Ok the backup saga has rumbled on for close to a year now, but I finally decided on my solution last week and it looks fantastic!
I was heavily influenced by the register’s review, and an email from their sales team.
I’ve purchased a MyXerver 1TB along with a 1TB USB drive to run to it, and after the ParcelForce saga I now have them installed, I couldn’t have chose better as they look exactly the same when unpacked (just one in black and one in white!).
After unpacking I plugged in the MyXerver and started to write this post, given that the instructions said it could take anywhere between 1 and 3 minutes to boot I was impressed that by the time I’d finished typing the previous line it was booted and ready for use!
As the adminstrator I had to run the setup utility disc. I decided (unlike my usual self!) it might be wise to follow the instructions at this point..
The wizard looks fairly self explanatory, so let’s get started.
It appears to have recognized MyXerver correctly.
I’ve opted for a fixed IP, just in case I need to enable port forwarding on my router to this box (it will make life far easier if I do this from the onset I suspect!).
Next came the timezone and naming, I resisted the temptation to call it something humorous and left it as MyXerver, I was surprised to find it wanted to know my Workgroup name – not sure why at this stage!
Mission accomplished – I opted not to setup Flash Map as I wanted to keep this proprietary software as far away from this solution as possible (having had to install a CD for every machine with Netgear’s SC101).
Interestingly, the instructions told me to visit http://myxerver to configure the box further, in Firefox this resulted in a 404 after trying to visit http://www.myxerver.com and in IE it was simply a 404 – Page not found. Putting the IP address into the URL seems to have the desired effect though.
Alien Autopsy psp I managed to login and configure the device – I’m sure you don’t need to see all of that info!
Learning
I’ve discovered why it wants to know my workgroup, it has the ability to use Network Neighbourhood for mapping network drives with the users regular username and password – now that I like!
So that means each user has a private area, great – what about the global public areas that I want to dump photo’s and the link into?
This is found in the “Shares” section, and before too long I’d got a shared drive setup and 40GB of Photo’s transferring from my old NAS to this one, a process that took around 2 hours.
NAS > Backup Solution
I know what you’re thinking, I said this was my backup solution, and all I have at the minute is a new 1TB NAS. Here’s the best bit, I plugged in the 1TB USB drive to the back and configured and incremental backup from the NAS to the USB that will copy all changed files every morning at 6am…
Job Done!!
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Nice solution – looks like a little Linux box acting as your storage host and then a 1TB USB drive bolted on to replicate the data – just what you were looking for. I believe FreeCom run a similar system, but I’m initially impressed with your set-up, I’ll have to pop over to have a look!
A wise decision to give it a static IP address, you will need this when you port-forward through your firewall – I don’t know if this device terminates VPN, but I wouldn’t advise you open any ports on your firewall, always VPN to the firewall (only a few SOHO firewalls support this, the Draytek Vigor 2820 range does and I’ve set these up they work a treat – great little VPN router, even has WAN fail-over, USB port and a GB port built in!).
Your incremental backups – are you actually running “incremental” or are you only updating (with or without file versions) the files that have been recently changed – there is a subtle difference, as with incremental, you have to restore the original file and all the increments – if you have lots of increments the chances of corruption increases – so you always want a fresh ‘snapshot’ at least every month…
Darren Cranniss last blog post..4 days to go…
Great post!!! I have defiantly bookmarked your site!
Hi All,
I am Graham Barnish, the Product Manager for the Notouch Range.
if you have any questions on Keiron’s setup, or any other issues you’d like answers to, please either drop me a line at Graham@ezyinfotech.com or post a comment here and I’ll pick it up.
Thanks.
Hi Graham,
Thanks for dropping by… I’m still having one or two issues with the things we discussed via email last week – directories that can’t be read copied from the MyXerver to the USB after I’ve dragged them onto the MyXerver. This latest set didn’t come from my SC101, but from my EEE PC which is even more odd! I’ll try recreating each of these directories this evening.
As a side note for anyone else reading this Graham has been exceptionally helpful with any queries I’ve had!
Keiron
Hi,
I’d like to discuss for the following question;
“directories that can’t be read copied from the MyXerver to the USB after I’ve dragged them onto the MyXerver”.
This is due to external USB file system. My server can behave the external USB in
1> FAT32–> read/write
2> NTFS –> read only
So, my suggestion is, try to change the file system for this USB device as FAT32 format.
If you still have problems, feel free to contact with me.
Best regards,
Nyi Nyi Lwin
Hi,
Thanks for that – but I’m a little confused… As 95% of the directories I have on the MyXerver copy across fine (circa 4GB) I just have a few directories that won’t!?
Still enjoying this drive or have you hit any issues?
Hi Norman,
I had a lot of issues with the syncing/backup features initially but have worked with Graham and the development team to resolve them and have got the new firmware provided by them – and am now thoroughly happy with it – works to perfection!
Hi Keiron,
What verison of firmware are you currenty running ?
I am on V4.2R09 am I going to encounter any issues.
Also could you post/email me how you “configured incremental backup from the NAS to the USB ” some screen shots would be great as i am a bit stuck 🙁
Kind Regrads
L