Retro. Freeze

[vdykstra]

I am running Retrospect 4.3 on a server. Everynight at 10:30 it launches and backs up the changed documents of the day. The server is a Macintosh G4 tower running 9.1 and ASIP 6.3.3. We run 6 schools this way. Every so often one (about once every other week) one of the schools will "freeze" during the backup. Usually the cursor is just spinning in Retrospect during the backup when we go to restart. Do you have any idea what may be causing this problem? We back up to a DAT drive through an ultra-SCSI card. Thanks.

[IrenaS]

Here are a few suggestions:

 

 

 

We have found ASIP servers running with low levels of RAM to be relatively unstable, so be sure that there is sufficient RAM.

 

 

 

Once you believe you already have sufficient RAM on your server, review the ASIP Administrator’s memory settings (General tab of Services settings in the Administrator application). AppleShare shows you the total RAM on the computer, as well as how much you have set to allow AppleShare to use. We recommend leaving 40 to 50 MB unused by AppleShare, or at least 50% more than the amount of RAM Retrospect requires.

 

 

 

Increase your Retrospect memory allocation. We recommend that you review the memory settings guidelines in the Retrospect User’s Guide for help with this. A rough guideline is to find the largest volume that you plan to back up (measured by the number of files on the volume), and set memory to handle that level. A reasonable level that would handle most ASIP servers and network backups would be 40 MB (40000 K as set in the Get Info window of the Retrospect application). Verify that AppleShare is leaving enough RAM free for Retrospect to launch (per the above note) before and after changing Retrospect’s settings, and be sure not to cut things too closely. (For example, if you give Retrospect 40 MB, make sure AppleShare leaves at least half again as much for other applications, in this example, 60 MB.)

 

 

 

Reduce traffic on the server during backups: Use the option in Retrospect scripts to "Lock out volumes during backup".

 

 

 

Try putting an alias for Retrospect in the Startup Items folder, alphabetically ahead of the AppleShare startup alias. Set Retrospect to "Stay in Retrospect" for unattended operations, so that it never quits. Manually restart your server on a regular basis, once every few weeks. Retrospect runs slower when not in the foreground, so do not try this workaround unless your other attempts to get things to work have failed.

 

 

 

Restart the server after backups. Use Retrospect’s AppleShare lock-out feature to lock people out of volumes as they are backed up, and set Retrospect to restart when done in Special>Preferences>Unattended. (This will not work if you are using Backup Server, as Retrospect never quits if you enable Backup Server.)

 

 

 

Arrange for Find by Content indexing, virus scans, etc to occur at times other than when you have backups scheduled.

 

 

 

Do not use Retrospect’s "Lock out volumes during backup" option. Only back up user data nightly on file server, leaving the server’s system volume for backups when you can manually restart the server after backup.