Creating and Protecting Network Shares With a Datto Appliance

Topic

This article explains the process of creating and protecting network shares with a Datto appliance.

Environment

  • Datto ALTO
  • Datto SIRIS
  • Datto NAS

Description

Datto appliances can host and back up NAS shares and iSCSI shares. You can also use your BCDR device to protect externally-hosted shares on your LAN by using our NAS Guard technology.

Index

Launching the Create a Share Wizard

  1. In the Datto appliance GUI, click the File Share tab and select Network Attached Storage from the drop-down menu.

NOTE  If your appliance is an ALTO or is on a SIRIS Private service plan, you will not see this dropdown. Instead, click the File Share tab to continue.

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Figure 1: Network Attached Storage

  1. On the Your Shares page, click the Add a New Share button

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Figure 2: Your Shares

  1. The Create a Share wizard will launch.

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Figure 3: Create a Share Wizard

You will see the following options. Select an option to continue:

Creating a NAS share

  1. In the Create a Share Wizard, click the Create NAS Share button and then click Next.

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Figure 4: Creating a NAS share in the wizard

  1. Enter a share name, and use the drop-down menu to choose between using default settings or the settings from an existing share.

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Figure 5: Share name and configuration

  1. Configure your local snapshot and retention policy, and then click Next.

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Figure 6: Local Snapshot and Retention Policy

  1. Choose your cloud snapshot and retention policies, and then click Next.

NOTE  If your appliance is on a SIRIS Private service plan, it will prompt you to configure your replication and retention policy instead.

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Figure 7: Cloud Snapshot and Retention Policy & Replication and Retention Policy

  1. Review the summary page. Click Previous if you need to make any changes. When you are satisfied with the configuration, click Finish.

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Figure 8: Summary pages for Cloud-subscribed and SIRIS Private-subscribed appliances

  1. Your NAS share and methods for connecting to it will appear on the Your Shares page.

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Figure 9: New NAS share, as seen on the Your Shares page

Creating an iSCSI share

  1. In the Create a Share Wizard, click the Create iSCSI Share button.

iscsi10.pngFigure 10: Creating an iSCSI share in the wizard

  1. Enter a share name. Share names can contain dashes or hyphens, but may not contain underscores.
  2. Use the drop-down menu to choose between using default settings or the settings from an existing share.
  3. Specify the share size and block size. When you have finished making your selections, click Next.

NOTE  Once you create an iSCSI share, you cannot resize it.

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Figure 11: Share name and configuration

  1. Configure your local snapshot and retention policy, and then click Next.

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Figure 12: Local Snapshot and Retention Policy

  1. Choose your cloud snapshot and retention policies, and then click Next.

NOTE  If your appliance is on a SIRIS Private service plan, it will prompt you to configure your replication and retention policy instead.

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Figure 13: Cloud Snapshot and Retention Policy & Replication and Retention Policy

  1. Review the summary page. Click Previous if you need to make any changes. When you are satisfied with the configuration, click Finish.

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Figure 14: Summary pages for Cloud-subscribed and SIRIS Private-subscribed appliances

  1. Your iSCSI share and methods for connecting to it will appear on the Your Shares page.

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Figure 15: iSCSI share, as seen on the Your Shares page

Backing up an External Share

  1. In the Create a Share Wizard, click the Backup External Share button and then click Next.

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Figure 16: Backup External Share

  1. You will see the Protect a Share prompt.

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Figure 17: Protect a Share

  1. Enter the following information. Refer to Figure 17 for all list items.
    • A. What would you like your share to be called? Enter a name that you'd like to use for this share on your local Datto appliance. The name can match what the share uses in production, or it can differ.
    • B. Would you like to use the configuration from an existing share? Select Yes to use the local settings from another share on the Datto device. Select No to enter custom settings.
    • C. SMB Address: Input the fully-qualified network path of the share as it exists in the production environment.
    • D. Retain NTFS File Permissions? Select Yes to back up the share with all file and folder ACLs preserved. Otherwise, select No.

NOTE  Selecting Yes may increase backup times.

  • E. Credentials: If the share is not public, provide access credentials for a user account that exists on the share. Check the Connect as a Guest box if no credentials are required to connect to the share.

NOTE  For credentialed access, Datto strongly recommends using the account of a system administrator who has full access to all of the share's content. Using a restricted account can prevent your Datto appliance from being able to read and perform a complete backup of the file structure.

  1. When you finish the configuration, click Next.
  2. Create a Local Snapshot & Retention schedule for the share. Then, click Next.

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Figure 18: Local Snapshot and Retention Policy

  1. Choose your cloud snapshot and retention policies, and then click Next.

NOTE  If your appliance is on a SIRIS Private service plan, it will prompt you to configure your replication and retention policy instead.

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Figure 19: Cloud Snapshot and Retention Policy & Replication and Retention Policy

  1. Review the summary page. Click Previous if you need to make any changes. When you are satisfied with the configuration, click Finish.

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Figure 20: Summary pages for Cloud-subscribed and SIRIS Private-subscribed appliances

  1. The protected share and its network path will appear on the Your Shares page.

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Figure 21: Protected NAS share, as seen on the Your Shares page

Additional Resources