NSync backup of N5200 ISCSI volumes

[Paul R]

Curious as to how I go about backing up the data stored in ISCSI volumes on a N5200PRO using NSync. The only source folders that appear for selection are those created as shared folders - anything created as an ISCSI volume is not available as a choice!

Regards
Paul R

[thenotorious]

i would like some one to answer this because we can backup shared foler but not the iscsi luns

would it be possible one day ?

[Rievax]

Guys,

iSCSI is a way for the NAS to present a "disk" to an OS (Windows, Linux, OS X, Unix or whatever...). The NAS has no knowledge on HOW the volume has been formatted: it just presents it to the "initiator" that does whatever it wants to it.

The backup functionnality is based on what the NAS can access as a known volume, accessible by its Operating System. The only way that it "could" be aware of this iSCSI LUN would be to initiate itself a connection to its own target and "mount" correctly the formated partition. While this could be possible, there is another problem: partition sharing. iSCSI is not a protocol for sharing directories and files; this is used to present a RAW volume to the initiator that will then format it as a local disk. It is not meant to be shared by multiple machines at the same time. (there are of course some exceptions, like VMware ESX, but the problem still is the same: avoid data corruption by locking files so you cannot access files already opened by the other OS).

Short answer: NO, it is not possible unless the community finds a way to have a read only access the to LUN that will prevent data corruption and lock the files that are beeing accessed. Dream on...

Hope this helps.

Rievax

PS: to backup this LUN, use your host operating system tools.