Connect and Verify a USB Backup Drive
Before you set up automatic USB backup, you should manually mount the drive and ensure that it works correctly.
About this task
We recommend using a Solid State Drive (SSD) as your backup drive instead of a Hard Disk Drive (HDD). SSDs have no moving parts and are therefore more resilient than HDDs to changes in climate.
The SMART System's daily maintenance function only supports a single USB drive at a time.
Procedure
- Connect the SSD to the SMART Controller via any available USB port.
- Access the SMART System's command prompt either using a keyboard and display or SSH.
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Get the device name for the USB drive.
ls /dev/disk/by-path/pci*usb*part1
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Make sure the output lists a usb device.
/dev/disk/by-path/pci-0000:00:15.0-usb-0:6:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part1
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Mount the USB drive to /mnt/smart-external.
sudo mount -ouid=www-data,gid=www-data `ls /dev/disk/by-path/pci*usb*part1` /mnt/smart-externalThere should be no error messages.
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List the contents of the drive.
ls /mnt/smart-external
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Verify the listing is as expected.
If this is a new drive, there should be no contents, or at most a lost+found directory.
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Unmount the drive.
sudo umount /mnt/smart-external
What to do next
Once you have confirmed that your drive can be mounted and its contents are as expected, you can configure daily backup to the drive using the SMART Control Panel.
