Can retrospect recover after error.

[trevorjharris]

Forgive the simple question. I have been using Retrospect 12 desktop for several years. I would like to know if something goes wrong can I just restart the backup and retrospect will just carry on. As and example if I rebooted my pc during a backup. I backup a raid 5 disc to a usb3 disk drive which take over a day to backup and I am afraid of accidently rebooting or if there was a power cut.

Regards Trevor Harris

 

[DavidHertzberg]

trevorjharris,

I run a Recycle backup of my MacBook Pro "client" once a week, scheduled for 3 a.m. on Saturday.  Occasionally I'm using the MBP then, and reflexively shut it down when I quit working even though the backup is running.  Lately I've discovered that if I stop working before 3 a.m. but leave the MBP up, Retrospect Mac  16.1 gets a -559 network error precisely 2 hours after I stopped using the MBP—because a change in macOS prevents me from inhibiting non-use shutdown..  In either case, rerunning the Backup script with No Media Action (Retrospect Mac term for Normal) completes the backup.

[Nigel Smith]

17 hours ago, DavidHertzberg said:

because a change in macOS prevents me from inhibiting non-use shutdown.

What change is that, then?

Sorry for the hijack, Trevor.

On 10/18/2019 at 9:46 AM, trevorjharris said:

I would like to know if something goes wrong can I just restart the backup and retrospect will just carry on.

Whilst the correct answer is probably "It depends...", interrupting the backup is something you want to avoid if possible[1]. A reboot may be OK, assuming Windows lets Retrospect close down gracefully first, but a power cut or similar could leave the catalog in a strange state. So make sure you are backing up your catalog as well, so you can restore it to a previous "good" version in case of trouble (a good practice, regardless of situation).

But, hopefully, you'll rarely have a problem. Once you get that initial, time consuming, full back up done you can carry on with incrementals, which should complete much faster.

[1] I don't like to contradict David, but I think you have a different situation to his. In his case it is the client that is interrupting the process while the server continues "unharmed", in yours you'd effectively be killing the server halfway through the process...

[DavidHertzberg]

Nigel Smith,

The change in macOS is described in the first and third paragraphs of this OP in a Mac 9+ thread.  It's not just on my MacBook Pro; I took a look at macOS 10.14 Mojave running on a machine at my local Mac repair establishment, and the "Computer sleep" slider is missing on that Mac as well.

You're correct about the OP's killing the "backup server" halfway through the process.  I missed the idea that the OP is running Retrospect Desktop as if it is Retrospect Solo, with only one Windows machine, whereas I was thinking of my own use of Retrospect Desktop—with a "client" machine that is separate from the "backup server" machine.

trevorjharris and Nigel Smith,

IME if the "backup server" does die halfway through the backup process, you'd be able to Rebuild the Catalog from what was written on the member(s) of the Backup Set.  Retrospect was designed to work that way, and many administrators—including me on Retrospect Mac—have Rebuilt damaged Catalogs.

 

Edited October 23, 2019 by DavidHertzberg
Added third substantive paragraph below 2nd names line

[Nigel Smith]

On 10/22/2019 at 6:23 PM, DavidHertzberg said:

The change in macOS is described in the first and third paragraphs of this OP in a Mac 9+ thread.

Saw that after -- I'll answer there.

On 10/22/2019 at 6:23 PM, DavidHertzberg said:

IME if the "backup server" does die halfway through the backup process, you'd be able to Rebuild the Catalog from what was written on the member(s) of the Backup Set.  Retrospect was designed to work that way, and many administrators—including me on Retrospect Mac—have Rebuilt damaged Catalogs.

Agreed, but that can be very time consuming -- and very expensive in some situations (eg cloud sets). Since you're doing backups anyway it's worth taking the extra time to back up Retrospect's catalogs and settings too, ready for the inevitable failure of the server. 3-2-1 ain't just for your clients! 😉

[DavidHertzberg]

Nigel Smith and trevorjharris,

Nigel's point is well-taken in general, and Trevor would-be well-advised to back up his Catalogs and settings periodically to a local drive—as I do using a Favorite Folder (the Retrospect Mac name for a Subvolume). 

However recovering an up-to-date Catalog that has been damaged during a long backup, which is what Trevor says in his OP he is worried about—will require a Rebuild.  Nigel is correct that doing so from a long backup to a cloud Backup Set would be very expensive, because of the provider charge for download reads.  The answer to that is to only do short backups to a cloud Backup Set, which can be repeated after restoring the saved previous Catalog from a local drive.  That IMHO is why Retrospect "Inc." recommends doing Transfer Backups from a local Backup Set to a cloud Backup Set.

Trevor can ignore the preceding paragraph, since his OP says his long backups are to a USB3 disk drive.  So can I, since I rotate my USB3 drives to a bank safety deposit box instead of using cloud backup.