NAS as a backup target repository

[guitarfish]

I've read a lot of threads, and just want to ask about my specific situation.

I have a few small remote sites that presently use Veeam B&R to backup Windows Server to a QNAP TS-439 NAS. The NAS devices are now 10 years old, still functioning fine (some drives have been replaced), but it’s time for upgrades. The NAS’s are setup as simple SMB shares. I have done file restores from time to time, and even a full server recovery once, never a problem. I know that Veeam recommends a Windows Server for a backup repository, and I considered doing that, but for a bunch of reasons this comes out to be more costly and more headache over the long term. So I would really like to go with new NAS’s.

I’m backing up a single Win Server 2019 VM at each site, <100GB size. I am looking at QNAP TVS-472XT models with Seagate 4TB drives, which are light years ahead of what I’d be replacing. This time around I would go with iSCSI because I know that is recommended over SMB.

Is this configuration considered supported, unsupported, or what? Thanks!

[Gostev]

I must correct you here in that Veeam does not recommend a Windows Server for a backup repository, rather Veeam recommends a "general-purpose server". Windows or Linux is a different question, but I can tell you that the top choice these days are hardened repositories based on Linux servers with XFS. This makes storage costs more in line with NAS, and not only reduces - but completely eliminates the headache from ransomware and hackers.

I personally would NEVER go with a low-end NAS over the above configuration because for once you loose the immutable backups feature, which is priceless and cannot be considered "optional" these days. Besides, there are major data integrity concerns due to software-based RAID controllers, which make these low-end NAS by far the top source of data corruptions/losses we see in our support.

In your specific case and for the amount of data you need to protect though, I don't even understand why you think you need NAS in principle? You can just use internal or direct attached storage of the backup server itself, no? Or what am I missing here, what additional benefits you think you will get from using NAS as a target? Honestly, vast majority of our customers would just use rotated drives in your scenario (as again, you always want to have some recent backup immutable or offline).

[guitarfish]

Gostev, thank you for the quick reply.

I'm running B&R on Win 10 Pro clients at the remote sites. I don't see Win 10 mentioned in the User Guide as a repository option, but I do see the local C: drive is setup as a repository by default. If that is a valid option, a couple drives in a RAID-1 config on the Win10 boxes would give me what I need.

[Gostev]

Exactly!!

I don't see Win 10 mentioned in the User Guide as a repository option

Hmm, that's bad. Could you please share what specific User Guide are you looking at, as we will want to fix this. I checked all instances of the System Requirements documentation I am aware of, and Windows 10 is mentioned in all of them under the Backup Repository section.

[guitarfish]

I am at this page:
https://helpcenter.veeam.com/docs/backu ... ml?ver=110

[Gostev]

OK that's good. If you click Microsoft Windows server, and then System Requirements, you will see Windows 10 listed as supported.