Topic: Backup to off-site NAS device

[Johnd]

Hi everyone,

I'm very new to SME Server so please bear with me.
Can anyone advise if it's possible to backup the server and files to a NAS device that is offsite and connected to the internet?

Thanks
J

[Fumetto]

In theory it is possible, but if the size of the backup are high you need a good internet line... 3 GB of data transfer for a full backup is not a joke, even with compression ...

[mmccarn]

Any sort of remote backup is going to need to be very small, or is going to need to use 'rsync' to transfer only changed data.

The best solution (in my opinion) would be to use a Centos box running Affa instead of a NAS (the latest version of Affa is available from sourceforge, but still includes special "sme server" backup settings).

If you have to use a NAS, it would help to know exactly what make/model you have, since your options will vary accordingly.

I used some buffalo linkstations that had rsync built-in - using these, I could have used one as a local SME backup target (using smb), then configured that one to rsync the backup to a remote unit (for example).

[Marco Hess]

I use affa for an off site backup system. It is a HP Micro server that for the initial backup was in house and then moved off site to a location at the other side of town. Total backup is some 600G but each backup is only a few 100M every night. It is setup with RAID1+1.

In essense in case of total failure of the main server, a disk can be removed from the backup, installed in a new machine and with affa rise the full server can be restored in about an hour (largely travel time to get the disk).

The system is also set to power down after the backup is finished. A cron job on the main server sends about  5min before the backup is supposed to happen a remote wake-on-lan signal. This gives it time to boot and its cron then starts the affa backup from the remote end. A script monitors the network traffic and various other processes and when it deems the machine to be idle it issues a power down.

Works like a charm ...

[jameswilson]

I too use affa to backup remotly at 2 external locations. Only I have used low power atom boxes works a treat. One box it backs up has 300 gig of data etc. Takes days first time but then its minutes every night.

I also backup locally to the server so it can be risen in the event of a serious fault.

Sme is perfect and very flexible. If I could run exchange and BES I could ditch win SBS

Have a look at affa in the contribs. Works great on

[elmarconi]

I'm very new to SME Server so please bear with me.
Can anyone advise if it's possible to backup the server and files to a NAS device that is offsite and connected to the internet?

As long as you are able to connect to the NAS, either portforwarding SSH or VPN / NFS then Affa is king in town.

I must say that I did not try the latest affa sourceforge version, still running the smeserver-affa-2.0.0-rc4 as described in the Wiki.

First time(s) you should indeed run it in-house. Get experienced. Once running, you can move it, make some changes to the setup and off you go.