myhrik Posted February 24, 2015 Report Share Posted February 24, 2015 Hi! This may be a newbie question, but I've used Retrospect (although a bit on and off) for quite some years already. One thing I don't understand: I've got two Macs. One at home and one in my studio. They each have their separate installation of Retrospect 11.5.3. The one at home has got one media set, while the Mac in my studio has got one stationary media set + one "offsite" media set I bring with me to the studio two times a week to have a complete backup of my studio located somewhere else. (In addition to this I use a cloud backup service, the excellent JottaCloud, so I feel fairly well protected.) The problem is this: I don't know what to actually do with the backups if one of the Macs should fail. Because if I take the studio backup disk back to my home Mac, the catalog does not exist, because my home Mac obviously does not even know about the studio backup media sets and vice versa. They are two different installations on two different Macs. What to do? Am I missing something really basic here? Should I be using the "client" software to somehow link the two installations together, or is this only meant for larger business houses with several computers wired together on a local network? Should I be storing the catalog files on some cloud service instead of the two different Macs' local hard drives, that can link my two computers together so that my two backup databases are "joined"? Or is it as simple as bringing my studio backup media set to my home Mac installation of Retrospect, and Retrospect on my home mac will somehow recognize it, add the media set with all its contents and be able to restore the backups after all? I'm sorry if this is a stupid question, I have looked for answers, but I just don't get how this is supposed to work. Any light anyone can shed on this will make me really happy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennart_T Posted February 24, 2015 Report Share Posted February 24, 2015 You would need the catalog files from "the other" Mac. You can either copy them (via USB-stick or hard drive) or you can recreate them from the member disks of the media set(s). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myhrik Posted February 24, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 24, 2015 Thanks Lennart! If, say, my studio burnt down I and would not have my studio Mac any more, all I had left was the off-site backup media set. What to do then? What is the correct way to restore that data? Do I open Retrospect on my home Mac or other computer, and choose to ADD a new media set? Or LOCATE? Can I "add" a media set that is already in use by another computer like that? Still not totally clear on this... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennart_T Posted February 24, 2015 Report Share Posted February 24, 2015 You should "rebuild". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myhrik Posted February 24, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 24, 2015 Aha! Thanks, I'll try that tonight! (EDIT: Without burning down the studio.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennart_T Posted February 24, 2015 Report Share Posted February 24, 2015 Aha! Thanks, I'll try that tonight! (EDIT: Without burning down the studio.) Yes, a dress rehearsal is always good to perform. What? No fire? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
myhrik Posted February 27, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 27, 2015 It worked (without the fire), and now I'm doing the same thing to all my old inactive backup disks, so that stuff can actually be restored from them if I want. Thanks so much Lennart! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennart_T Posted February 27, 2015 Report Share Posted February 27, 2015 Thanks for reporting back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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