discussion Replacement for Netgear Readynas NV+? USB Key backup!

[CMetaphor]

So yeah, I've still got an absolutely Ancient, sparc -powered readynas NV+. Being the cheap, forever-reusing weirdo that I am, I still have a use for it... sorta.

I was thinking about using it as my USB key backup source. Why? Because of its fun little one-touch backup button on the front right next to the front USB port that goes with it.

Problem is, being stone age tech, it's powered by a prehistoric hamster in a wheel. It also doesn't have USB 3.x and its network speeds are... pathetic, honestly. 30ish MBps. Cpu-limited probably.

So I'm looking around... and the nice one-touch button thing is dead? Seems no modern NASes have it anymore. Even NASes that are like 600-700+ dont have it.

Any suggestions? I kinda liked the ability to plug a USB key in, press a button, and it was just backed up. No OS os GUI or anything. Hoping to find a similar situation, as I'm still running 5-6 USB keys regularly, and its just a matter of time before one of them pops (some are also ooooooold).

Thanks all

 

[CMetaphor]

Welp, I'm dumb. There are a couple out there from QNAP and Asustor, silly me.
Still wickedly expensive though.

Guess I'm more looking for budget suggestions than just any NAS. Probably dont need 4x 3.5 drives, 2x in Raid 1 would work.

 

[CMetaphor]

Ouff.. seems only scary Synology NASes have an intelligent function to recognize which USB key is which? The others just backs up whatever is on the key to a folder, so multiple backups of the same key would just write folder after folder.

Got a troubled history with Synology. Their stuff is pricey, and when it goes wrong, BOY does it go wrong.

Guess the search continues for now...

Edit: Some claim Previous -gen QNAP NASes can detect which key is inserted and backup or synchronize intelligently.

I'm also now looking into building yet another PC from old parts and seeing how troublesome it would be to script the detection and backup via TrueNAS or FreeNAS or similar...

This project just suddenly blew up in my face haha.... typical.

 

[JD]

Definitely avoid Synology IMO, they want you to use their drives now. I haven't seen anything saying they are reversing that direction either.

I've yet to have any of my QNAPs go "bad", I'm on my 3rd one now, upgrading mostly for performance along the way and some expansion.

This is what your looking for though?

 

[CMetaphor]

Definitely avoid Synology IMO, they want you to use their drives now. I haven't seen anything saying they are reversing that direction either.

I've yet to have any of my QNAPs go "bad", I'm on my 3rd one now, upgrading mostly for performance along the way and some expansion.

This is what your looking for though?

View attachment 44491

Oh I'd forgotten how scummy Synology was now. Hah. Glad I dont buy their stuff!

Yeah that's the feature I'm after, albeit a bit different from some screenshots I've seen of that page. What does "efficiently handle sparSe files" mean? Hopefully it means "dont unnecessarily sync files that are already exsctly the same on both source USB and destination NAS. Does the "paired folder" part at the bottom means it'll detect different folder names from different USB keys to keep the backups neat and tidy? The older QNAP screenshot I saw didn't have that feature, just said it would make a new folder for each drive inserted.

Thanks muchly!

 

[JD]

I tried with 2 different USB drives, doesn't appear to be any intelligence to do it based upon device ID or such. Assuming each USB contains unique folders, I suppose it might still work for you? You can make multiple pairings at least to different destination folders:



Mine is running QuTS Hero though which differs from the traditional QTS firmware/OS, so there are some features that were never implemented. I believe, in favour of having the ZFS filesystem.

"Efficiently handle sparse files" usually means that rather than writing a file full of 0's, it writes enough data to say "this file contains this number of 0's" instead. The file system then regenerates those 0's when you attempt read them. It should generally speed up copy times and save space, but I suppose you are not getting an identical 1:1 copy in doing so.

 

[CMetaphor]

Maybe its the fancy firmware then. What happens when you do a second backup of the same key then? Proper synchronization or just another copy of the folders?

I'm looking at a QNAP NASes but they seem to Start at $350. Kinda pricey.

Does anyone have experience with TrueNAS, FreeNAS or similar, enough to know if it can do what I'm after? So far, research points to either no ability to automatically backup a USB key upon insertion (giggidy), or requiring custom scripting to make such a thing work. Darn it.

Maybe there's regular windows software that does similar? Will look into that route, as I can certainly build yet another PC from the parts upon parts I have laying around the house, either for Windows or TrueNAS/similar purposes.