Backups And Replication
Introduction to backups
Backups are read-only copies of a filesystem (folder, virtual disk or disk pool). They can be created instantly and initially they consume no additional disk space within the disk pool since any unchanged data is shared among the file system and its backups. They save the state of a filesystem at a particular point in time and possibly recreate it later on the same machine or on another machine. Backups also offer the possibility to extract individual files from them. Backups can become ‘writable’ by sharing them.
Backups management using the web interface on Syneto Storage
View the existing backups of a folder
To display all the available backups select a folder and go to the Backups tab.
Search for a particular backup
To search for a backup go to your Backups tab (in Data Management -> Folders / Virtual Disks page) and start typing a part of a backup’s name. The interface will display all backups matching that name. If you tick the checkbox before the “Search” text you’ll select all the searched backups. You can use this feature to delete all your backups, of the current folder or disk, in one move.
Create a backup
A backup can be created for a folder, virtual disk or an entire disk pool. To immediately create a backup, select a folder, go to the Backups tab and press the “New backup” button on the right. Give your backup a name and click “Backup now”.
Cloning a backup
Cloning a backup provides an instantly writable folder / virtual disk without using any additional space.
You do this by going to the Backups tab (on your selected folder or virtual disk) and pressing the Clone button.
Then give the clone a destination and press Clone.
Note that the original backup cannot be destroyed as long as the clone exists.
Promoting a cloned backup
If you go to the clone you will see a new button near New folder: Promote.
By clicking on it, the clone becomes the primary filesystem and the original becomes the clone.
All the backups up to the cloning point will belong to the primary filesystem and all the backups after will stay in the new clone.
Restore a backup
Backups offer you the possibility to revert a folder / virtual disk to a previous saved state. Select the desired backup and click on the Restore icon on the right. You will be asked for confirmation, after which the folder or virtual disk will revert to its previous state.
A good technique to check out what backup you need is to clone them until you find the right one and then promote it to primary.
Delete a backup
Press the X button on the right of a backup to delete it. Note that if you’re sharing the backup you must also go to your share location and delete all the backups on the Backups tab.
You can delete multiple backups by selecting them and pressing “Delete selected”.
Availability of backups
Since Windows XP SP 2 and Windows Server 2003, Microsoft has introduced a technology called Shadow Copy that works similarly to Syneto Storage backups.
For this to work you must have CIFS enabled (read the CIFS Workgroup Sharing and CIFS in Active Directory sections of the Manual for more information).
You can access the backups from Windows by connecting via CIFS, selecting the folder -> right click -> Properties -> Previous Versions. From there you can quickly revert to a previous version by selecting it and clicking Restore.
You can share a backup by cloning it as a folder and sharing that folder.
Automatic backups and replication
Scheduling backups
Syneto Storage offers you the possibility to schedule backups so they are taken automatically at certain intervals. The backups can be configured to run daily or hourly, you can set a specific number of backups to keep and you can also replicate copies of them locally or remotely.
To create new backup schedules, view existing backup schedules and check currently running backups schedules, there is a dedicated page in “Data management” called “Backup Schedules”:
Incremental backup of Folders and Virtual Disks
Syneto Storage allows you to take incremental backups of Folders and Virtual Disks. To enable this feature Schedule an Hourly (or Daily) backup and select local or remote replication.
For local replication you need to add the folder where the backups will be sent (note that this folder must be on a different Disk Pool than the source of the backup).
For replication on remote machines you need to provide the following details:
- Remote host – the host where the backup will be placed
- Remote folder – the remote directory for the backup
- You can also set how many backups to keep on the local and remote storage.
The first backup will replicate everything and on subsequent runs the replication will be made incrementally. If another backup exists with the same name it won’t get overwritten, you’ll have to manually delete it from the remote server.
Adding a public key on a remote machine
Go to “System > Replication Keys” page, fill in the key provided by the backup sending machine and click “Add”.
Checking on replication status
If a backup is currently transferring, you will be able to see its current progress on the “Backups schedules” page.
Every backup schedule keeps information about the last successful replication date, data transferred and the name of the last replicated backup.
What happens when backups fail?
If you turned on Notifications you’ll receive an e-mail with the possible reasons for the problem.
If a problem occurs the current operation is aborted and it will be automatically tried again at the next scheduled time.
