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4GB Limit?


terry

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I just read that there is a 4 GB limit on backups with Express. I am confused because I just completed a 5.1 GB backup and it appeared to work fine. Am I going to run into a problem later on when I try to restore, or do a incremental backup. Backup was done on CD-RW and took 9 CDs. Thanks for your response.

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There is not a 4gb limit of Retrospect. It is a File System limitation.

 

 

 

File backup sets are limited to the maximum file size allowed by the file system used to format the disk:

 

 

 

o FAT: 2 GB

 

o FAT32: 4 GB

 

o NTFS: 1 TB

 

 

 

If you were running Windows NT, 2000 or XP, you could have the drive NTFS Format. That would take care of this problem.

 

 

 

BUT in your case your backing up to CDs. There is no backup limit when backing up to CDs. You can backup 100gb if you wish! :) Hope this helps!

 

 

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Melissa's right, its a FAT32 thing.

 

 

 

A more interesting question is what does Retrospect do when it hits that file system limit?

 

 

 

Does it fall over, fail, or seamlessly create an overlow file as it does when a CD is full?

 

 

 

I'm getting close to that limit myself on my online backup set and I'm worrying what will happen and how to manage it?

 

 

 

Any advice born of experience?

 

 

 

 

 

Ian

 

...

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It will fail with an error "not enough room...."

 

 

 

Our next version will take care of this and instantly create/continue the backupset....in another words break the backupset up. This is due out later this summer.

 

 

 

 

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2 questions:

 

 

 

1. Are you talking about the size of a single FILE created by the OS on a FAT or NTFS

 

disk or device

 

OR

 

are you talking about the size of the file system itself (ie the partition size)?

 

 

 

 

 

2. I notice many of the responders to these messages have a little "Retrospect Enthusiast"

 

icon next to the name. Does that mean they have some "official" capacity with with Dantz?

 

or

 

Are they just "crazy" about the product?

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4GB single file size limitation of a drive formatted in FAT32. File backup sets (which are single files) are limited to the maximum file size allowed by the file system used to format the disk:

 

 

 

o FAT: 2 GB

 

o FAT32: 4 GB

 

o NTFS: 1 TB

 

 

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  • 2 months later...

Sure. That is the error.....disk full when it hits the limit.

 

 

 

4GB single file size limitation of a drive formatted in FAT32. File backup sets (which are single files) are limited to the maximum file size allowed by the file system used to format the disk:

 

 

 

o FAT: 2 GB

 

o FAT32: 4 GB

 

o NTFS: 1 TB

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Thank you for the suggestion - it will be noted.

 

 

 

Our knowledgebase article on Error -1115 outlines possible causes of this error, including the file size limit. Our new version, Retrospect 6.0, overcomes these limitations by creating Disk backup sets that span multiple files on a volume - thus, never hitting the Windows file system limit.

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  • 2 months later...

It was suggested that I get around my windows 98 4 GB restriction by breaking up the volume in to two hunks.

 

But then I won't be backing up any new folders that get created or new files in the root. Am I missing something

 

here? Solution?

 

 

 

Thanks in advance,

 

 

 

Stan

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You won't backup the registry when you break up your backup into subvolumes (folders) for backup. The registry is only backed up when using the C: as the source. Additionally, it would be more difficult to manage a backup of your entire drive spread across more then one source.

 

 

 

If you are running into the FAT32 4 gig limitation, your best bet is to either upgrade to a new OS, which uses the NTFS file system (2000 or XP) or upgrade to Retrospect 6.0.

 

 

 

Your other choices, with your current configuration would be to backup less data - only documents, for example (which includes any document that is not in the System Folder). Documents only includes virtually every file that is not an .exe or system file. You can see what is included in Immediate Backup by using the Documents only selector and then clicking Preview. Files with check marks will be included in the backup.

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  • 2 weeks later...

wow. so i cant take advantage of express' backup set features. I am forced to use the "Duplicate" function (if i have large files) unless i upgrade my OS or the version of retrospect i am using. the version of retrospect that can handle file sizes larger than 4 gigabytes does not currently support the Maxtor One-Touch feature. do you know of any future patches or upgrades that will allow ver. 6.x to take advantage of the One-Touch feature?

 

 

 

Thanks again

 

 

 

josh

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