Backup Server for NAS.

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B1gJ1mmy

New Member
Jun 4, 2020
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Hi All.

I'm redoing my home network to try and save a bit on power after I had a big failure of my current setup. So there is a bit of context here you might like to read but I have put the main question in bold

I had been running a home bit TrueNas server until recently where it failed in a way that meant data was not recoverable was an issue with the controller that corrupted data. I did have a backup of important files and a full tape backup of my NAS server however this has proved less the perfect for recovering files from. I think I was able to get around 80% of my data back. I'm happy about that as i got 100% of the important stuff back.

Anyway I grabbed a 8 bay Asustor nas AS6508t to home 8 of my 10TB drives from my Truenas server. This is now going to be my primary NAS as it was a good deal at the time. Running a raid 6 or whatever the equivalent is in Asustor speak.

I also want to replace me LTO6 tape backup system with a hard drive backup solution. I scored two older dell servers 2015 vintage that have 24x4TB SAS drives in them(old drives I don't want to rely on for prime use). I don't want to have two massive bulky servers just for my backups so Won an EMC2 NL410 at auction it can hold up to 36 drives I believe.

Finally here is the question. I want to rig this EMC2 NL410 up as a backup server for my NAS. I want to WOL the server when it is time to run a backup task and turn it off after so It is not killing my power bill all the time. Could probably do a home assistant automation to turn on the sever also with maybe a smart switch or something.

What would be my best bet for an OS to do this? Truenas again? I don't want to fiddle with IT firmware or changing controllers. I just want to use it as is as a cheap backup server. I have some windows server licenses I could use that also but don't really like storage spaces. I have found it not reliable in the past. But could give it a go again. I was thinking maybe unraid? but not sure how it would go and would prefer a free solution if possible. but I do like the idea if the backup server fails I could just pull and read the drives to get most data back(that's my understanding anyway)

What is the best backup solution should I use rsync or just backup straight to and SMB share from my Asustor nas?


My old tape backup system was wan old desktop hooked up to the tape libraries with a SAS HBA. I used USB power hooked to a solid state replay to turn on the tape libraries when it was time for a backup. I used used scheduled tasks inside my old windows server box to wake the old desktop once a month to do a backup. I have a licensed copy of Backup exec 2014 that I used with my tape libraries(I purchased a licensed boxed copy and found you could not activate it anymore so I'm using a cracked version). I could in theory use the again for doing the backups. But I'm sure there are better solutions out there now.

Anyway now you know what I want to do some advice would be helpful. Even if you want to share how you do your backups and what works best for you. Yeah i know the NL410 will be loud but it is in the garage that is a separate building to the house. I have 10gbe running out there to service the shed and the backup server.