It is very important to have a backup of currently running system of FreeNAS. When it failed to boot, we still have the system backup of it which can be restored easily. This tutorial is going to show you how to create backup of FreeNAS 9.3 system. Please note that this feature is not available in previous version of FreeNAS. I am not pretty sure if version 9.2 already have this feature. This backup will only save or backup the FreeNAS configuration or settings. But, you can also choose to backup the existing data as well.
Steps to backup FreeNAS 9.3 system
Boot the FreeNAS 9.3 server until you reached the following screen on your console
Now, type 11 to start create backup. You will be asked to specify the remote path to save the backup. This usually connect to other computer using ssh protocol. So, make sure the remote server supports ssh. The following credentials must be prepared:
- Ip address or host name
- user name
- password
- remote path
If all required items are met, you will see the backup progress displayed on FreeNAS console like this one below.