I want to improve my backup system by using RAID technology accompanied by Cloud backup services.
I use several macOS computers, and would prefer the NAS solution over the DAS one.
The first step would be to backup all my existing data.
I currently store it in external HHD/SSD formatted in HFS+ Journaled;
1x HDD 4TB - almost full - Format: HFS+ Journaled.
1x SSD 4TB - almost full - Format: HFS+ Journaled.
1x SSD 1TB - almost full - Format: HFS+ Journaled.
My professional surroundings as well as reviews on the internet often recommend the brand Synology.
I was tempted to make the following investment according to my needs:
Synology DS1821+ (8 bays)
5x 8TB HHD (WD Red Plus WD80EFZX 8TB)
SHR-2 protection type (24TB of free space, 16TB allocated for protection)
IDrive® Cloud backup service (provides DSM extension).
Problem:
I want to find the best way to efficiently and safely transfer all my current data (around 10 TB) from my external HDD/SSD disks (HFS+ Journaled fromats) to the future NAS volume.
I have the feeling that doing so via SMB or FTP will be way to long and uncertain.
So I thought that the most straight forward way would probably be to simply connect each external disks directly to the NAS (USB 3.1), and simply transfer portions of all data manually directly in DSM.
However, after extra investigations, I was surprised to learn the following:
Synology knowledge base says:
https://www.synology.com/enus/knowledgebase/DSM/help/DSM/AdminCenter/system_externaldevice_devicelist
Some models support HFS/HFS Plus with read-only.
Journal is not supported on HFS/HFS Plus.
You will need to install exFAT Access from Package Center to enable Synology NAS to support exFAT.
Make sure you have ejected the external disk before unplugging it.
Clearly states that no model supports journaling.
Product specs says:
https://www.synology.com/en-us/products/DS1821+#specs
Unless I am missing it, it does not inform much about the journaling matter or size limits.
About disabling journaling via the Disk utility app on macOS:
It feels like it is only possible via CLI these days (since BigSur).
I understand what disabling journaling implies, that it is probably not a big deal for temporary transferring all the data to the NAS, but I still would like to avoid such accommodations as much as possible (I've never done it, I don't know).
I looked for NAS alternatives that would support HFS+ Journaled formats but couldn't find any.
Are my concerns justified or am I overthinking this ?
Any pieces of advice from experienced NAS & macOS users would be much appreciated.
Related
I'm planning to image a laptop using Acronis or maybe Clonezilla from a 256GB 2.5" SSD to an NVMe 512GB.
The laptop is assigned to just one person but they have quite a few pieces of proprietary software and configurations, and they're encountering low disk spice and some crashing with some of their specialized apps.
My question: since it's a domain joined computer, is it still OK to image the old drive to the larger drive or should I un-join it from the domain before imaging and rejoin after restoring the image? And if so, when I re-join, would the account pickup the old profile folder from the restored image and be OK with all of their software configurations, etc?
If the proprietary software needs to check the domain for the right license, I'd recommend that you unjoin the domain and then image the disk. As soon as you re-image the new SSD with the old SSD, rejoin the domain. This should allow the software, config files, etc. to reactivate
Usually, domains save the data and configuration files in servers, so you should be good to go. But if the domain is not server-sided, I'd say you need to make the image and then flash it to the new SSD. Usually in the software, you can specify a configuration file to load. They are all on the disk, so even though this manual method takes longer, it is a great alternative.
But I'd also wait for another person to answer this question.
A few years ago I switch from PC to Mac. I didn't do this because I preferred to use a Mac, but because I desired experience working with both systems. Now, I see the pros and cons of both sides, and I use them both regularly. In fact, my job requires it.
Now though, I would like to create a central repository of all my PC / Mac data. Unfortunately there is a language barrier between NTFS and HFS+.
Is there any way I can create an efficient and reliable central repository for all my data? I prefer not to use 3rd party drivers as I've found them to be complex and often unreliable.
I think you may be confusing physical, on-disk filesystems with network filesystems.
HFS+ and NTFS are physical, on-disk layouts.
Samba/NFS (Network File System)/AFP (Apple Filing Protocol) are network filesystems.
There is nothing to stop you sharing an HFS+ physical filesystem via Samba (network filesystem) with Windows clients. Likewise, you could theoretically, share an NTFS filesystem with an OSX client via AFP.
You can just share a directory (folder) from your Mac by going to:
Apple menu (top left of screen) -> Preferences -> Sharing
Then set up like in red:
Another, brilliant option which I use for serving all my music to a SONOS system, is to get a little Raspberry Pi, that uses almost zero power, and add a 256MB USB memory stick (or maybe 4 off 64GB memory sticks as that can be cheaper) and RAID them together and make that available via Samba. It is silent and uses no power!
i do not know about your possibilities, but may be you could just use sambaserver. My router has a build in sambaserver all i have to do is plugin an USB disk.
You could also format your external hd to FAT32 filesystem. It should work for mac and windows, but it does not support files over 4GB. But its fine for document, photos and so.
good luck
I am not sure how well FTP would work but I assume you could run a FTP server in one or both systems and FTP client in the corresponding system. Most browsers can be a FTP client but there are also dedicated programs.
Mac OS X can read from NTFS drives. It also supports writing to NTFS, but that feature is disabled by default. I am not sure if it can work when the volume is online to Windows. Quick Tip: How to Write to NTFS Drives in OS X Mavericks explains it.
Enable writing to NTFS hard drives for free in Mac OS X (including El Capitan!) claims to provide read and write access to NTFS for free from Mac OS X.
You can use Apple's Boot Camp. I am not sure of the licensing requirements for the Windows you run in the Apple system but apparently you can use your existing license.
There is also Catacombae - HFSExplorer for accessing Mac-formatted hard disks and disk images from Windows.
There is also commercial software available. A popular one is Paragon HFS+ for Windows 10 and Paragon NTFS for Mac® 14 - Write / read access to NTFS under OS X El Capitan - Introduction.
I did not know what "sambaserver" is but it is a SMB server for UNIX/Linux as described in . SMB is built into Windows; see IT: How to Transfer Files Using Microsoft File Sharing for Windows.
I have a client issue that I am working on with a stack of SSD drives and a machine that they were previously installed in. As of now, the stack of drives shows up in a few Operating Systems (Win10, Win7, Mac OSX) as an unpartitioned raw space. I am looking for a simple way to examine the drive and see if it is actually raw, or just formatted for ZFS.
Does anyone know of a Windows or Mac Utility that could help? I've tried a few recovery software programs, that hinted at being compatible with ZFS formatted drives, but have yet to see anything that would indicate if it was actually a ZFS, or simply not formatted.
Regards,
Ed
ZFS is storing at the start and at the end of each device a magic number, 0x00bab10c ("oobabloc", i.e. überblock), reversed for little-endian: 0x0cb1ba00.
So if this number doesn't appear in the device data, you can be sure it isn't used by ZFS. If it does appear, you need to investigate a little further.
For details, have a look to the ZFS on disk specification draft available here, especially page 13.
I have read that USB HDD are hot-pluggable but not removable whereas USB Flash drives are both removable and hot-pluggable.Internally, the windows DEVICE_OBJECT structure has Characteristics flag that can have a value FILE_REMOVABLE_MEDIA for removable media (not the removable device). Also, STORAGE_HOTPLUG_INFO structure has Devicehotplug boolean member that says device is hot pluggable or not. Can you please justify your answer with a little details?
David Zeuthen explains it best:
[...] "removable" means that the media of the device is removable. For
example, CD-ROM drives or Nin1 card readers for flash media. [...]
ATA disks connected via eSATA aren't removable, you can't remove the
platters.
Yet of course, you can intuitively understand that even non-removable devices can be hotpluggable (i.e. you can plug and unplug the entire device as a whole, as opposed to inserting/removing the media it contains).
Now, all (modern) buses in use in current systems are hotpluggable -
most new systems allow you to add/remove SATA disks while the system
is running.
Indeed you shouldn't have to care much about whether something is hotpluggable or not anymore: virtually all storage devices are. (In the past, you had to shutdown the machine to manipulate the storage devices).
So, it should follow that external USB drives (either HDDs or flash sticks) for example should be non-removable and hopefully always hotpluggable.
Unfortunately:
Of course, hardware sucks so virtually all USB keyfobs reports
"removable==1" probably because the maker of the device wanted to be
"helpful" and make things work better on windows.
I have no sources regarding the real reasons, but it turns out that many USB drives report themselves as removable too. David's suggestion that it might be because of certain operating systems which didn't use to support hotplugging but did support removable devices (CD-ROMs, etc) sounds reasonable: the manufacturers reused the same technique to trick the OS into letting the user "eject" USB drives.
Nowadays I would guess all modern operating systems make the distinction clear, and this has many advantages from a management standpoint (e.g. you might have a hotpluggable DVD drive with removable DVDs and you would thus need to be more clear about which you want to interact with). Still, older drives and old habits die hard, so you'll still find some "removable" USB drives even if they're really not.
Note: The bug report linked is about udisks which is more often found in the free software world. But again, I'm sure all systems make the distinction now even if the terminology is not exactly the same. Also note that the terminology is really rather arbitrary, though whichever terms you use for these two concepts best be well understood.
A simple Google search could have answered your question...
Hot plugging is the ability to replace or install a device without shutting down the attached computer. Hot plugging is implemented when
a peripheral device is added or removed; a device or working system
requires reconfiguration; a defective component requires replacement
or a device and computer require data synchronization. Also known as hot swapping. Hot swapping
allows easy accessibility to equipment and the convenience of
uninterrupted systems.
Removable media are data storage devices capable of computer system removal without powering off the system. Removable media devices are
used for backup, storage or transportation of data.
source: techopedia dot com
I have access to a bunch of Mac desktops, the hard drives of which are under-utilized. I want to set up a distributed filesystem to gang them together into one large virtual volume. The server has to be able to run as a normal user.
I've tried PVFS2, but it's designed for Linux and isn't running well on OSX (hangs the clients on write).
What should I use instead?
The Andrew File System (AFS) is a very mature distributed file system with OS X support. Check out OpenAFS.