Looking for best way to shrink backup set

[paul4ut]

I am running Mac OS X, and use an external FireWire HD for backup using Retrospect.

 

My 100 GB external hard drive is 600 MB from being full. What can I do to reclaim disk space for backup? Is there a tool in Retrospect that will permit me to shrink/compact my backup set, and automatically shrink future backups automatically?

 

Thanks

[twickland]

You can opt to have the catalog compressed, but this won't save you much space and it also takes time to perform the compression. I don't recommend it.

 

Eventually, as you observe, you will run out of space. The only reasonable option is to Recycle (i.e., reset) the backup set, which will wipe out all your previous backup data.

 

To ensure that you always retain important data, you might want to consider obtaining a second FireWire drive and rotating your backups between the two drives. You would create a second file backup set residing on the new volume, removing the first drive from service for the time being. When the second drive becomes full, bring back the first drive, recycle its backup set, and begin writing to it, and so on.

 

Alternatively, you could keep two file backup sets on the same volume, each occupying half of the volume's capacity, but this gives you no redundancy when the drive fails. Also, this would only help you in the future;you would still have to lose all your present backup data to free up space on the volume. (To save your current data, you could create another type of backup set (e.g., CD-ROM) and copy important files to it before recycling your primary backup set.)

[paul4ut]

I'm going to recycle the backup set as a means of reclaiming space.

 

Before I do this, can you recommend what I should back up? As it is now, I am backing up everything. I have master disks for all of my software, so is there a way I can choose what to back up? Documents, Pictures, Movies, Music, etc. ??

 

Thanks

[paul4ut]

I noticed on the settings that I can't limit the backup to multiple items such as: documents, pictures, movies, music

 

Rather, I have to chose "one." Is there a way to choose multiple items?

 

Thanks

[twickland]

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Before I do this, can you recommend what I should back up?

 

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Only you can decide what's important to back up. Backing up everything makes it easy to restore, but if your storage space is limited, you may want to limit your backups to stuff that's vital to you, such as the root level /Library folder and the /Users folder.

 

It's always best to have multiple backup copies of files that are irreplaceable or that would be difficult or time-consuming to reconstruct. One copy should be stored off-site, in case of fire or other disaster.

 

Quote:

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I noticed on the settings that I can't limit the backup to multiple items such as: documents, pictures, movies, music.

 

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Yes you can. Click on "More..." and you can adjust the selection criteria to (almost) your heart's content. If you're going to need those selection criteria more than once, though, I recommend that you go to Special> Selectors and save your criteria as a custom selector.