Eject USB Disk After Backup

[zimbonz]

Hi All,
I am new to Synology products, and had recently used ReadyNas devices for network backup. I can safely say that your product, is in all ways far superior and I only wish I had heard of it sooner!

Anyway, I have DS207+ that I have just commissioned for a client. I have setup a local backup schedule, to run every day, to backup the contents of my "Backup" folder - to the external USB disk. I am using Maxtor OneTouch4 Mini 250Gb drives.

My question is: How important is it, for the USB disk to be "ejected" from the the web console, prior to the disk being physically disconnected? I have a basic Onsite-Offsite local backup rotation schedule, so two disks are rotated every day.
I am an offsite consultant, so I am not at the site everyday to perform the "Eject" function, the responsibilty of replacing the disks would fall onto an employee at the site. I would rather not give this employee access to the Web Console, so that they could perform the Eject function themselves, because they will undoubtedly break something in there.
If it is crucial for the USB disks to be "Ejected" prior to them being disconnected, is there anyway that the backup software could automate this task, as something to run, once the backup has finished?
I would sincerely appreciate any thoughts on this.

Regards,
ZM

[HarryPotter]

I am also interested in the answer to this question.

I use a timer switch to power on the usb disk a few minutes before the scheduled backup and to power it off an hour later.

Until now I have no issues with this procedure, but I fear a bit too that this will dammage the external HDD one day.

[Franklin]

Greetings zimbonz

Thanks for your comment and feedback about Synology products, and welcome to the community.

About your questions

1. The risk of removing the USB HDD from the Synology system without ejecting it is the same risk as removing USB HDD from your Windows/Mac computer without ejecting it. You have a small risk of data loss because some of the data is stuck in the RAM or Cache of the HDD - properly ejecting the drive will flush this data to the HDD. As such, it's recommended to eject the drive from the WebGUI to ensure that all data has been flushed from the system.

Suggestions
1. You could conduct port forwarding of the Synology system, and therefore manage the system remotely from any Web-capable computer
2. No, the Synology system will not eject the USB/eSATA drive after conducting a backup, as the USB/eSATA drive can be used for other storage purposes (after 722 and above)
2a. In theory, you could create your own Linux Script to eject the drive on a certain time period, however you will have to consult with The Underground for further information. However, the problem with this is that if a backup is taking longer than usual, and the drive is ejected, the backup will fail
3. You could use Network Backup with a DS108j located off site - and data from the DS207+ can be sent through the internet to the DS108j for backup purposes. In firmware 803 and above, you can even enable the incremental option, where data deleted on the source will not be deleted at the destination.


Hope this clarifies things for you, have a good day.

[jekyll]

Hi all, Could it not be intergrated into the final version of the beta as it's only a script and a few people are interested?
i ask because a few syno customers have hibernation problems regarding USB devices, and since some of us would only use the device for backup & not storage we would gain greater life from our drives.

[chrischambers]

frankiln, a question then using the WEBCon, is they a re Lunix command line like "poweroff" that can used to unmouth and USB HD, then this way all we need to do is create a on like command to log onto the DS and call the command. ?

[HarryPotter]

To eject the usb drive, I added the folowing commands to /etc/crontab:

Code: Select all

sync; /usr/syno/bin/synousbdisk -umount sdk1; >/tmp/usbtab

[B4sH]

To eject the usb drive, I added the folowing commands to /etc/crontab:

Code: Select all

sync; /usr/syno/bin/synousbdisk -umount sdk1; >/tmp/usbtab

Hi all,

First msg, cause im new in the synology community, but very pleased to use the products

I've just bought a Synology DS211 and ive got the same problem as said in the topic.
I would like to automatically eject the USB HD when the backup is complete. At least, i would like to perform this 1 time per day.

Does the command line "sync; /usr/syno/bin/synousbdisk -umount sdk1; >/tmp/usbtab " work to unmount the USB drive ?
My DSM version is: DSM 3.0-1354

Thank you for ur answer, and sry for having up this topic

[HarryPotter]

Yes and no

sync:
makes sure that all pending write operations are finished

/usr/syno/bin/synousbdisk -umount sdk1:
does just unmount the HD for the file system

>/tmp/usbtab:
removes the disk from the system (ejects it)

[B4sH]

Ok ok, ill try it and come back to you for the feedbacks.

Thx a lot for ur quickly answer HarryPotter

B4sH

[3rdparty]

Is there any update on a way to auto-unmount an external USB drive after a backup is completed?

[HarryPotter]

The commands I currently use in crontab is:

Code: Select all

sync; umount -f /dev/sdq1; echo 1 > /sys/block/sdq/device/delete

It seems to work, but I dont know if it is the best way to go.

[patters]

I have searched but found nothing on how to eject a USB drive from inside DSM. I use NTFS disks and they are mounted to /usbshare1. However when I select that in File Browser and click on the mount button the unmount option is greyed out so I have no option but to just pull them out of the USB port. Am I missing something obvious or are NTFS partitions not mounted in the same way (because they use the NTFS-3G driver or something)?

[henkg]

Eject USB: DSM | Control Panel | External devices. Select disk, then use subtab Eject.

[patters]

Ah thanks for that henkg - I'd never noticed! I had assumed it would be in the File Browser window itself.

[AlanF]

Hi we are a Backup Company with hundreds of Synology NAS units, we use the USB share for off site copies. We rotate these weekly. We never eject HDD's (as we don't want users to have control panel access)and I've never had a problem. If the activity LED is off its usually fairly safe to unplug.

One solution is DSM4.2 Beta now supports a scheduler that can execute user defined scripts, so you could eject a disk at a specific time if need be. You have to power off to remount the device, rebooting doesn't seem to help. I guess there is a Re-mount command as well (not sure of the format).

Remember to set R/W access (permissions) to the USB share or you will definitely have problems with local backups failing (big files)or when using more than one USB HDD. The Local backup HDD grows dramatically in size if you used DR3 Restore Points as the Symbolic links can't be supported on a different volume.

Have fun
Alan