How do I do a recyle backup every day.

[JeffMarc]

We want to do a full backup of 2 folders every day on a Mac running Retrospect 5.02 and system X. That is all we want to backup, nothing but those two folders and all files in them. We do not want an incremental or differential backup, we just want a full backup of the 2 folders.

 

I can't seem to get this to work. On a PC with any backup software I have seen (except retrospect) it is real easy, you check the boxes for the 2 folders, select Full backup, and they are just backed up.

 

With Retrospect 5.02 this just does not seem to be an option.

 

For one, I have tried to create a script using Path name Exactly Matched Folder or Enclosing folder and in both cases, even though I select "recycle Backup" when I run it, it says "nothing to backup"

 

What is the difference between Matching "folder" and "Enclosing folder"

 

How can you create a script that just does a full backup of 2 folders on a drive and that is it?

 

I don't want to worry about sets of DVD's in this case either. I want to use 10 DVD-RW's in a rotation that I pick and have them overwritten when I put them in in every case. I don't want to have to constantly worry about which set a DVD belongs to.

 

This is something I can do in a matter of seconds on a PC with a variety of backup products, but doesn't even seem possible with Retrospect. Can someone clear this up for me. I have a lot of clients that would like to use Retrospect on their Macs but it just isn't very user friedly compared the wide range of PC backup software I have worked with for the last 20 years.

[natew]

Hi

 

Since you only want two folders you should define them as "subvolumes". Then use these subvolumes as the sources for your script. Don't mess with selectors as they are too complex for what you are doing.

 

Retrospect does not allow you to put in "just any" disk because doing so can make restores very difficult.

 

If you really want to do this make sure your script has only one backup set as the destination and set all of your schedules to be recycle backups.

 

Thanks

Nate

[teraserv]

Hi Nate,

I am concerned by this problem for my customers. I mostly sell retrospect for PC, but the problem is the same with v6.5.350 or previous versions.

 

This way (recycle backup), you just lose the catalog of all your previous tapes. so if you need to restore a file deleted few day before (you don't know exactly when), you have to rebuild one by one the catalog from your previous tapes.

 

With Backup on new support, you generate a catalog for each tape, without possibility to purge catalog for overwritten medias. soon or later, the amount of useless data become a problem. And anyway, the old tape's name is not recognised as usable for the script. the tape should be blank and could not be automatically overwritten, so you have to ask your custommer to erase used tape every day.

 

Backink-up this kind of small customer is a problem with Redrospect. The fact is that retrospect should accept to overwrite any tape, regarding of it content so that I can set up a script with 5 backup set monday to friday in recycle backups and accept -silently- any tape in the streamer.

For my point of view, it is more important to have a recent full backup overwriting an old one than a smart backup program complaining in the night about the tape which label did not comply with the expected..

What is the good strategy for this kind of customer?

[jerryheyman]

Retrospect does three kinds of backups - recycle, normal and new media. If you want to use a new tape every day then use normal. Tell Retrospect to use a new member every day, even though there may be space left on the previous member. Retrospect will keep track of all of the members and you can easily select the right session from the catalog for the restore.

 

Recycle deletes all of the information about the previous sessions and thus you have to rebuild the catalog.

 

I hope this clears things up.

[natew]

Hi

 

A lot of people ask for this functionality. Dantz just feels there is too much risk of data loss this way. Our developers feel strongly about this so the option to backup to any tape has not been made available.

 

I would set up a 5 day rotation script and enable email notification. That way someone will be notified if the right tape is not in the drive. You can set a small backup to run at 4:30 PM so that someone is in the office to change media. Later in the evening when the main backup runs you can be sure the correct media is in the drive.

 

Backup server and Proactive backup scripts also provide more media flexibility. I like to set up a regular 5 day rotation with 5 backup sets in a standard script. Then I set up a backup server/proactive backup script that includes all 5 sets to run right after it. If someone forgets to change the tape the proactive/Backup server script will use whatever is there.

 

 

Thanks

Nate