Recommendation Needed For HS-DHTGL/R5 2.14 - Backup, Poor Line Quality, Surges, etc.

[packerryan]

   

I have a HS-DHTGL/R5 2.14 with 4TB.  The power in my neighborhood is pretty poor and we lose power often.  I think that the power fluctuates quite a bit as well. 

 

I have read that this unit is NOT compatible with any UPS system (APC included).  My questions:

 

* Can someone please confirm that I cannot use ANY brand UPS with the HS-DHTGL/R5 2.14 and have the system perform a soft reset if/when it is running on the UPS?

 

* Assuming the above is true, what recommendations do you have to minimize the overall disruption on my network/with my Server?  For example, I could buy a UPS system and protect myself from power outages that last only a few minutes.  Or I could simply ensure that I have a decent surge protector. 

 

* Also I have been told to NOT hook up an external USB Drive to the unit by a data recovery specialist (yep, I lost data on the last power failure).  He told me that he has seen it cause problems with NAS units.  Assuming this to be the case, can you also suggest the best way for me to connect my 750GB USB Drive for use as a backup device to the HS-DHTGL/R5 2.14?  What software is best for automating this process?

 

Thanks!

 

Message Edited by packerryan on 05-25-2009 08:50 AM

[davo]

   

packerryan wrote:

* Also I have been told to NOT hook up an external USB Drive to the unit by a data recovery specialist

 

I find this hard to believe, of course you should backup the unit to an external drive, espically in your case. It is possible that the "data recovery specialist" told you this because he sees you are a potential future customer :P and backing up your device would lose him business!!

[packerryan]

   Let me clarify. He STRONGLY recommended that I use an external USB drive. However, he also told me that if possible I should hang it off of another device and avoid using the terastation. Any suggestions on what I should do wrt UPS, etc?

[cbergeson]

For the power supply issue, unfortunately we do not have an official victory/support list for what models/brands of psu's work with the nas devices, but the ones that we have the most success with are APC brand power supplies.  I have seen other brands have some success though, so the statement about the nas devices not being compatible with any power supply is not totally accurate. 

 

For attaching external usb drives for backup purposes, be aware that to have write access to the drive, the external drive needs to be reformatted into an xfs or ext3 linux format.  This may hinder plans to use the external drive for backup, as whatever you attach the external drive to other than the Terastation will have to be able to read the linux format to access the data stored on it.  The best thing that you can probably do is keep the usb drive attached to a Windows os machine on your network and schedule overnight backups, or backups that would allow for a longer data transfer rate due to the transfer being through the network then again out to an attached usb device.  

 

Also, there are no known issues with our nas devices that are caused by attaching an external drive, so you shouldn't have to worry if that is what you decide to do.  Any backup software should work just fine on the Terastations, there aren't really any that work particularly worse or better, but the Memeo software should work just fine.

[packerryan]

   Thanks for the clarification on the external USB device. Although there is not an "official" list of PSU's that work with the Terastation Live can you or someone else tell me what successes have been registered in the field? I'm assuming that being "compatible" means being able to shutdown the device once power is out/depleting on the unit. Correct? Also, aside from a UPS should i be buying a line filter or anything else?

Message Edited by packerryan on 05-25-2009 01:23 PM