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Progressive Backup stops working on upgrade to 7.5 Pro


Rob162

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I recently upgraded from Retrospect Pro 7.0 to 7.5 (7.5.324; hotfix 7.5.8.101) primarily to use the new MD5 verification option to speed things up. I back up on a single Win XP sp2 fully patched Dell computer C drive, Documents and Settings and several other folders on my C drive (about 33GB total on a recycle). Since the upgrade, the progressive feature essentially stopped working. No matter what I do, for example, run a Normal backup minutes after a recycle back up, it wants to back up at least 27GB of data, including much that could not possibly have changed. I am backing up onto DVDs and never had this problem with any versions 7.0 and 6.5. For some reason, it seems the program no longer can properly identify changed files.

 

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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I have the exact same problem, also backing up to DVDs, but can not link it to v7.5. I have been successfully doing progressive backups using 7.5.320. I then tried to do a Recycle and then a new Normal but in both cases, the subsequent Progressive backups included many files that had not changed. The Progressive (incremental) was over 50% of the full backup which is way out of line. Any suggestions on how to track this down would be appreciated.

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Backing up file security information: When you select the "Back up file security information from servers" or "Back up file security information from workstations" option, Retrospect copies NTFS file security information for all the files it backs up from the source computer(s). If a file has new security information since the last backup, but has not changed in any other way, Retrospect recopies the entire file, including its new security information. If the permissions have changed for multiple files on the source computer(s), backing up file security information can take a long time and require lots of storage space, even for an incremental backup.

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Just some info on my backups:

The first full backup was 116,227 files, 32.5 GB

The first "incremental" was 65,615 files, 21.3 GB

The second was 28,620 files, 14.9 GB, and

The third was 22,040 files, 8.7GB.

When the backups were working well, the incrementals were about 1 GB.

Another stange behavior is that compression (media) for the same set of files varies between 0 and 28%.

I am not changing security settings.

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If the full was 116,000 files and the incremental was only 28k, then it does appear that matching is working in this configuration but something is making the files appear different to Retrospect.

 

You need to compare the file properties for files in the session browsers that keeps getting recopied to see what is different backup the file.

 

What happens with an immediate backup immediately after the prior one finishes?

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Hi Rob,

 

If you uncheck the security settings in the backup under "Options > Windows > Security" does it still try to backup 27GB of incremental data?

 

You can verify this without actually running the backup.

Go to "Backup > Backup > Select your Source and Destination > Selecting should be 'All Files' > click 'Preview'".

The browser window that pops up will show you how many files are going to be backed up again (diamond icon means that an identical file already exists in the backup).

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I can confirm Rob's experience. In my case, an immediate backup preview right after a scheduled Normal shows 86% of the files, 62% of the data to be backed up again.

Rob, I wish we could figure out what we are doing, and presumably the the rest of the Retrospect world isn't, that is causing this behavior. In my case, it started after I did my first Recycle backup, although now it happens for a new backup also. Another strange thing is that the compression for two volumes is 0%, while for the good backups it was 20 to 70%. I will turn off compression and verification and try again.

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Quote:

(98% of the files in the recycle set)

 


 

Did you run a recycle backup?

 

Quote:

 

In my case, it started after I did my first Recycle backup, although now it happens for a new backup also.

 

 


 

Don't turn off verification, that won't help. Are you using thorough verification or media verification currently? Can you post the log for the execution?

 

Rob, have you tried running an incremental with thorough verification? You might test with a new backup set so that you don't have to worry about dirtying up your existing one.

 

When you upgrade from 7.0 to 7.5 Retrospect will want to back everything up again to obtain a copy with file security information. This is only if you have the option enabled, however, and it is only enabled by default for server operating systems.

 

Rob, could you describe your source volume and the relation to the backup machine? Also, are you using a supported burner? And jsyangl same for you, as well as OS.

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I got interesting results. I ran without compression and verification (before I read Foster's post). The incremental was large as before, around 10GB. I then ran an Immediate Preview which was only 410MB. An earlier Immediate Preview, after a BU with compression and verification on, was ~9GB. I will try with verification on next.

I do not backup any security information. I was using Media Verification, Windows XP Pro SP2, Philips DVD+RW 8701 (custom configured).

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I turned on Media Verification and my incremental is back up to over 17 GB. I changed the View from Details to Thumbnails on some files, but even if that is a trigger to backup, there wasn't 17 GB of files. This is really frustrating. I guess Rob, who first posted on this issue, gave up on Retrospect. I'm about to do the same.

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"Have you tried running an incremental with thorough verification? You might test with a new backup set so that you don't have to worry about dirtying up your existing one." -will try

 

I am using Retrospect Pro 7.5 to back up a single Win XP Pro computer. I am backing up documents and settings and several other folders on my C drive. I am using a Phillips DVD +-RW DVD8631.

 

I have been experimenting with the security settings. I don't remember what they were on 7.0. Can you suggest what they should be in my situation? The options seem to make some small difference in the files chosen by Retrospect for a normal back up. Thanks.

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Rob,

 

I would say use the default settings for backing up security info. This means 'Backup file security information for workstations' will be disabled (workstation = XP). There were no file level security options in 7.0, so this would roughly be the equivalent. If you really want to make it like 7.0 you could also disable MD5 digests during backup - another feature new to 7.5, however, this will prevent you from being able to use media verification. The option is located at Configure> Preferences> Verification.

 

Jrsyangl (Jersey Angel?) - if you're not using a supported burner there could be a slight deviation in the writing method that was configured for that drive. Do you have the same results when writing to another media type? Can you test to a disk backup set?

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I turned on Thorough Verification and turned off compression and redid a full backup. Two subsequent incrementals have been of reasonable size (~1GB). THis suggests to me that there is a bug in Media Verification. I will turn on compression and see what happens.

Yes Jersey Angel as opposed to the infamous mythical Jersey Devil.

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Incremental backups with Thorough Verification and Compression on seem to be working well. Looking back on the logs, it appears the incremental backups go haywire when Media Verification is on and the backup of a volume spans 2 DVDs. By "going haywire" I mean the incrementals incorrectly increase by a large amount and compression goes to 0%. I wonder if anyone from Retrospect will pick up on this and follow up.

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Well, I don't have a supported burner (even though this does not seem like a burner issue) so paying for support which won't help doesn't make sense. I wish I had known about the poor support before I invested in Retrospect, but, then again, where can you get good support nowadays? If there are no other problems, I can get along using Thorough Verification.

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