Stymied: Cannot Limit Folder Selection to Root Level

[jmcafee]

Restrospect 7.7 Windows, Windows 7

 

I want to limit a selector to a root level directory, and not select any identically named directory of any child of another root level dir.

 

I've read the documentation, and searched the forum, but have not found a solution. I cannot come up with a selection rule that doesn't require explicit tagging from the file tree browser. I've tried all kinds of combinations of paths without and with preceeding and leading '\', and/or using "Volume Root" with Boolean 'AND'.

 

For instance, I wish to select the root level directory and files within, independent of the drive letter designation, for the following:

\mail

(and potentially \mail1, \mail2, etc ...)

 

But not:

\foobar\mail

\xyz\foobar\mail

\abc\mail3

 

Thank you for your suggestion.

 

[x509]

I have this exact same problem.

 

In my case, I have root directories:

 

2010

2011

2013

2014

Outlook

 

(lots of others)

 

If I do a name match on say "2010" or "Outlook" that works well enough to back up the files I need, but also picks up subfolders with names "2010" or "Outlook"

 

However, if I try selector Windows Path, with "2010" or "Outlook," no files are selected when I test that selector.

[Lennart_T]

I think you will have to include the drive letter in the Windows path:

C:\2010

[x509]

I think you will have to include the drive letter in the Windows path:

C:\2010

Lennart,

 

Your suggestion worked, but only for the system running Retrospect.  

By way of background, all my "user systems" are set up with C: being the Programs drive and D: being the data drive.  (That way, I can easily migrate all my work from system to system AND when, not if, Windows goes south, I don't lose all my work when I have to reload Windows.)

 

So I need to back up the \2010 drive on all my user systems. Setting a path selector to C:\2010 works, but not for my client systems.  I can sort of work around this problem by using a name selector, doing an exact match on name "2010" but this doesn't work as intended for all the various folders I am trying to back up. As a good example, I want to back up the real users in the C:\users folders, but if I simply name various users, the selector picks up other folders that include the user's name. Does this make sense to you?

[Lennart_T]

Doesn't setting the selector to D:\2010 work for the clients? (In addition to the C:\2010 selector, that is.)

[Scillonian]

When Retrospect scans a volume it scans the entire volume then applies the selection.

 

Another alternative you could consider is define the folder trees you want to backup as sub volumes of the data volume for each client. This approach also has the advantage of lowering the scan time as only the sub volume is scanned and not the entire volume. This involves some extra time at initial setup but saves time in the long term. Page 280 of the Retrospect 7.5 User Guide (http://download.retrospect.com/docs/win/v7.5/Win_Retrospect_User_Guide-EN.pdf) covers sub volumes.

[x509]

Doesn't setting the selector to D:\2010 work for the clients? (In addition to the C:\2010 selector, that is.)

Lennart,

 

Unrfortunately not, because I don't assign drive letters to the volumes on all other systems on the home LAN.  I would rapidly run out of drive letters and managing consistent drive letters across systems is a nightmare.  I know that, because I used to do that.

 

So if my system is named P (first initial), and other systems are named S, L, and C, then I would want to back up not just D:\outlook but \\P\data\outlook, \\L\data\outlook and so forth.  I do enforce a discipline across all systems where the programs drive, C:, is always named PROGRAMS, and the data drive D: is always named DATA.  The E: drive, if present, is always the LIBRARY drive used to store media, fonts, the iTunes folder structure, etc.

 

So what I wanted to do with the Windows PATH selector is name a folder like \outlook and have Retrospect detect that across all systems on the name, but I have learned through experimentation that I need to provide a Windows volume letter.  Unfortunately, this selector doesn't seem to recognize fully qualified network path names.

[x509]

When Retrospect scans a volume it scans the entire volume then applies the selection.

 

Another alternative you could consider is define the folder trees you want to backup as sub volumes of the data volume for each client. This approach also has the advantage of lowering the scan time as only the sub volume is scanned and not the entire volume. This involves some extra time at initial setup but saves time in the long term. Page 280 of the Retrospect 7.5 User Guide (http://download.retrospect.com/docs/win/v7.5/Win_Retrospect_User_Guide-EN.pdf) covers sub volumes.

Scillonian,

 

Thanks for the reminder.  I already use subvolumes for one situation, and I don't know why it didn't occur to me to use that approach for my current problem.  And you are right, it would definitely save a LOT of time scanning large volumes.

[Lennart_T]

 

By way of background, all my "user systems" are set up with C: being the Programs drive and D: being the data drive.  

 

Unfortunately not, because I don't assign drive letters to the volumes on all other systems on the home LAN.  I would rapidly run out of drive letters and managing consistent drive letters across systems is a nightmare.  

It is very hard to try to give advice when you change your description about your setup like this.

 

Anyway, it seems as subvolumes solves your problem.

[x509]

It is very hard to try to give advice when you change your description about your setup like this.

 

Anyway, it seems as subvolumes solves your problem.

Lennart,

 

I probably didn't express myself clearly enough.  On each of my systems, I don't assign drive letters to volumes on other systems.  That approach can't scale.  However, for each system, by itself, I have a standard set of volume names and usage.  And that approach seems to work quite well.