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Old NAS to New NAS File Sync

DomDisDomDis
edited April 2016 in AOMEI Products Support

I have an old NAS device (with very little free space)  that I would like to periodically sync to a New NAS device.  Using AOMEI "File Sync" backup I select the old NAS in Step 1. Then I select the New NAS in step 2. I noticed that AOMEI attempts to make a shadow copy. What is this shadow copy and where is it stored? The Old NAS, Then new NAS or on the local machine running AOMEI?  If it is storing the shadow on the OLD NAS then I'd like to know if there is a way to turn off this shadow copy?


Comments

  • Peter13febPeter13feb

    Shadow Copy is a feature of Windows that makes sure a consistent state is processed. That is, it uses a "frozen" state of the files on the source disk and uses a "frozen" state of the files on the destination disk, for its processing. Changes happening after that are not taken into account. The feature is called VSS, volume shadow service, and the state is called a Shadow Copy. It obviously uses space when there are changes to the files during processing, because then it would keep the frozen and the changed portions of the files. On the destination disk obviously some space is needed when an existing file is replaced.

  • DomDisDomDis
    edited April 2016

    Thanks for the reply Peter13feb. I'm running AOMEI on a Windows XP and the Source NAS is a Network Appliance which is not mounted or mapped on the XP machine. I didn't want to create extra data on the source NAS. The target (destination) NAS will obviously have data written to it. If the Shadow is temporarily stored there (destination) I guess that's OK.

  • Peter13febPeter13feb
    edited April 2016

    please consider in addition the source NAS must be given to AOMEI Backupper in the IP form \\192.168.p.pp\share, not in the name form \\servername\share . From experience.

  • DomDisDomDis

    OK I can use the IP but you never really addressed my question of where the shadow (or even if a shadow is done). I added the source NAS and gave ADMIN user and password so it concerns me a bit

  • Peter13febPeter13feb
    edited April 2016

    there is no shadow stored somewhere.

    Shadow Copy means a frozen state of the file directory and frozen contents, because this freezing is needed for doing backup, on the source side and (for sync) on the destination side. Only when you change something on the source side while doing the backup you end up using more space, namely the old, frozen things and the new things. After the sync backup is finished, freezing is finished, too.

    Shadow Services are a feature in Windows, present since XP and massively improved since Vista.

  • adminadmin

    Yes, Peter is right.

    There is no somewhere to store the shadow copy.


  • DomDisDomDis

    Thanks Peter  - On Net Appliance they have snapshots which can be manually or automatically taken - Its a snapshot in time as files exist at that point in time and only the deltas a recorded. The NAS is not attached to a windows server and it it has proprietary operating systems. It serves up data to both CIFS and NFS  so this is why I have soo many questions about VSS and the shadow storage - what /how does it do to this NAS.  One volume on the NAS is only 5000 (give or take) files. The other volume is huge. Other tools that I have attempted to use for file sync ran for 2 days just calculating.


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