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Retroect 9 Desktop + Mac OSX 10.8 + Rotating Thunderbolt Drives


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Hey Guys

 

I'm just setting up Retrospect 9 desktop edition on my iMac running OSX 10.8.

I'm looking to setup Retrospect to backup to rotating thunderbolt drives.

 

I'm wondering what's the best way to setup the backup tasks for this? Has anyone had experience with this?

 

What do you guys think?

 

Kind Regards

Aaron

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Hey Lennart

 

Thanks for your reply, much appreciated :)

 

I would like to rotate the drives once a day and I have 2x drives.

 

What kind of backups do I run? I'm not sure what you mean there. But it is an iMac running Mac OSX 10.8.2 (desktop edition) and I would like to run backups every hour if that's possible? Did that answer your question?

 

Kind Regards

Aaron

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Not quite what I wanted to know. I gave examples of what I needed. How many source, what kind of sources is what I wanted to know.

 

Anyway, I assume you want to backup the local drive once every hour. If that isn't the case, let me know.

You should create two media sets, one for each drive.

You should enable grooming, keep (say) the last 50 backups (which account for keeping the backups a bit more than two days, according to your hourly schedule).

post-8868-0-05282100-1351070314_thumb.png

You should create two Proactive scripts, one for each media set. Run backups every hour, all days of the week, 24 hours a week.

post-8868-0-19139100-1351070367_thumb.png

 

The backup will run to whichever media set is available.

 

You should also schedule grooming scripts, one for each media set. Set to run in the middle of the night.

 

Things to consider:

1) Do you really need backups every hour? What is so important that you can't afford to lose one hours worth of work? If that is the case, I would invest in a RAID-5 system, or maybe a RAID-6 system.

2) Do you really need backups every hour in the middle of the night?

3) Do you really need backups every hour on weekends?

4) How about long term storage? This is set up to perform backups often, but the are not kept more than two days. What if you delete a file and realized that three days later? Perhaps you should transfer ("Copy", is the new term, I think) the backups to a media once a week or once a month to a media that you store off site for a year or two.

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Hi Lennart

 

Thanks for your reply. I think I get the gist of what you're saying.

I'll look at whether I need hourly backups and during the middle of the night.

 

For grooming, you say only keep the last 50 backups (a bit more than 2 days). Does that mean if I lose a file a week ago I can't retrieve it with such a short grooming schedule?

 

Kind REgards

Aaron

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Hey Lennart

 

I successfully added the first media set and ran the first backup.

At the end there was an error that some files couldn't be backe up. Here is the list:

- Logmein

- printer drivers

- Office 2011 message source files

They don't seem like a huge issue to me. Except maybe the Office 2011 files.

 

However, after running the first backup, i now get ? error on activities when it tries to run the backup schedule. The error is "Needs Media".

I made sure the external hard drive is connected to the iMac and I can browse using finder. I rebooted the iMac and tried to run a manual task but I get the same error.

 

I'm at a loss as to what would be causing this. What do you think?

 

Kind Regards

Aaron

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For grooming, you say only keep the last 50 backups (a bit more than 2 days). Does that mean if I lose a file a week ago I can't retrieve it with such a short grooming schedule?

Yes, that is what I say. Your file is lost.

If you backup less often, don't backup in the night and weekends then the calendar time will be longer before the file is groomed out.

You can also consider getting a third (or more) drive for long term storage. That can probably be a cheap USB drive, since the backup time will not be as critical.

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I successfully added the first media set and ran the first backup.

At the end there was an error that some files couldn't be backe up. Here is the list:

- Logmein

- printer drivers

- Office 2011 message source files

They don't seem like a huge issue to me. Except maybe the Office 2011 files.

What is the error you get? Please post the relevant part of the log file.

 

 

 

 

However, after running the first backup, i now get ? error on activities when it tries to run the backup schedule. The error is "Needs Media".

I made sure the external hard drive is connected to the iMac and I can browse using finder. I rebooted the iMac and tried to run a manual task but I get the same error.

 

I'm at a loss as to what would be causing this. What do you think?

Check the media set properties, the "members" pane. Does it look like it's full?

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Hey I figured out the media issue, i had no grooming set.

 

I have 4TB drives. The first backup used 1.7TB of space. I have 2.3TB left after the backup.

I wanted to allow restore points for at least 30days. Do you think that's possible with grooming with ? Would it work if I used automatic grooming and maybe cut the backup times to every 4hrs?

I also couldn't see a way to stop the schedule after hours. Is it possible to exclude times from the backup schedule?

 

Kind Regards

Aaron

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You may want to use this:

Groom to Retrospect defined policy: When the backup drive fills up, or when you run a scripted or manual groom operation, Retrospect uses its own grooming policy to delete old backups. At a minimum, Retrospect’s policy retains two backups for each source, saving the last backup of the day for each source from the two most recent days on which each source was backed up. Given enough space in the Media Set, Retrospect keeps a backup of each source for every day in the last week, a backup for each week in the last month, and a backup for each previous month.

 

Or you can set grooming to keep 60 backups.

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Hey Lennart

 

Ok I've run into some trouble adding the second backup drive. The backup task just keeps asking for location for Media Set B.

Here's what I've setup:

Backup Task Script 1 - Backup All Files (3x hard drives) - Backup to External HDD1 (Media Set A - Media Action "No Media Action") - Schedule Hourly Every 4hrs with Retrospect Automatic Grooming - First run successful - subsequent successful

 

Backup Task Script 2 - Backup All Files (3x hard drives) - Backup to External HDD2 (Media Set B - Media Action "No Media Action") - Schedule Hourly Every 4hrs with Retrospect Automatic Grooming - First run fail

 

When I check the logs it says "Needs Media" - When I click the "choose media" button I can select "Media Set B" but it says location is already selected.

I can browse the "Media Set B" External HDD2 in finder and copy and delete files, so the attached drive is working.

 

But I'm at a loss as to what might be causing this error. Do you think I've set the backup scripts wrong?

 

Kind Regards

Aaron

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I've called HDD1: Lacie Backup1 and HDD2: Lacie Backup2

 

What do you mean by "Proactive Scripts"?

 

I did what you suggested and forgot Media Set B and re-added. The first backup ran successfully. However, the next day it tried to run the first backup1 script to Meda Set A. Obviously it couldn't find Media Set A because Media Set B is connected. But it also won't run Backup2 script because Backup1 script is in an erorr state.

 

I have a feeling I've set the backup scripts incorrectly hehe. What do you think?

 

Kind Regards

Aaron

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What do you mean by "Proactive Scripts"?

...

I have a feeling I've set the backup scripts incorrectly hehe. What do you think?

The fact that you ask the first question gives me the answer to the second one: Yes, you have set up the backups incorrectly.

 

Please see the User's Guide, pages 128-141. (It's the Retro 8 User's Guide. You find it in Retro's "Help" menu.)

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Aaron:

 

I think you don't need Proactive scripts, but should be able to set one script to backup to BOTH media sets. That way you never get an error and RS will back up to which ever media set if finds at the time it runs the backup. If both sets are present it will write to both of them. Set up this way, you just swap media as you see fit and RS takes care of backing up.

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Hi Monafly

 

I setup the backup just as you described orginally. The issue I was getting was the backup script would get an error with the media set. It would say "choose media" even though media set 1 was available. Then if I clicked the choose media button and then selected media set 1 it would say "media set allready added". Thus I couldn't backup at all after the first backup.

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Hey Guys I had some issues with the proactive script. I deleted a large folder and the backup refused to run saying the folder was missing ha!.

 

In the end I gave up. Don't get me wrong you guys have been a great help. But I found Retrospect a bit too finicky. So I upgraded to Mac OSX 10.8.2 and am now using Time Machine which has the ability to backup to rotating hard drives. Plus the restore process is easier.

 

Once again thanks for all your help :)

 

Kind Regards

Aaron

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