I'm wondering Rsync or Replication ?

[Ben_Wha]

Hello,

I have set up a FreeNAS server and I'm wondering if I should use replication or rsync to receive zfs snapshot from other BSD servers ? I understand that replication is made for 2 FreeNAS box but could I use a replication (Pull) on my FreeNAS server to only receive zfs snapshot over ssh ?

 

[JaimieV]

Replication is made for use between any two ZFS vdevs, not two FreeNAS boxes. If your other BSD servers are using ZFS, you can certainly choose replication.

I would suggest comparing the speed/network impacts between running sync updates with replicas or by rsync, and choosing the one that works best for your situation.

If the other machines are not using ZFS filesystems, then your only choice is rsync.

 

[cyberjock]

I know ZFS replication is FAR faster than rsync. ZFS replication can almost saturate my Gb LAN here at home. Rsync can barely do 30MB/sec.

 

[JaimieV]

To be fair though, weren't you using a Windows host as one end? I've never met a good rsync for Windows, as we discussed at the time.

Also, it may actually be beneficial not to swamp the network - if there's not a dedicated backup LAN, and/or no management to set QoS, then a reduced speed might be a good thing.

 

[cyberjock]

To be fair though, weren't you using a Windows host as one end? I've never met a good rsync for Windows, as we discussed at the time.

Also, it may actually be beneficial not to swamp the network - if there's not a dedicated backup LAN, and/or no management to set QoS, then a reduced speed might be a good thing.

I think mine was FreeNAS to FreeNAS direct connect, but now its been so long I'm not sure. In any case, rsync is very CPU intensive compared to replication. So I'd expect that apples for apples replication is superior.

Besides, from what I've read the issue isn't a Windows thing. It's how rsync works and it requires some serious CPU power and is single threaded.