Many NAS products have an internal file system that allows use of both NFS
and CIFS; that is, you could use the same NAS volume at the same time on
both Windows (via CIFS) and UNIX (via NFS).  CIFS and NFS have different
metadata (file permissions, ownership, etc.)  So the NAS file system must
store both types of metadata for each file.  The key here is that, if you
access this NAS file system via CIFS, you 'see' only CIFS metadata; if you
access via NFS, you see only NFS metadata.

So, here's the rub: if you do your backups via a mounted file share protocol
(CIFS or NFS), you save that file share protocol's metadata ONLY.  So, if
you do a restore, you wipe out the other protocol's metadata.  The only way
to prevent this is to use the backup product that is embedded in the NAS
product to perform the backup, because only that backup product understands
how to save both sets of metadata.  And, in order to use that embedded
backup product with enterprise class backup products, you must use NDMP to
control the backup.

Hope this helps.
tl



-----Original Message-----
From: Legato NetWorker discussion [mailto:NETWORKER AT LISTMAIL.TEMPLE DOT EDU] 
On
Behalf Of Yura Pismerov
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 11:08 AM
To: NETWORKER AT LISTMAIL.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Subject: Re: [Networker] NDMP for NAS devices- do you like it?

    BTW, probably a silly question, but...
    What are the real advantages of using NDMP for NetApp over backing
it up through NFS mounted shares ?
    For example, I have a single NetApp volume (let's say 2 TB). Does it
make sense to use NDMP in my case ?
    Especially considering the fact that it is going to be a single data
stream.


Stan Horwitz wrote:

>On Thu, 12 Feb 2004, Wood, R A (Bob) wrote:
>
>
>
>>Stan,
>>      We're using NDMP and 7.1.1 haven't noticed any difference from
>>6.1.3 yet. We have NetApp connected to dedicated library right now but
>>intend to connect to fabric and use shared library in the near future.
>>
>>
>
>Just out of curiosity, do you do full backups of your NatApp device
>nightly? How much data is backed up on a typical night and can you
>recover individual NetApp files? If so, how long does it take to get
>back a NetApp file from tape via the NDMP protocol?
>
>--
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--
Yuri Pismerov, Sr. System Administrator,
TUCOWS.COM INC. (416) 535-0123  ext. 1352


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