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Is Rapid Recovery compatible with Synology DSM?

We have are currently using a Synology DiskStation as our file server. We weren't sure if it was compatible with Rapid Recovery. I know that Rapid Recovery works with a handful of Linux distributions but I didn't see anything for Synology DSM.

  • Hi Zacklong:
    Sorry for the delay in replying. Synology DiskSation uses a heavily modified Linux distribution and as such protecting it with the Rapid Recovery agent is not supported.
    However, you should be able to carve LUNs on your Synology appliance and connect them via ISCSI to Windows (or supported Linux distributions) which in turn allow you protecting them via Rapid Recovery.
    Although being able to protect your DiskStation directly via RapidRecovery would be the most straightforward solution, there advantages pertaining protected the LUNs together with the hosts they pertain to. (The most evident being that you can easily restore to a different location, that the recovery points created on Windows hosts are directly mountable on the Core, that you have to deal with smaller chunks of data for backup/restore and that the CPU/Memory load is divided between multiple hosts).

    Under the circumstances, I propose the following quick DR plan:
    * Download and store safely the newest version of the DiskStation OS every time you update the Synology Appliance
    * Backup the Synology appliance configuration (www.synology.com/.../system_configbackup)
    * Protect the LUNs containing data via RapidRecovery by attaching them using ISCSI to the supported hosts they serve.

    In the worst case disaster scenario, you need to repair the Synology Hardware, re-install the OS (that you saved), restore the configuration (that you saved) and restore the data on the various LUNs using the protected hosts' recovery points, in the order that makes sense to your organization.
    Moreover, if bringing the Synology Appliance is difficult or takes too long, you can recover critical data on the Synology LUNS to other type of storage (local storage for instance) or quickly recover critical files from mounted Recovery Points belonging to Windows Hosts.

    Hope that this helps.
  • I have a few questions because you seem very knowledgeable about this subject. I've created a 1GB test iSCSI LUN on our Synology just to see how they work. I kind of understand what they do but not really how it ties into the storage we are already using. So I can allocate as much space to the iSCSI LUN as I want, but I'm assuming only the storage I allocate can be backed up on the Dell. So is there a way to associate an iSCSI LUN to storage space that is currently being used on the Synology? Is this a situation where we would have to create the iSCSI LUN before adding the data we want to backup? Or do I just need an iSCSI LUN on the drive in order to back up the entire drive?
  • Hi Zacklong:
    To simplify, the LUN process works like this:
    1. On the iSCSI Server (Synology DiskStation) you create (carve) a LUN
    2. On the target machine (i.e. a Windows server) you run the iSCSI initiator and connect to the LUN
    3. You format the LUN using the desired filesystem (i.e. NTFS)
    4. The LUN acts like a local drive for that host.

    The question is how to move files around so the LUN gets populated.
    The obvious way (which, however, should be performed only if everything else fails) is to connect the same host both to the LUN and to the CIFS share with data and do a xcopy or robocopy (if files are not locked).

    However, if I remember correctly, there are ways to copy/move data at the DiskStation level. If any reader with recent DiskStation experience sees this, please jump in and help.
    1. From the GUI -- Control Panel -> Shared Folder, select a share, right click and go to edit you can change which Volume the shared folder is on. It will move in the background.
    2. Disk Station File Manager
    3. rsync (if you are proficient in Linux)

    I guess that any method should work if you are using Windows for the hosts as Synology supports NTFS.

    Oh -- I just stumbled over an unrelated article that may be helpful when planning your DR scenarios. Please see below.
    www.synology.com/.../How_can_I_recover_data_from_my_DiskStation_using_a_PC
  • So I've created the LUN on our Synology and connected it to our Windows Server. The LUN is currently only 1 GB. If I'm understanding you correctly, I should be able to simply copy/move the files from the shared folder to the LUN.

    Your first solution doesn't work because the LUN is already on the same volume as the folder share. Our Synology only has one volume. Additionally, the shared folder is consuming 2/3 of the volume's storage, so even if it was as simple as moving files to a different volume on the Synology, we can't really do that. That's why I was wondering if there was a way to make the LUN encompass the entire volume rather than just available free storage.

    The second solution doesn't work for the same reason - the files take up more space than the LUN has (or could have given our available free space).

    I'm not very familiar with the third option, rsync. It looks like it could work, considering it wouldn't be bound to the available free space on the Synology itself.

    Thanks for talking me through this, I've learned a lot so far and I appreciate the article you sent me. At this point in time (unless I'm completely misunderstanding your solutions) it sounds like we're not going to be able to use an iSCSI LUN unless we increase our Synology's storage.