Mirroring a NAS

[bernard038]

Hello All,

We are a small company (9 employees) BUT the demands on the availability of our network resources is of the utmost importance, so a lot of network resources are duplicated (servers, routers, internet-connection etc...) the only bottleneck we currently have is that we store our files on one Qnap NAS (and no, RAID 1 doesnt count as redundant storage). So i would like to mirror my storage on a second NAS. When the first NAS fails, the second takes over immediatly. Before i start using DFS-Replication on my network, i was wondering if QNAP has its own technology to achieve this...

Thanks in advance for you thoughts and answers!

 

[sfx2000]

We are a small company (9 employees) BUT the demands on the availability of our network resources is of the utmost importance, so a lot of network resources are duplicated (servers, routers, internet-connection etc...) the only bottleneck we currently have is that we store our files on one Qnap NAS (and no, RAID 1 doesnt count as redundant storage). So i would like to mirror my storage on a second NAS. When the first NAS fails, the second takes over immediatly. Before i start using DFS-Replication on my network, i was wondering if QNAP has its own technology to achieve this...

Hmm - what you're asking is an High Availability setup...

Typically this would be done with a load balancer in front of the two filers, in your case, the NAS boxes, and then you need to have active real-time sync between the two.

QNAP's Q-Center has management capability, but I'm not certain if they do the Load Balancing part - I would check with the QNAP customer support folks and pick their brains...

The LB side is easy enough, but it's sync'ing the two NAS units in real-time that is really the challenge...

That being said - it can be done with Windows Server, but that's outside of the NAS realm...

 

[L&LD]

A somewhat easy way to do this is to use QSync to have the NAS' mirrored.

The users would need access to both NAS' and the ability to chose the other when their preferred unit isn't available.

Not quite automatic, but the least expensive way to go forward.

 

[sfx2000]

A somewhat easy way to do this is to use QSync to have the NAS' mirrored.

The users would need access to both NAS' and the ability to chose the other when their preferred unit isn't available.

Not quite automatic, but the least expensive way to go forward.

Looking at OP's original post - basically both NAS's would need to be mirrored in real time...

Hence the comment about a Load Balancer - the end users don't connect to either NAS, they connect to the VIP presented by the load balancer, and the LB can either be Active/Active, or Active/Standby.

 

[L&LD]

Looking at OP's original post - basically both NAS's would need to be mirrored in real time...

Hence the comment about a Load Balancer - the end users don't connect to either NAS, they connect to the VIP presented by the load balancer, and the LB can either be Active/Active, or Active/Standby.

QSync would be able to do that (with both NAS' and any other 'share' they are linked to).

The ability for the user to manually choose the NAS they connect to (if needed), would negate the cost and complexity of the LB. At least for a little while.

Your method is certainly the best way. But it is also more complex/expensive for the OP moving from a single NAS now to a more high availability option.

 

[dosborne]

If you don't like QSync, you can accomplish this with rsyc as well. I use rsync to mirror a Raid-1 QNAP NAS to a Raid-1 D-Link Nas.

I haven't played with load balancing for a while, but when I did, a simple raspberry pi (and many other inexpensive devices) can handle that aspect for you.

No need for "enterprise" level devices with a small user base.