Retrospect 13 - Disks rotation and auto HD eject

[fcote]

Hi!

 

I installed the last version of Retrospect on Mac mini Server and I want to do the best onsite / offsite disks rotation solution.

 

I figured out you need to create « Media Set A » and « Media Set B », one for each HD. I did a quick test and the HD don't eject automatically. I create this solution for a customer and the server is not accessible with a screen and keyboard. I just labelled « HD A » and « HD B ». I want to simply ask a person to unplug the « HD A » a specific day, and plug the « HD B » and this rotation every week with no more than this interaction from the customer. I was not able to find out how to auto eject the HD in the preference except the opposite  in Media -> Don't eject removable disks (already unchecked).

 

Do you have suggestions/screenshots for the best practice, scripts and configurations for this simple onsite/offsite backup. Last time I used Retrospect was late '90 with tape auto ejecting. 

 

Thank you in advance for your help.

 

Frédéric

[twickland]

You can still configure a backup script to eject removable media when the script is finished, but I don't think Retrospect ever offered an option to unmount a hard drive volume at the end of a script execution.

 

I see two potential problem you could run into: 1) the customer could unmount the destination hard drive while a backup is still running, and 2) a regular backup script will not run if the correct media set is not available. 

 

For issue 1, it would be best if you could set up the backup schedule to minimize the chances for that to happen. If by chance the customer does unmount the drive in the middle of a backup, Retrospect should eventually stop running the script (though we have sometimes seen a script get stuck under these circumstances).

 

If issue 2 becomes a problem, you might use a separate script for each destination media set, enter a media request timeout in Preferences so the execution event will stop running if the correct media is not available, or switch to a proactive backup script, which will back up to whatever media is available.

 

Whatever you do, someone needs to keep tabs on the backup operation. If the customer isn't going to check things himself/herself, Retrospect's preferences should be configured to send someone email messages for failures and media requests.

[jelockwood]

It is disappointing if Retrospect itself does not allow ejecting hard disk backup media despite what the GUI implies, but a possible workaround would be to write a post backup script which then ejects the drive for you. You would probably have to use a fairly simple disk naming scheme or your script might become excessively complex.