.rdb files piling up

[mfromo]

Hi, I'm new to Retrospect Express (or any backup processes for that matter) and have a couple of

questions. I've setup an automatic nightly backup and see that everyday new .rdb files are

created. I assume these are recording any changes to the folders I'm backing up. Do these files

just keep piling up? Anyone have any suggestions or point me to the right place regarding

managing these files better?

 

Thanks for your responses

 

Mark

[dld]

Retrospect Express performs what Dantz calls a Progressive Backup.

 

TITLE: Why Retrospect is Better Backup

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Discussion:

 

 

Most backup admins in the NT/2000 world perform "full" backups every night. Why? Restore reliability.

 

When we created Retrospect, we looked at how other file-based backup software worked (Backup Exec, ARCserve, etc.), and we were amazed to see that nothing had really changed since the days of DOS 2.x.

 

These programs today still rely on the file's archive attribute to determine what to back up in a "new and changed files" backup. Their incremental and differential backups save time and media during the backup process, but they make restoring difficult, and exact restores IMPOSSIBLE. If you did seven incremental backups, then you have to perform seven incremental restores! Good luck!

 

That's why most anyone who has had to try to rebuild a server from incremental backups now uses a strategy of full backups every night.

 

Well, Retrospect is smarter than that.

 

Retrospect can restore any volume in a single pass over the backup media, even though it only performs "new and changed file" backups. This is possible because Retrospect performs a more intelligent method of file selection, ensuring that one copy of each unique file from the source is copied to *each* backup set.

 

Retrospect doesn't know how to do a "full" or an "incremental" backup.

Instead, it always backs up the files that aren't already present in the

backup set. When the operator selects a "Recycle" or "New Media" operation

in Retrospect, they're only changing the media handling parameters; reuse

the same media/backup set or start with a new set of media entirely.

 

When it's time to restore, Retrospect knows what files were on the source at

each backup (from saved Snapshots), so it simply copies all the files from

the backup set that are needed to make the source look exactly like it used

to at any previous point in time, and only with one restore operation.

 

Taking this one step further, this design allows Retrospect to keep

multiple, complete backup sets, but requiring only one for a restore. Bring

a set back from a week in offsite storage, and Retrospect will only copy the

files to that set that were created or modified in the last week.

 

Compared to other Windows backup software, Retrospect gives you the speed

and media savings of incremental backups with the reliability and precision

of full backups. It has all of the advantages of both, with none of the

disadvantages.

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Retrospect Express can perform two types of backups: Normal and Recycle. Periodically you should do a Recycle Backup to avoid ending up with an ever-increasing size backup folder. See Options.