Mikesell
***@gmail.com

Jeffrey J. Kosowsky

2011-05-18 06:45:22 UTC

I found it to be a lot easier to deal with booting off a 3ware controller
than to reliably get redundant boot records on software RAID. That's the
main reason I prefer a hardware RAID controller.
As always, YMMV, and it's good to have choices and options.

True...
But I was under the impression that for smaller systems one is better
off with software RAID since with hardware RAID if your card dies then
you may be stuck with a proprietary inaccessible RAID unless you can
find another similar hardware RAID card...

Tyler J. Wagner

2011-05-18 08:37:39 UTC

Post by Jeffrey J. Kosowsky

Post by Carl Wilhelm Soderstrom
I found it to be a lot easier to deal with booting off a 3ware controller
than to reliably get redundant boot records on software RAID. That's the
main reason I prefer a hardware RAID controller.

But I was under the impression that for smaller systems one is better
off with software RAID since with hardware RAID if your card dies then
you may be stuck with a proprietary inaccessible RAID unless you can
find another similar hardware RAID card...

I run five BackupPC servers, each archiving from 7 to 70 hosts. Two of
them run on 3ware RAID, two of them using Linux software raid (md raid),
and one uses no RAID at all. I've had no trouble getting any of them to
boot, moving disks between them, or recovering.

Yes, you would need another 3ware card handy if you had to recover disks
from another 3ware-based system. If you're serious about your backups
you have a standby backup server anyway, with the same specs.

mdadm is fine, stable, and fast enough for most needs. Even on your boot
device. I've even written a guide for moving your boot device from no
raid to software raid (not BackupPC specific):

http://www.tolaris.com/2008/10/01/moving-your-linux-root-partition-to-raid/

Regards,
Tyler

--
"It seems logical to me that he who supports total war in principle
cannot complain of war against civilians."
-- Fr. John A. Siemes

Carl Wilhelm Soderstrom

2011-05-18 12:04:31 UTC

Post by Jeffrey J. Kosowsky
But I was under the impression that for smaller systems one is better
off with software RAID since with hardware RAID if your card dies then
you may be stuck with a proprietary inaccessible RAID unless you can
find another similar hardware RAID card...

There are always tradeoffs. :)
3ware cards aren't hard to come by. Administrator time is. (These of course
are relative statements and YMMV).

If you have the hardware within kicking range you have a different set of
problems than I do (most of my backuppc instances are effectively 'lights
out' operations).

--
Carl Soderstrom
Systems Administrator
Real-Time Enterprises
www.real-time.com

Jeffrey J. Kosowsky

2011-05-17 17:16:12 UTC

Is there some reason for using a NAS? The only real win would probably
be power consumption compared to slapping some big drives in an older PC.

Agreed.
Though I use an NAS and plugcomputer partly just for the fun of it :)
Another advantage of a NAS (or plugcomputer) may be it's size...

Jeffrey J. Kosowsky

2011-05-17 16:45:21 UTC

Post by Timothy J Massey
many have tried to use pools
mounted via NFS, and few (none?) have succeeded. BackupPC is pretty hard
on filesystems, and NFS is fragile.

Not sure where you got that "data" from. I have been using NFS for 3
years to mount a *very* low end DNS-323. The NFS part has been rock
stable (though initially I had some issues due to bugs in the old
2.6.12 linux kernel running on the NAS)

I believe several other people run NFS successfully too at least based
on my reading of this list.

Also NFS has been tried & true for decades and was stable even back in
the "old" pre-pc days...

Now I am not saying that there aren't newer or maybe even
better/faster etc. solutions but your statement on NFS for backuppc is
just not based in fact.

Erik Hjertén

2011-05-17 15:47:40 UTC

I use the small and simple Netgear Readynas Duo with backuppc running on
my Ubuntu server. I went with this solution as I thought it would be
easy and problem free. If I was to do it today I would have gone with a
dedicated Lunux-server with backuppc on it and no NAS at all. With a
simple NAS as I have you will get tied down with limitations on
different things. (One irritation with my NAS is that it wonŽt power up
after a power failure) Maybe a larger and more robust NAS will have less
limitations but will also cost more.

So, why the NAS? Have you considered a dedicated server instead? It will
perhaps be harder to setup but you will get all the help you need from
the Linux/Unix community and here.

Kind regards
/Erik

Post by l***@microworld.org
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Phil K.

2011-05-17 17:02:00 UTC

I can say with a great deal of certainty what device you can avoid. The western digital sharespace line of NAS devices appear to have a bug in their NFS implimentation that prevents the filesystem from correctly handling hardlinks. I spent several weeks off and on trying to figure out how I screwed up my pool copy or my permissions before stumbling onto a thread about the WD media center boxes not handling hardlinks correctly due to a bug in the busybox nfs implimentation. Not sure if any other manf. Is using busybox, but it may be worth your time to investigate.

I've been happily running backuppc on a dlink dns-321 with only minor issues (RRDtool wants the nolock option for some reason). NFS has been quite stable and tweakable for oue use. In my experience, the limited CPU, Memory, and closed nature of a NAS make them an iffy choice to host backuppc, but an excellent place to host your pool. My site isn't much larger than yours, I think you'd be best served by dangling a NAS off of an NFS share and letting the server crunch numbers while the NAS holds the bits.
~Phil
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Sent from my Android phone with K-9.

"***@microworld.org" <***@microworld.org> wrote:

Hello backuppc-users,

I would like to backup all the machines of my company (12 laptops, Windows/Mac/Linux) in a centralized way on a NAS device.
I like a lot BackupPC and if possible I would like to use it to run the backups.

Now comes the choice of the NAS... What NAS device would you recommend with a good ratio "performance / easy to install BackupPC on it" ?

The ideal situation would be a NAS with BackupPC pre-installed - or a NAS with some available BackupPC packages ready to deploy.
I looked at Synology / QNap / WD Sharespace but in each case the install of BackupPC seems tedious, and I'm not sure of the performances I will get on such devices...

Thanks for your advices and your help
---
Laurent

Peter Lavender

2011-05-19 11:15:58 UTC

Post by Phil K.
I've been happily running backuppc on a dlink dns-321 with only minor
issues (RRDtool wants the nolock option for some reason). NFS has been
quite stable and tweakable for oue use.

I'm running a Thecus, N4200 as my Home NAS and it's NFS mounted from my
PC grade linux server and seems fine.

The only issue I've found is the RRD graphs don't update.

Now I've read this, I'm going to see where I set the nolock and see if
it fixes my last remaining problem.

Peter.

Jeffrey J. Kosowsky

2011-05-17 17:05:11 UTC