SmallNetBuilder

Using rsync

Now it's time to use our rsync-enabled My Book Live. Most of my files live on a trusty old QNAP TS-109+, so I needed to move the files over to the My Book Live. I could have just done a folder-to-folder drag and drop, but didn't want to tie up my Windows system.

So I set up the following remote replication job on the QNAP. This copied all the files and folders in the Qmultimedia folder on the QNAP over to the rsync directory on the WD. (The obscured password is "root" as defined in the rsyncd.secrets file.)

QNAP Remote Replication settings to access the My Book Live rsync target

Backing Up The My Book Live

This next part isn't really about rsync, so you can stop reading if that's all you needed. But now that the My Book Live is my primary NAS, it needs to be backed up. You could write a cron job for this and run it on the My Book Live. But WD has built in a flexible "safepoint" backup feature, which is a whole lot easier to use.

WD defines safepoints as NAS snapshots that include "the collection of users, shares, WD SmartWare/Time Machine, or Windows 7/Vista backups, and associated device configuration details". When you create a safepoint, the My Book Live scans the network for SMB shares, which are then displayed as shown below.

Safepoint target share selection

Safepoint destinations can be password protected and the safepoint creation dialogs prompt for username and password information if you select a protected share. You can also schedule incremental updates of the safepoint as shown below. You can define multiple safepoints, but note that safepoints don't keep multiple versions of files.

Safepoint creation

Closing Thoughts

Although the WD My Book Live and My Book Live Duo aren't the fastest NASes, ~40 MB/s write and 60+ MB/s read for large sequential files is much faster than the old QNAP it replaces. The biggest gain is that I now have flexible and secure remote access to all my files via WD2go. And now rsync is always there if I need it.

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