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1. What is NAS?

In VEEAM 10, the ability to back up NAS is supported, so let's take a look at what NAS is before testing.

NAS is defined as a special dedicated data storage server, including storage devices (such as disk arrays, CD/DVD drives, tape drives, or removable storage media) and embedded system software that provides cross-platform file sharing.

NAS uses file-based communication protocols, such as NFS and SMB (CIFS).

2. Components of Veeam for NAS

Veeam Backup&Replication to implement backup NAS, you need to add the following components to the backup infrastructure:

File Share

Cache Repository

File Proxy

Backup Repository

File Share

File Share is the NAS storage device. VRB supports the following types of File Share:

SMB (CIFS) file share

NFS file share

File share managed by Windows or Linux

Cache Repository

Cache Repository is the location where Veeam Backup&Replication retains temporary metadata. Veeam Backup&Replication uses cached metadata to reduce the load on File Share during backup.

Usually, other backup software on the market compares the difference between Source and previous backup archives when dealing with increments. Veeam, on the other hand, compares the CRC (cyclic redundancy check, Cyclic Redundancy Check) created during the last backup run in Cache Repository with the CRC of the source data to obtain incremental content. This allows you to perform incremental backups from file shares very quickly and efficiently.

You can add Windows and Linux servers as well as CIFS and NFS as Cache Repository.

Cache Repository takes up a very small amount of capacity, about 1 million files about 70MB. For better performance, SSD is recommended.

In best practice, to minimize network load during backups, place the Cache Repository closer to the File Share in the network: it is best to keep an one-hop distance between them.

File Proxy

File Proxy is the core component that sits between File Share and other components. File Proxy is used for data processing, transferring data from the source file share to the backup repository. File Proxy transfer job for backup and restore.

This File Proxy must be a Windows server. To optimize the performance of multiple concurrent tasks, you can use multiple File Proxy.

1 File Proxy = 1 thread = 1 File share.

Backup Repository

Backup Repository is the short-term storage location where Veeam stores backup files and metadata files. Backups stored in Backup Repository can be used to restore the entire File Share to the state of the specified restore point.

If you want to keep the backup files for a long time, you can archive the old version of the backup, archive it to cheaper storage or upload it to the cloud. Archiving to object storage is also supported.

3. How NAS backups work

There are generally two ways to back up NAS, Block level and File level.

Block level:

Regardless of whether there is data on the block or not, regardless of the logic of the file system, back up each block on the block device. NDMP uses Block level technology.

The advantage of this is that it is faster without calling the file system interface, but the disadvantage is that all the blocks will be copied when backing up, but in fact, the data of many sectors do not correspond to the real files, that is, a lot of zombie sectors will be backed up. And after the backup, the original discontiguous files are also discontiguous files, there are a lot of fragments.

File level:

Back up all files on disk to another media by calling the file system interface. That is, the data is read out as a file and then stored on another medium. Veeam for NAS uses File level technology.

In general, files on the original media, can be discontinuous storage, through the file system to manage and access. After backing up to the new media, the files can be stored continuously. Because of this, there is no need to back up metadata, because when you restore with new media, the file system will be reconstructed anyway.

4. Test environment

Because it is a test environment, using simple deployment, Repository is the local D disk and E disk of Server Backup.

IP address: 192.168.0.140

In addition, set up a separate virtual machine as Proxy. IP address: 192.168.0.44

NFS and CIFS each take the Volumes of 2 10GB on NETAPP FAS2552 to set as file sharing.

NFS:192.168.10.240

CIFS:192.168.10.242

5. Add component 5.1 create File proxy

In the Backup Infrastructure view, right-click Backup Proxies and select Add file backup proxy

In the Choose server list, select a Windows server as the file proxy. In Max concurrent tasks, specify the number of tasks that Proxy can process concurrently, which cannot exceed the number of CPU cores for this Windows server.

In Traffic Rules, the transport traffic between backup components can be limited and encrypted, which can be configured according to the actual situation. Because it can only be set globally, it is not configured by default.

View the components that will already exist and will be installed on the server

Wait for all the necessary components to be installed and configured, and then the next step

Confirm completion

5.2.Adding File Share5.1.1. Add NFS

In the Inventory view, select File Shares, and then click Add File Share in the work area.

In the pop-up window, select the type of file share you want to add, including NFS, SMB, and file shares on Windows or Linux

In the NFS File Share step, fill in the path of the NFS file share in server:/ folder format

Click Advanced, and you can choose one of the Backup directly from the file share and Backup from a native storage snapshot at the following path options.

Backup directly from the file share does not use the NAS storage snapshot feature and reads data directly from the file share. Skip backup locked files and folders at the same time.

Backup from a native storage snapshot at the following path backs up files from locally stored snapshots by specifying the path where the snapshot folder is stored on the NFS file share. Check Failover to direct backup if a snapshot is not available to switch to backup in the direct file share when the storage snapshot is not available, otherwise the task fails.

In Processing, click File proxy to select add Proxy, either select all or specify one individually. The more proxy you select, the more data transfer threads are used for backup jobs, resulting in improved performance.

From the Cache repository drop-down list, select the cache repository where the temporary metafiles are stored. The faster the transmission speed is defined by Backup I control O control, the greater the load on NAS. If the NAS device is powerful enough, select FAST, which remains the same by default.

In Apply, wait for all required components to be installed and configured, and then NFS File Share will be added to the backup infrastructure.

Confirm the information and complete

5.1.2. Add SMB (CIFS)

In the SMB File Share step, fill in the path to the CIFS file share in the format\\ server\ folder. Unlike NFS, you need to check the This share requires access credentials check box to provide the account password for accessing CIFS.

In the Advanced window, unlike NFS, there are more Backup from Microsoft VSS snapshot snapshot backups from VSS, and note that this option requires SMB protocol version 3.0 or later.

In Processing, click File proxy to select add Proxy, either select all or specify one individually. The more proxy you select, the more data transfer threads are used for backup jobs, resulting in improved performance.

From the Cache repository drop-down list, select the cache repository where the temporary metafiles are stored. The faster the transmission speed is defined by Backup I control O control, the greater the load on NAS. If the NAS device is powerful enough, select FAST, which remains the same by default.

In Apply, wait for all required components to be installed and configured, and then NFS File Share will be added to the backup infrastructure.

Confirm the information and complete

6. Backup 6.1 backup task configuration

Home view, right-click Jobs, and then select Backup > File Share

Fill in the task name

Click Add to select the files and folders to back up.

Select a backup (short-term) repository for backup files from the Backup repository drop-down list.

In Keep all file versions for the last, specify how many days the backup file will remain in the backup repository.

If Keep previous file versions for is checked, the files that need to be removed from the backup repository due to the retention policy will be saved to the archive repository. You can also set the retention policy, which is in months and years.

In Archive repository, select a target as the archive (long-term) repository.

Click Advanced, select Folder-level only (recommended) on the ACL Handling tab, and set the permissions and properties to back up only each folder. The restored file inherits permissions from the folder.

Selecting Files and folders (slower) backs up the permissions and properties of each folder and individual file. This option greatly degrades backup performance.

Select the level of data compression and encryption settings in the Compression level options. The higher the compression level, the more CPU resources are consumed.

"on the Maintenance tab, you can set up periodic CRC checks for metadata in backup files and hash checks on blocks to ensure that all data and metadata are backed up correctly."

Set up task notification

"in the Scripts tab, you can set up custom scripts to run before or after backup."

In Secondary Target, click add to add another repository, copy the backup files in the short-term repository, and create another copy for redundancy.

Set up the task schedule, which is the same as backing up the virtual machine settings, without retelling.

Complete confirmation

6.2 Task run

Start the backup, and since it is the first time to run it, a full backup will be created

When you check the details after the backup is completed, you can see 9674 folders and 47484 small files with the size of the backup 322.6MB. The total time is 2 minutes and 23 seconds.

Incremental backup

After placing 5853 files in CIFS, perform an incremental backup, as shown in the figure, with a total backup time of 1 minute and 7 seconds.

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