There’s plenty of information and posts available in the Unifi forums that explains how to replace the default 1TB hard drive with one of larger capacity, but there seems to be another issue that’s being overlooked.
Data retention and backups are critical in a corporate environment, and an issue that several people observed was that the scheduled backups on a Unifi Cloudkey Gen2 Plus only include the system configuration, and do NOT include the proprietary video archive files.
The Unifi Cloudkey Gen2 Plus is essentially a mini Linux computer. I noticed there was a spare USB Type C port on the back of the device that the vendor states is “reserved for future use”, as shown below on the right.
I’ve tested several external drives on this port using a small converter I bought on Amazon, and while I ran into some issues with the popular small form factor drives that are powered by the USB port itself, I ended up finding a GREAT solution that involves using an externally powered full size 6TB USB external HDD by Western Digital.
Using the steps below, you can mirror your video footage from it’s default location to an external drive.
Note: There are 3 ways to power a Cloudkey Gen2 Plus. This method works best when using PoE Switch port or a PoE injector.
Required Hardware
WD 6TB Elements External Hard Drive (or a similar one, as long as it has its own power supply)
USB-C to USB Adapter (this model is tested and confirmed to work)
Initial USB Drive Install and Detection
Plug the USBC to USB adapter into the spare USB-C port on the back of the Cloudkey (see diagram above).
Plug the power cord to the new external HDD and turn on it’s power.
Plug the USB cord of the HDD into the adapter you’ve installed on the Cloudkey.
SSH into your Cloudkey and run `lsusb`. The output show show the new drive.
root@UCK-G2-Plus:~# lsusb
Bus 002 Device 005: ID 1058:25a3 Western Digital Technologies, Inc. Elements Desktop (WDBWLG)
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 174c:1153 ASMedia Technology Inc. ASM1153 SATA 3Gb/s bridge
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 0b95:1790 ASIX Electronics Corp. AX88179 Gigabit Ethernet
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 0451:8440 Texas Instruments, Inc.
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0451:82ff Texas Instruments, Inc.
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0451:8442 Texas Instruments, Inc.
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Configure the new USB Drive
The command `fdisk -l` should show you the new drive location. In my case, it was /dev/sdb. Pay close attention to the output and be sure you are identifying the new disk correctly!
root@UCK-G2-Plus:~# fdisk -l | grep Disk ← This command only displays the disk information.
Disk /dev/mtdblock0: 64 KiB, 65536 bytes, 128 sectors
Disk /dev/mmcblk0: 29.1 GiB, 31268536320 bytes, 61071360 sectors
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 98101B32-BBE2-4BF2-A06E-2BB33D000C20
Disk /dev/mmcblk1: 1.9 GiB, 2002780160 bytes, 3911680 sectors
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 853D3873-C240-465B-BAAB-71BADB716C09
Disk /dev/sda: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 95FA9511-D663-4144-BA52-885FBA96352F
Disk /dev/sdb: 5.5 TiB, 6001140957184 bytes, 11720978432 sectors
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: B0A5E08B-AA2D-42CD-AEDB-92220EE744A7
Next, you’ll need to clear the partition table on the disk (since most new drives come with a DOS partition by default) and create a new Linux EXT4 partition.
root@UCK-G2-Plus:~# fdisk /dev/sdb ← Make sure you type the correct disk here!
Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.29.2).
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
Be careful before using the write command.
Command (m for help): d ←Type “d” to delete the factory defined partition.
Selected partition 1
Partition 1 has been deleted.
Command (m for help): w ← Type “w” to write the table to disk.
The partition table has been altered.
Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.
Now you can create a new Linux EXT4 filesystem.
root@UCK-G2-Plus:~# fdisk /dev/sdb ← Make sure you type the correct disk here!
Welcome to fdisk (util-linux 2.29.2).
Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them.
Be careful before using the write command.
Command (m for help): n ←Type “n” for new partition.
Partition type
p primary (0 primary, 0 extended, 4 free)
e extended (container for logical partitions)
Select (default p): p ←Type “p” for primary.
Partition number (1-4, default 1):
First sector (2048-1953525167, default 2048):
Last sector, +sectors or +size{K,M,G,T,P} (2048-1953525167, default 1953525167):
Created a new partition 1 of type 'Linux' and of size 931.5 GiB.
Command (m for help): w ← Type “w” to write the table to disk. This will create /dev/sdb1.
The partition table has been altered.
Calling ioctl() to re-read partition table.
Syncing disks.
Lastly, format the new /dev/sdb1 partition type as Linux EXT4:
root@UCK-G2-Plus:~# mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdb1 ← Make sure you type the correct partition here!
mke2fs 1.42.13 (17-May-2015)
/dev/sdb1 contains a file system
Proceed anyway? (y,n) y ← Type “y” to proceed
Creating filesystem with 244190390 4k blocks and 61054976 inodes
Filesystem UUID: 4b892979-ccef-4353-ba05-2a70b0d25cf4
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632, 2654208,
4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968,
102400000, 214990848
Allocating group tables: done
Writing inode tables: done
Creating journal (32768 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done
Mount the new USB Drive
Create a mount point and mount the new drive.
root@UCK-G2-Plus:~# mkdir /mnt/backup ← Create a mount point.
root@UCK-G2-Plus:~# mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/backup ← Mount the new partition.
root@UCK-G2-Plus:~# df -h ← View all mounted drives.
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev 1.5G 0 1.5G 0% /dev
tmpfs 299M 5.0M 294M 2% /run
/dev/mmcblk0p46 5.9G 516M 5.3G 9% /mnt/.rwfs
/dev/disk/by-partlabel/rootfs 363M 363M 0 100% /mnt/.rofs
overlayfs-root 5.9G 516M 5.3G 9% /
tmpfs 1.5G 4.0K 1.5G 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock
tmpfs 1.5G 0 1.5G 0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs 746M 132K 746M 1% /tmp
/dev/mmcblk0p45 976M 142M 809M 15% /persist
/dev/mmcblk0p47 19G 45M 19G 1% /srv-internal
/dev/sda4 878G 5.7G 872G 1% /srv
/dev/sda2 16G 156M 16G 1% /srv/var
/dev/sda3 32G 123M 32G 1% /srv/db
/dev/mmcblk1p1 1.9G 7.8M 1.8G 1% /data
tmpfs 256M 2.9M 254M 2% /srv/unifi-protect/temp
/dev/sdb1 5.5T 1.7T 3.5T 34% /mnt/backup ← There it is!
Mount the new USB drive upon reboot (2 methods are shown below).
root@UCK-G2-Plus:~# vi /etc/rc3.d/S01unifi ← add “ mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/backup”
save the file by typing “:wq!”
OR, if you are not comfortable with the vi editor, this command will do the same thing:
root@UCK-G2-Plus:/etc/rc3.d# echo "mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/backup" | cat - /etc/rc3.d/S01unifi > temp && mv temp /etc/rc3.d/S01unifi
Synchronize the default video location with a folder on the new USB drive
root@UCK-G2-Plus:~# apt install rsync
root@UCK-G2-Plus:~# mkdir /mnt/backup/video
root@UCK-G2-Plus:~# rsync -aP /srv/unifi-protect/video/ /mnt/backup/video/
sending incremental file list
./
2020/
2020/07/
2020/07/12/
2020/07/12/FCECDAD88B53_0_rotating_1594587207715.ubv
1,073,741,824 100% 73.21MB/s 0:00:13 (xfr#1, to-chk=4/11)
2020/07/12/FCECDAD88B53_0_timelapse_1594587847873.ubv
1,073,741,824 100% 73.07MB/s 0:00:14 (xfr#2, to-chk=3/11)
2020/07/12/FCECDAD88B53_2_rotating_1594587207671.ubv
1,073,741,824 100% 74.73MB/s 0:00:13 (xfr#3, to-chk=2/11)
2020/07/12/FCECDAD88B53_2_timelapse_1594589641979.ubv
1,073,741,824 100% 69.41MB/s 0:00:14 (xfr#4, to-chk=1/11)
2020/07/26/
2020/07/26/FCECDAD88B53_0_rotating_1595775383126.ubv
1,073,741,824 100% 67.99MB/s 0:00:15 (xfr#5, to-chk=0/11)
pool/
Configure a scheduled task to mirror your videos each day
Use the cron scheduler service to create your daily backups using the rsync command above.
root@UCK-G2-Plus:~# crontab -e ← This basically opens a vi editor where you can add the rsync command and timing variables using the vi command set.
