Johan1 Posted September 25, 2007 Report Share Posted September 25, 2007 For some time now, our company uses Retrospect 7.0 to copy the contents of our backup server to a set of external disks. Aside from the occasional problems with large filesets this works for us. Retrospect also contains the functionality to perform ProActive backups. We are using that functionality to make backups of the laptops our company has in use. Due to space restrictions for this part of the backup cycle, we have implemented the rule that we only retain 3 backups via the setting 'Groom to remove backups older than x' on the backup Set. This month, we ran into a problem with this functionality. One of our laptops was stolen and when we tried to restore the data, we were not able to recover all the data that was on that system. Upon investigation, we learned that the last 4 backups of that system were 'incomplete'. We identified this by going back to the emailed logs and going over each and every one send for that system. By trial and error, we identified that the grooming policy of 7.0 included these incomplete snapshots. I.e. the only snapshots we could restore were these incomplete ones. On top of that, the missing information stored in folders not in the backup sets was backed up before, but groomed by retrospect. And finally for our questions : Is this statement accurate? Are incomplete backups taken into account when performing grooming operations? Is this behaviour also present in Retrospect 7.5 ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johan1 Posted November 5, 2007 Author Report Share Posted November 5, 2007 No updates after more than a month. Is there anyone out there who can answer this question? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted November 5, 2007 Report Share Posted November 5, 2007 Grooming itself does not leave backup sets incomplete. You will need to provide us more details about the actual failures during backup. Error codes and log details would be helpful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennart_T Posted November 5, 2007 Report Share Posted November 5, 2007 Since there is "always" some files in use when using proactive backups on laptops, you will "always" get incomplete backups. If these were to be retained, there will never be any grooming and the backup sets will just grow. Or put it another way: If you were to get one complete backup and that one was retained (and newer incomplete groomed out), the complete backup would be very old very fast (and useless because it's too old). Why didn't anyone check the logs BEFORE grooming? Why wasn't any (complete) snapshot transferred to tape before it was groomed out? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mauricev Posted November 8, 2007 Report Share Posted November 8, 2007 Quote: Why didn't anyone check the logs BEFORE grooming? Why wasn't any (complete) snapshot transferred to tape before it was groomed out? What's the relevance? Grooming affects only files that have since been deleted on the client. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennart_T Posted November 9, 2007 Report Share Posted November 9, 2007 Quote: Quote: Why didn't anyone check the logs BEFORE grooming? Why wasn't any (complete) snapshot transferred to tape before it was groomed out? What's the relevance? Grooming affects only files that have since been deleted on the client. Transferring to tape normally transfers the last snapshot. Checking the logs to find the last successful backup and transferring that snapshot instead of the later unsuccessful snapshot would have been better, right? Also, if all you got after grooming is unsuccessful backups, then you don't transfer all files to tape. Finally, in addition to grooming out deleted files, grooming also groomes out older versions of files that has changed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mauricev Posted November 9, 2007 Report Share Posted November 9, 2007 Quote: in addition to grooming out deleted files, grooming also groomes out older versions of files that has changed. Of course, because they've been deleted. In my experience, this has seldom been a problem. My users don't usually delete files and they don't seem to care about earlier versions. In fact, I almost never do a restore unless it's to restore a system whole. So I could actually survive if I just did recent transfers of snapshots periodically, but my scripts are rigged to transfer after every snapshot is taken. Backups run during the night, and transfers during the day. (Of course, this situation will not necessarily apply to other environments.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennart_T Posted November 12, 2007 Report Share Posted November 12, 2007 Quote: Quote: in addition to grooming out deleted files, grooming also groomes out older versions of files that has changed. Of course, because they've been deleted. Appending data to a file doesn't delete any previous version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mauricev Posted November 12, 2007 Report Share Posted November 12, 2007 Quote: Appending data to a file doesn't delete any previous version. Uh, you just contradicted yourself. Of course, it would. Once a file is altered, it is a new file to Retrospect. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennart_T Posted November 12, 2007 Report Share Posted November 12, 2007 No, I didn't contradict myself. There is a difference between deleting a file on the source hard drive and grooming out a file from the backup set. There is also a difference between altering a file on the source hard drive and grooming out the older version(s) from the backup set. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mauricev Posted November 13, 2007 Report Share Posted November 13, 2007 Quote: No, I didn't contradict myself. Yes, you did. You first said: Quote: grooming also groomes out older versions of files that has changed. Then you said Quote: Appending data to a file doesn't delete any previous version. Once a file is appended to, it's a new version from the original. The original has been "deleted" from Retrospect's point of view. So this statement contradicts your earlier statement, which is the correct one. In all cases, the original file had been deleted. Grooming operates only on deleted files. Quote: There is a difference between deleting a file on the source hard drive and grooming out a file from the backup set. Files that have been deleted directly (by being literally sent to the trash or recycle bin) are subject to be groomed out, so I don't know what difference you mean. Quote: There is also a difference between altering a file on the source hard drive and grooming out the older version(s) from the backup se Altering a file is the equivalent of a deleting it in Retrospect's eyes, so my answer above applies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennart_T Posted November 13, 2007 Report Share Posted November 13, 2007 There seems to be some misunderstanding about words here, but I'm sure we mean the same thing. When I say "delete" or "append" I don't mean from Retrospect's point of view. From Retrospect's point of view, I always use the term "groomed out" (or similar). End of discussion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mauricev Posted November 13, 2007 Report Share Posted November 13, 2007 Quote: There seems to be some misunderstanding about words here, but I'm sure we mean the same thing. I'm not so sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johan1 Posted December 13, 2007 Author Report Share Posted December 13, 2007 The incomplete status on the backups were as reported by Retrospect : the backup did not run to completion but was cancelled along the way. The files in question were not deleted on the client laptop. As indicated in the original post, only 3 backups are retained per the configuration settings. So we got 3 incomplete backups sets (when you browse the backup set, only a subset of all directories is visible) and a grooming action that removed the files from the older base setups. From my point of view, the GROOMING component in the backup sets within Retrospect is faulty : it should not have used the 'incomplete' backups as references for the grooming. The questions I still have not seen any answer to are : Are incomplete backups taken into account when performing grooming operations? Is this behaviour also present in Retrospect 7.5 ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted December 13, 2007 Report Share Posted December 13, 2007 [quoteAre incomplete backups taken into account when performing grooming operations? Is this behaviour also present in Retrospect 7.5 ? Grooming does not know what an incomplete backup is. Grooming looks at the available snapshots and sessions and grooms data based on what is available in the backup set at that moment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johan1 Posted December 14, 2007 Author Report Share Posted December 14, 2007 Mayoff, Thank you for this response. Your comment does not really clarify why the files were groomed out : I would have expected a file present in a snapshot dd 1/12, and then referenced but not present in the incomplete backups dd 2/12, 3/12, 4/12 to remain in the backup set. Has this type of grooming functionality been changed in the more recent 7.5 version? i.e. Is it worth upgrading or should we wait until the next major version whenever that becomes available? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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