Retrospect Optimal Use

[dthede]

It would help to have an authoritative document or other authoritative posting on the optimal deployment of Retrospect 7.5. Here's why: There are 34 issues returned on a search of "backup time" under the Professional forum, and 15 or so topics referring to "optimiz" (the root). In my case, the actual backup time is much less than the building snapshot time and the closing time.

 

There must be more experienced users than I, who know the best balance among: backup size, catalog size, backup time, closing time, building snapshot time, and comparing time. For example: A typical backup that requires 10 minutes for building a snapshot, and 4 minutes for closing time, but only 3 minutes for backup, might indicate that the catalog has simply grown too big relative to the file "churn" for the backup period under consideration. Maybe it indicates that a new catalog should be started.

 

Or, from a strategic point of view, perhaps it indicates that the backup set is itself too broad in scope; i.e., the actual churn is typically in a small region of the catalog, but the it still necessitates Retrospect manipulating the entire 800MB catalog. One would think that EMC / Dantz, etc. would have some typical "phase diagrams" for optimizing performance. Perhaps a rule of thumb guide that speaks to the percentage of a backup set (&/or catalog) that is updated during a typical backup, would be helpful.

 

Naturally, it would be completely unhelpful and would really duck the issue to say that every installation is different and performance would vary so much that generalizations are not possible. It would be as silly (and unhelpful) as saying that there are so many different file types that no one software can back all of them up. We will recognize that "our mileage will vary."