I haven't purchased anything yet, so this is exploratory. I don't want to buy anything until I know specifically what will work or not FIRST.
i've read a bunch of posts on NAS to NAS over the internet. I understand VPN, public IP's, etc. I'm a "light" IT tech. I only do it on the side for a friend.
I have a small office on it's own network. I want to setup a backup system using a NAS and then replicate that backup to an offsite system. The idea being to use a second NAS offsite to make things easy and automatic.
The offsite network is the owner's home. He has a consumer DLINK router. The office has a SonicWall TZ170.
Rather than trying to get his DLINK router to keep a VPN tunnel open to his office (which I've tried once and had trouble), can I open a port on the home router to the home NAS device? (or do something similar?) And how does the office NAS see it to replicate then?
I actually don't even care if it is true replication. Even if the home-NAS was just an FTP device, and the office-NAS could dump a weekly backup to it, I'd be okay with that. But i really need to make it automatic and EASY for all parties (including myself).
I would like to know exact models of devices I can use, what methods I could use to set it up, some helpful steps, and any other suggestions are welcomed.
We have 3 server boxes on the office network we're interested in backing up. All Win2003servers.
J
Replying to my own thread...
Or am I incorrectly thinking how I should be doing this? Backups are initiated by the PC's. maybe I should backup to the office NAS, then do an additional backup weekly to the offsite NAS via FTP directly from the PC's?
I know a NAS can replicate to another NAS, but if I don't have an easy tunnel setup, and FTP is the simplest option, can the office NAS backup itself to the FTP NAS?
Seriously, whats the simplest, most reliable, way to do what i'm wanting to do?
did you ever figure this out???? i am in exactly the same boat.
michael