Can I back up directly to an AFP/CIFS server?
 

Hi, all.

I have a brand new Infrant ReadyNAS, which, with beta firmware, finally has wicked fast AFP access.

I have previously dumped things to disk images, which is a bit scary. One bad sector, and they do happen even on raids once in a great while, and my data is no more.

Is there a way to use SD to put my files into the file system directly (e.g. not as part of a potentially fragile disk image)?

I can also NFS mount or CIFS mount.

Scott

Hi, Scott. I use a ReadyNAS here as well (see my review in my blog), and it is much better than before.

There's no way, however, to write directly to the device. You have to use images. Even with AFP, there's just no way to properly save your ownership, groups and permissions. The alternative is to move to a proprietary file format, which I just don't think is wise.

It's pretty rare -- very -- to have a bad sector happen on an X-RAID configured device that would impact data. And that bad sector could just as easily happen in the drive's header/directory...

'Kay
 

I can deal with that, I suppose. Just read your review, and it does match my opinions thus far - the firmware and company seem better than what I saw from Buffalo on the Terastation, and that it does rsync is just cool.

What kind of rates are you seeing with the ReadyNAS?

(I am copying my backup sparse images over, and am seeing between 7 and 9MB/s sustained on reads from my terastation, and writes to my readynas.)

Scott

On a from-scratch backup to a new sparse image, including the extension overhead, I think I saw near-FireWire speeds of about 4-6MB/s overall. Straight streaming writes would be significantly higher, as you've seen, and Smart Update higher still.

I'm quite pleased with it.

New hub = joy
 

I replaced my old netgear with a brand new SMC gigabit hub that supports jumbo frames, updated the firmware, and explicitly turned on jumbo frames and flow control, and AFP now screams along at the same speeds CIFS was getting.

I rather like the readynas. I do wish it were a bit quieter, but overall, a very nice piece of gear.

Scott

Yeah, running at full gigabit speed with jumbo frames can make a significant difference, and their latest firmware drops have helped AFP significantly.

The ReadyNAS is definitely the best of the NAS devices I've had direct experience with. But, agreed -- I wish it was quieter. Computers, drives, etc just can't be too quiet.