NAS ????

[andrew_ashby]

I'd be interested to hear if anyone is using NAS devices and what for ?

One use, I guess, could be for back up - but will data transfer to the NAS (even over a gigabit network) be slower than USB2 or eSATA or even USB3 ??

Does raw data transfer speed make much difference in the real world when running back ups anyway ? I do incremental backups to USB2 and to eSATA drives and there's not a hugh time difference (because of the time spent vefifying the backup). But if I just copy a file onto the drives, the eSATA drives arew much faster.

[JohnGage]

I use two NAS devices for email and fax archiving.  Our agency has a policy to keep every email and every fax forever    I keep the archives on an eSATA drive for fast recovery but also on the two NAS for redundancy.

I've considered moving the ATTACH folder off to a NAS.  It's the folder that grows the fastest and it would be easier to swap out a larger NAS than a larger drive in the server.  Write and read speeds to/from the NAS would be slower than from the server so I've never done it.  Of course if the NAS was a RAID array  . . . . . something to think about anyway.

[Billy Welsh]

We are using 2 Buffalo RAID units for backups - one here and one off-site (backup from here is copied to off-site unit) for redundancy as well as for operations in the event of a hurricane evacuation.

These are LAN connected units that replaced an High Rely e-SATA unit, but I cannot speak to the relative speeds other than to say that the techs tell me it is working fine.

[andrew_ashby]

Billy

How do tou copy the on-site back up to the off-site NAS unit ?

Thanks

[Billy Welsh]

As far as I know it is being done by the backup software.  We were using Symantec BackupExec and maybe we still are - some time back we discussed upgrading that to a better product that could take snapshots during the day, but a quick visit to the console does not appear to show the new product installed.

If you would like more (or should I say any?) specifics just let me know and I will ask the techs.  As it is I am now going to ask if we ever upgraded - it's been a year since that meeting.

[Billy Welsh]

P. S.  We were supposed to upgrade to Acronis.  I have an inquiry out as to whether or not we actually did so.

[Jeff Zylstra]

P. S.  We were supposed to upgrade to Acronis.  I have an inquiry out as to whether or not we actually did so.

I'd think twice about Acronis right now.  I switched back in February and haven't been having good luck with the new version.  Your tech could probably tell you more about that than I could, so you may want to have them check into it.