backup/restore with attached USB drive

[clamage45]

TeraStation HD-HTGL/R5 Series, non-shared USB drive with FAT file system is attached.

 

1. I set up a backup job. The TeraStation status page says an error occured, but does't say what the error was. The manual does not say anything about an error log. Where is the log?

 

2. How do I verify that data was backed up? That is, how can I access the files on the attached drive?

 

3. The manual does not mention how to restore backed up data. How do i restore a file or folder from the backup?

[Jotin]

Ok, first of all, you need to format the disk in xfs to back up to. Second, you have to make sure that the share folder USB Disk1 and the share folders your are backing up have disk back up checked for disk backup in the folder support. Then you have to make sure that you select the folders you want while creating the job as the source and then the backup folder, which should be the USB disk1. You can verify that the data has been backed up by just accessing the share folder USB disk1 as you would any other share folder on the buffalo. And the restore process is just the same as a back up but you just select the USB Disk 1 as the source and the share folder as the destination. 

[clamage45]

I discovered that I can mount usbdisk1 in Windows Explorer, even though I did not specify it for sharing. I gues that's because it is a Windows file system. The disk has a folder called _backup, which seems to have everything in it.

I'll try what you suggest (I don't mind losing a couple of days of backup), but I still have some questions.

 

1. How do I find out what the error was? Is there an error log somewhere? "An error occurred" is not very helpful.

 

2. I want to back upt the entire "share" directory on the TeraStation. I specified that as the source location,  checked the boxes,  and clicked Select. The check boxes then became unchecked. Is that normal behavior when it accepts my selection? Or can I not specify the whole share directory?

 

3. I specified incremental backup, which requires overwriting.  My experience with other backup programs is that each day you get a new backup set, and incremental backup means that a set includes only the files that changed since the last backup. I don't see evidence for that kind of behavior, and the Terastation manual is silentl about exactly what a backup does. What should I expect to happen? Is the backup just a mirror, with files replaced as they change?

 

4. Based on what I've seen so far, I could restore a file by copying it from the _backup folder on usbdisk1, but you seem to be saying there is a "restore" function somewhere. Can you explain in more detail? The manual does not mention restoring files, and I don't see a "restore" function in the browser interface.

[videoterry]

OK, same problem here on my Terastaion2PRO. Object of the game is to replace all 4 aging drives in the RAID with new ones while increasing from 750GB to 1TB drives. I created a full backup of the RAID1 to USBdisk1 after formatting the USB to xfs. Seemed to work perfectly, I was able to access the share on USB1 over the network, no problem. So I shut down, pulled out the intact original drives, and installed the 4 new 1TB units. Booted into EM with TFTP, installed 1.33 firmware and updated to 1.35, and created the new RAID5 and set up the new (empty) share same as it had been, inlucing the TS hostname (Buffalo1). All seems to be well, so far.

 

I can't for the life of me figure out how to find the backup on the USBdisk1 now that it's connected. I am assuming that if I can't access that share over the network, then I'm not goiing to be able to select it as the source for my restore operation. What am I missing here? When I go to USB settings and select the assigned disk, the unit is mounted but the name field is blank and the capacity is (Unknown). I certainly don't want to "Format disk".

 

Going into SharedFolders Setup, it does not appear. If I hit "add", only the new empty share on the RAID shows up in the Volume list. Where is the USB? Since it is xfs, I can't just plug it in to my Mac or PC to look at it. I'm hoping to find a Linux machine to try at some point.

 

Fortunately I have the original RAID set still intact. I guess I could reinstall it and run the backup again to the USB, but why should I expect any other outcome?

[videoterry]

OK. Phone suppoort got me going. Turns out for some reason that my USB disk was not properly recognised when I hot-plugged it into the Terastaion. Shutting down, then booting up the Terastion with the USB already attached did the trick. Now I expect I will be able to restore my data.

 

Thanks, Tim in Support!