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Block-level backups?


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  • 1 month later...

outlook .pst files are a HUGE problem as are WinXP.hdd partitions on Macs. I have one user who has a 9gb pst file (that's right, NINE GIGABYTES). He empties his inbox every day into his personal folders. That means I am backing up at MINIMUM 9GB for his machine, every day. I am going to go ahead and posit that the actual "new" data in that .pst file amounts to less than 10MB on any given day on average. To have to store 9GB because of 10MB of changes is absurd.

 

I am literally on the verge of spending $20,000 on new RAIDs because retrospect does not do block-level or bit-level backup.

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 6 months later...

We are looking to switch away from using Retrospect to backup our clients now as the constant thrashing during scans, copying and snapshots is out of control.

 

Instead we use a very simple tool called DeltaCopy, which is basically Rsync in Windows GUI form. You simply set your source folders, the destination folders and then it copies them over on a Windows Schedule bases (compressed, delta only, SSL protected if required).

 

Our destination for trials is a ReadyNAS storage box (which has RSync built in), which when configured to work within a Domain, automatically creates user folders. These will be the DeltaCopy target.

 

We're not bothered about rolling back last weeks version of a certain file, we just need simple backups in case a hard drive goes pop, or in a DR circumstance.

 

If we were bothered, then we would look at using the ReadyNAS snapshot capability.

 

Hope that helps,

 

Rich

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Assuming you're talking OSx.. an rsync client (inc fancy GUI) comes with the OS.

 

ie.

http://www.egg-tech.com/mac_backup/

 

I don't know what Retrospect isn't using rsync under the hood more as it's pretty impressive at shifting data.

 

I don't know if other companies work differently, but I tend to know where the data is I want backing up (i.e. folder level), so the whole scan, filter process, although cool is a waste of time.

 

I'd much rather be able to scan the client drives for folders as a one off and use tick boxes to create a 'script', which can then be used across multiple machines. i.e. the scripts lists the folders/files which I want backed up. I'm pretty sure within the rsync script you can specify folders/files to exclude too, so you don't have to copy the huge ISO files or temp directories from the selected folder.

 

I tend to find Retrospect sucks up a bunch of folders that I don't necessarily want to backup due to the same folder name being used, so I then have to start being more specific in the selectors to stop it form happening.

 

Just as an example of the speed of rsync.. I have one NAS box with a rsync folder with 4GB of random data on it. After the initial copy to a second NAS box, I kick off a second duplication. As no data has changed, it comes back confirming the backup is complete in about 5 seconds. Compare that to a Retrospect connect, scan, snapshot, close cycle... and you can probably see the benefit.

 

Rich

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