How best to back up a Windows PC to a FreeNAS/TrueNAS disk pool?

[Akagi]

Hi all,

I have a PC running Windows 11 and a Microserver running TrueNAS Core with a pool of 3TB drives in RaidZ1 (I'll refer to it as the NAS from here)

The NAS is connected directly to the PC via an ethernet cable.

I want to run automatic scheduled backups, preferably incremental, from my PC to the NAS.

What is the best way for me to achieve this?

I previously had Windows and Veeam installed on the Microserver, but it didn't have the CPU power to run that solution effectively.

In the event of a total system failure, I want to be able to simply install the backup software, re-connect it to the NAS, and be able to access/restore from the previous backups.

I could do this with Veeam, but it required a server.

Thanks!

e; Upshot of this thread - Macrium Reflect V8 is awesome, Veeam doesn't work, SyncBack and Paragon both suck.
But use whatever works best for you.

 

[Akagi]

Not 100% clear what sort of backups you want (full system image or just data), but if it's full system image, you could just use something like Macrium Reflect (which will do scheduled and incremental clones) and store the images on the NAS.

I'll look into it, thanks


I've heard of that software, but not as a backup solution etc.

 

[Akagi]

Just use Windows Backup

Ew

 

[Akagi]

Used to use SyncBack (when i was Windows based) for pure data backups and it worked pretty well to a SMB share.

Syncback worked well for me too. Could have multiple jobs scheduled. For example, 1 to back up to an external disk, and another to to the NAS with different parameters.

I use Macrium Reflect Home Edition (paid) to run scheduled incremental backups, and write them to a TrueNAS SMB share. You can also do this with the free edition, although the free edition will be withdrawn in January.

Another option is to install Veeam Agent on your PC which can run automatic scheduled backups and write them to a TrueNAS share. You can also restore files from Veeam Agent. This seems ideal for what you've described. Veeam Agent will only allow you to create one backup job, but this doesn't seem like it would be an issue for your use case.

I'll have a looksee, thankyou

 

[Akagi]

I guess I just have a built in distrust for MS' inbuilt systems and processes. I'd like more detail of what it is doing and more control over it.
But it could be a viable option in reality...

 

[Akagi]

Veeam Free for Windows. Have it on my Win11 machine, backup to unRAID box. Have used it to do bare metal recovery, as well as general file recovery.

Does that not require Veeam software to be installed either on the target server, or on another server?

 

[Akagi]

No. Client side only, backs up to a share on the unRAID box directly.

Got Mrs W’s desktop and laptop doing backups to it as well.

Veeam Agent for Windows Free

Thankyou! I was looking for that and I couldn't for the life of me find it...

 

[Akagi]

Veeam doesn't work sadly, it seems to have issues accessing TrueNAS SMB shares, which sucks.

I am using SyncBack at the moment.

It doesn't seem to be what I'd call a "proper" backup solution, it has a lot of settings and options, but just seems to copy raw files 1:1 to a folder, and each backup just copies whatever is different since the last one. For my use case (doing complete drives) Its essentially just automating ctrl a, ctrl c, ctrl v...

And the file restore interface it has is redundant because... I can just go into the file structure on the NAS and copy out what I need... Essentially I'm not really sure why it exists? Thankyou for the suggestion though, it will do for the time being.

Maybe I'll get Veeam working another day...

 

[Akagi]

Yes ... but you try doing a copy-paste on a whole drive's worth of contents and see how well windows manages it without error.

SyncBack isn't doing a great job either in fairness....

Access denied errors even though it is running with admin privileges, and I can access the files, and logging every single "file has been changed between the scan and the attempt to copy" as a failure without an option to ignore it without paying for the full version...

But it is at least sort of working! My hunt for backup software continues though. Maybe I'll try Macrium next.

 

[Akagi]

I've cut down what syncback backs up to a folder level rather than trying to make it take a copy of the whole disk, hopefully that will help it.

I still want a disk image level backup solution but this removes the emergency "oh no I dont have a backup right now" situation, so thats good.

 

[Akagi]

Veeam community edition agent works with TrueNAS CIFS/SMB for sure. Assuming you've whitelisted the IP for CIFS/SMB access?

Never assume anything where I'm concerned!

I just created the SMB share in Truenas, mapped it and entered the credentials for the associated account I set up at the same time in Truenas, and Windows is happy to use it.

However when I put the address for the nas by name OR by IP it doesn't work when using those same credentials to authenticate. So I can't get as far as creating the job.

The nas is currently connected directly to the PC is is backing up.

 

[Akagi]

I’ve been using Paragon Community edition for years after the built in Windows Backup failed me.

Pretty sure it can backup to network locations. It’s pretty much set and forget.

Free Data Recovery software | Paragon Backup & Recovery Community Edition

Reliable backup and recovery tool for windows 10 with advanced options of restoring files, folders and os. Incremental and differential backup of the whole system.

www.paragon-software.com

Thanks, I've binned off Syncback and I'm giving this a go.

It seems to do what I want, but it doesn't have any kind of logging that I can see in the free version, and the progress of a backup is very unclear.

I selected 6 volumes with a total of 1.5TB to back up, and it has been sitting at 10 - 20 minutes remaining for a while now, when it will most likely take a good few hours in reality, and the backup size hasn't been increasing, so I think it is going to fail eventually. Ideally it would have more intelligent error reporting and told me what the holdup is by now.

Its also a shame that it doesn't support synthetic full backups, so I have no option but to do an additional full backup every few backup cycles.

But I will persist and see what it does.

 

[Akagi]

Update on Paragon...

The backup completed!

So I tried to do a file restore as a test, and... There is no way to restore from a backup on a network location. It only shows me local disks...

There is also no way I can see to edit a backup job.

Honestly astounding. Uninstalled...

I was however able to easily connect to the NAS using identical details that were throwing errors in Veeam.

Why is this so difficult.

 

[Akagi]

Trying Macrium reflect free edition now. Fingers and toes crossed...

edit; OK this seems VERY promising so far. A lot of disabled features in the free version, but I have set up fulls and differentials, running the first test full now.

It also seems to be by FAR the fastest solution I have tried so far, the transfer rate is pretty amazing considering it is using SMB, and despite the disabled features, still the most feature rich.

 

[Akagi]

Macrium wins!

Fastest backup time by far, can do full drive images, no issues at all accessing backup files from a network location, and when you try to restore files from a volume it simply adds a virtual drive to windows explorer so you can essentially view your drive as it was, and copy out what you need, and then unmount the image.

Extremely happy with that solution, wish I'd gone with it in the first place!