Removing systems from a backup set

[bbowler]

I have a backup set that has lots of systems in it, some of those systems no longer exist and I'd like to remove their data from the backup set to free up space. How do I do that? It's all Windows and version 7.7.562.

 

Thanks!

Bruce

[Mayoff]

If you have a disk backup set with grooming turned on, you can follow this guide:

 

http://kb.retrospect.com/articles/Retrospect_Article/Disk-Backup-Set-Grooming-with-Retrospect-7/

[bbowler]

Thanks! I'll give it a whirl. (just too bad I can't select multiple snapshots at the same time, there are *hundreds* from this particular machine)

[bbowler]

Back after a month out of the office... There has to be a better way... I just counted it up and I've got 127 snapshots to delete from this particular backup set. Each takes ~15 minutes to process and each *completely stalls* retrospect for that entire period (stalls as in windows says (not responding) in the title bar and based on watching other executing tasks, nothing happens). If my math is correct, that's 1905 minutes (or just over 31 hours), assuming I was able to start 1 "forgot" as soon as the previous one finished. Surely there's a better way...

[dan.jordan]

We've had the same pain for years. The work-around I found was basically to create a "test" backup set ("TempWorkSpace"). Then I run a "transfer Snapshots" job, selecting only those snapshots I want to retain (ironically, the "transfer snapshot" tool does allow selection of multiple snapshots), and I transfer them to "tempworkspace". Then I check visually to make sure the snapshots I expected to transfer did transfer. Then I "recycle" the source backup set to clear it out, then I run the Transfer Backup Sets tool to copy the contents of tempworkspace back to the original backup set, visually confirm that the transfer worked, then I recycle tempworkspace to prep it for the next such operation I may want to do.

 

Tedious, yes, but still a time saver over what would normally be the more sane approach.