Having had a couple of weeks to familiarize myself with the Nokia N900 and having spent some time configuring and tweaking, I decided it was probably about time to initiate some kind of backup procedure.

The Nokia N900 is a fantastic device and has completely surpassed my expectations of what a "hand held" device can do. It's amazing how much functionality has been crammed into this 'phone'.... however there is one small issue I am not impressed with: The N900 comes with PC Syncing software but it's for Windows! - Apparently, you simply connect the supplied USB cable, select the appropriate option on the phone ("PC Suite Mode") and install the relevant software on your Windows PC. What? If I wanted to sync with Windows, I would have bought a Windows Mobile based device.... I don't, so I didn't. As I use Linux on all of my computers, I have no use for the included software.

All is not lost. I am able to transfer files to/from the N900 using "Mass Storage Mode" and software already on my Linux PCs. Ubuntu automatically offers me F-spot (photos) and Rhythmbox (music) & other options when I connect to one of my PC's using the USB cable. I can access my data by accessing the N900's internal storage or my micro sd card, using a file browser, but it might have been nice to have a dedicated option for Linux.... seeing as the N900 runs the Maemo 5 OS which was built using Debian Linux.... I'm just saying. At the end of the day, it's not a big deal. I would never trade the N900's many communications options for one of those other 'popular' devices with very limited communications options.

Besides, who wants to sync using a USB cable when you can fling files through the air.... Look mum: No wires! (obviously, you will need a working WLAN connection for this trick to work).

Readynas Duo

I purchased a Netgear ReadyNAS Duo a few weeks ago and remembered seeing an Rsync Service option on one of the configuration screens. Also, some smart Maemo developer(s) created a small rsync front-end applet called "Grsync" that can be placed on a virtual desktop if required.

This looked like a good option for backing up my files, so, I installed 'Grsync' using the Application Manager on the N900 and then I enabled the rsync daemon on the nas box. I created a new shared folder on the Readynas, calling it "N900" and enabled rsync read/write under the sharing options. After starting the grsync applet on the N900, I used used the following settings: (without the quotes)

Source: "/home/user/MyDocs/"
Destination: "192.168.0.5::N900/"

Note: Adjust the IP address to reflect your setup and be sure to include two colons (::) as this is require to talk to a device running in daemon mode. (see the rsync manual)
I like to see whats happening while copying files, so on the Extra Options menu, I ticked the "Show transfer progress" option. This step isn't required, it's just a personal preference.

Then, simply click the sync button (bottom right) and, all things being equal, you should see some info on screen as your files are backed up to the Nasbox..... if you listen really carefully, you might hear them zipping along on your wlan radio waves and dropping one-by-one onto the ReadyNAS hard drive(s).

A few minutes after starting the process (I have a lot of music on my N900 so it was taking some time), I had to go out for a while. I needed my phone with me so I simply hit the pause button and minimised the app. When I returned home, I went back to grsync and hit 'play': the process continued where it left off... and completed the backup without error. Cool.

To copy files from the NAS to the N900, simply reverse the Source/Destination settings. You can do this easily by using the "Switch source with dest." option on the drop-down menu (title bar).

I hope this helps others who may be looking for ways to backup their Nokia N900 to a Netgear ReadyNas (or similar network attached storage solution) using rsync.