Help on strategy - DVD weekly, Zip daily

[kpm106]

Good People -

 

I've been trying to set up a backup strategy where I have A & B sets of DVDs and corresponding A & B sets of Zip disks. I want to backup to the DVDs weekly then do incrementals off of the DVDs onto Zips. I can't figure out how to do it.

 

Here's what I want to set up...

Incrementals to DVD A and DVD B weekly, alternating sets each week (this is easily done). When I do my daily backups to Zip A and Zip B, I only want the files backed up to the Zips that have been created or changed since the last corresponding DVD backup (i.e., Zip A only has files created or changed since DVD A completed; Zip B only has files created or changed since DVD B completed). I can't seem to figure out how to do this. I've compromised by having the ZIP sets only backup files that have been changed in the last two weeks, but this is quite inferior and I don't like this. Is there a way to set up rules for a backup set to tell it to only save files that have changed since another backup set completed?

 

Your comments and suggestions will be appreciated.

 

K. Malloy

iMac G4 17" 1gHz 768Mb, MacOS X 10.4.1, Retrospect 6.0.212/6.4.102

[natew]

Hi

 

You can't mix media types in Retrospect so you won't be able to add only incrementals to the Zips.

 

I would do something like this:

Use two DVD backup sets and rotate them weekly (like you are now).

Use one Zip backup set and do a normal backup of the hard disk to it weekly.

 

You may have to use more zip disks than you were hoping to but you will have 3 complete backups this way. Restores from any set will be easy.

 

Thanks

nate

[kpm106]

Nate -

 

Thanks for your advice. I appreciate your hard work and the enormous amount of time you must put in to monitoring these boards. You perform a great customer service. I hope you're being adequately compensated for it!

 

However, I must not have expressed what I wanted to do very well so permit me to try again.

 

I have three backup scripts, "Optical", "Magnetic-A", and "Magnetic-B". "Optical" has two backup sets as destinations, "DVD-A" and "DVD-B". "Magnetic-A" also has one backup sets as destination, "ZIP-A". "Magnetic-B" has "ZIP-B" as it's destination. "Optical", "Magnetic-A", and "Magnetic-B" scripts have the same source volumes.

 

"Optical" is set up so that it runs weekly, doing incrementals to "DVD-A" one week, then "DVD-B" the following week. Every six months, instead of doing an incremental, they'll do a "New Media" backup. This was easily set up and is working fine.

 

I'd like to set up the "Magnetic-A" script so that it does the following:

- Same "Sources" as the "Optical" script (trivial)

- Destination is "ZIP-A" (trivial)

- When selecting files to back up, I'd like Retrospect to select those files and folders that have been modified or changed since the "DVD-A" backup set last completed. I can't seem to find a way to do this.

- Schedule -- daily "Incremental Backup" with a bi-weekly "Recycle Media Backup" (easily scheduled)

 

Likewise, I'd like to set up the "Magnetic-B" script so that it does the same except the destination would be "ZIP-B" and the selection of files would be dependent upon the date and time the "DVD-B" backup set last completed.

 

Currently, as an inferior scheme, I have "Magnetic-A" and "Magnetic-B" set up so that they select files that have been modified or changed within the past two weeks.

 

Does this make sense to do? My plan is to keep the DVD sets off-site except when needed so that my worst-case disaster recovery scenario is that I lose a week's worth of data.

 

Any suggestions?

[natew]

Hi

 

Glad to help

 

Unfortunately what you are proposing is not possible.

 

Each backup set is a _completely_ independent of all the others. That means each set doesn't even know that other sets exist. It can't know the contents of those sets either.

 

As a result Retrospect has know way of using multiple sets in the way you are hoping. You could try using a selector based on backup date however doing so will make your restores much more complicated.

 

Thanks

Nate