duplicate vs regular backup, erasing dest. drive

[deborahlevoy]

Hi,

I'm afraid I posted to the wrong thread previously - I'm sorry!

I have read and reread the manual and I still really don't understand the difference between the results from a duplicate vs a normal backup. I've been doing duplicates, but I realize now (too late) that I cannot do a recycle backup from duplicates. I seem not to get the difference between "adding changed files" to my backup and "archiving"....and I seem to be very dense...!

 

Also, I'm thinking of switching to normal backups and a recycle backup thrown in when the destination's getting full. In order to do this I am planning on wiping the destination drive clean of my prior duplicate backups and starting over from scratch. Would just dumping the contents of the backup drive into my trash (and emptying the trash, of course) "wipe it clean" so that I could start fresh w/normal scheduled backups? Or is this a more fancy operation than I realize?

thanks!

Deborah

[rhwalker]

Quote:

---

Would just dumping the contents of the backup drive into my trash (and emptying the trash, of course) "wipe it clean" so that I could start fresh w/normal scheduled backups? Or is this a more fancy operation than I realize?

 

---

You've got the general idea, but to "really" answer that you need to decide what type of backup destination you will be using. One way is to use "removable disk" backup, which will treat your destination disk like a big tape (but which will wipe out everything else on the disk). See page 22 of the manual. The other way is a "file" backup, which will create a big file with the backup set contents (and which will leave other files on the disk untouched). Again, see page 22 of the manual.

 

Sorry, I won't be able to provide suggestions/advice on either type (file / disk) of backup - we only use tape backups with an autoloader. To me, that's how Retrospect was designed to work, and the way it works best.

 

Hope this points you in the right direction. The learning curve on Retrospect is quite steep, but once you get it set up, it's very nice.

 

Regards,

 

Russ

[deborahlevoy]

thank you for your reply! I have been doing duplicates backups of both my laptop and an external drive to the one destination external drive. I have created 2 folders in the destination drive, one for the data for each source drive. In my case, I simple want to keep my backup data archived as far back as possible, given the limits of the size of my external HD. The incremental backup scenerio would have been perfect, but I'm using a mac.

 

I suppose in my case, which is the most simple backup, it's just an exercise in semantics to try and understand retrospect. I don't really need to, I just need to do the backups and chill. But I am having trouble with the way the user's guide is organized. But why isn't "duplicate" listed on pg 23 re types of backup actions? I realize I'm missing something key here. And why would someone prefer a duplicate backup to a normal backup?

thx

Deb

[CallMeDave]

Quote:

---

But why isn't "duplicate" listed on pg 23 re types of backup actions?

 

---

 

Because "Duplicate" is not a backup.

 

Consider that a Duplicate (with the Replace Entire Disk option) is like a recycle backup every time; the resulting Destination contains only the files that were on the Source at the time it ran. (The Replace Corresponding Files options is different, and can result in a Destination volume that has _more_ files then are present on the Source at the time it runs; the User Guide has more information on the differences).

 

>I seem not to get the difference between "adding changed files" to my backup and "archiving"

 

Page 51 of the Retrospect 6.0 Users Guide (which, for some crazy reason, does not allow for copying of the PDF text) explains the difference. An "Archive" action does not match Source to Destination, so it will copy all the selected files, even if they are already present on the Destination. Adding changed files does just that; files that are not changed are not added more then once.

 

As for Russ' belief that Retrospect was designed to work with tapes, I'd suggest that the original DiskFit program was really designed to backup to floppy disks, and that Tape, File, Removable and Internet "Storage Sets" were all given equal weight as the product evolved. But that would be something that only the program's chief architect would know.