Duplicate and Retrospect Clients

[Randyh]

(I have several unrelated questions which I am posting separately. Here is #1.) I am on trial for Retrospect Workgroup on a large, fast ME machine and have a client on an older XP machine and an iMac.

 

 

 

As I was hit by two viruses in the past two years that each wiped out the hard drive (even though I have firewalls, Norton Antivirus installed, etc.), I have gone to the extra expense and security of having duplicate drives on each Windows system (Mac's do not seem to get affected by Viruses as no Microsoft software runs there!). The drives are not normally mounted; mounted just for the copy operation. My plan is to use "duplicate" once a week and nightly "incremental" (using the selection criteria of including only files that are created or modified in the past 7 days). All incrementals are done back to the ME machine which has the most disk space and speed.

 

 

 

I was able to setup a script to duplicate the ME (Workgroup) disk. But the "client" XP cannot perform a duplicate from a local to a local disk it appears. Does this mean I would have to buy a copy of Express for that machine just to enable local duplicates? Can Express act as a client for the nightly backups then also?

[IrenaS]

For duplicates, your source and destination cannot both be on the same client. Express will allow you to duplicate the date, but this wouldn't work as a full disaster recovery option, since you won't get the registry. It certainly will back up all your user data, but often the registry is what really get damaged with a virus. You're best off backing up to a central source, at least intermittently, and then using the duplicate option if you choose to have a quickly-accessible copy of your user data for each computer.

 

 

 

Note that with the iMac, the registry problem doesn't apply, and you *would* be able to boot from the duplicated drive on that computer.

[Randyh]

Out of respect, I do not believe you understood my question.

 

 

 

Duplicate of a disk drive is different than duplicate of a backup set or file. I am referring to duplicate of disk drive that does a sector by sector copy. This option works on the backup Server or Desktop software for one local disk to another. It will work from a client to a Server disk. But it does not seem to work for a client disk to a second disk on the same client. Therefore, it seems I have to install Desktop or similar on that client to get the disk duplicate to work. Is there an easier (or cheaper) way to resolve this problem? If I have Desktop installed on two machines, can one Desktop act as a client to another machines "Desktop"?

 

 

 

Maybe an example is needed.

 

 

 

The configuration is:

 

Machine A with disk 1 and 2 local; Disk 1 is the main disk, Disk 2 is a spare for catastrophe

 

Machine B with disk 3 and 4 local; Disk 3 is the main; Disk 4 the spare

 

Machine A is the Dantz Desktop or Server; Machine B hopefully only a client

 

I want to duplicate disk 1 to disk 2 and disk 3 to disk 4 once a week.

 

I want to perform daily incrementals of disk 1 and disk 3 (combined) to disk 2 and disk 4 (identical copy on each) once a week. I do not want to simply duplicate the backup set from Disk 2 to Disk 4 for an added margin of safety -- I would rather create a second, independently run backup set on Disk 4.

[lv2ski]

"But it does not seem to work for a client disk to a second disk on the same client."

 

Right. It doesn't. You must have a source and destination on different computers OR install Retrospect on that machine and duplicate from one drive to another.

 

 

 

If you have desktop on two machines, one desktop computer is still not a client. Your best option is the one above.

[IrenaS]

I do understand your question. If you want to use the Duplicate option, you cannot have the source and destination on the same client; it works locally or from one client to another. You are correct about this.

 

 

 

You are also correct that you coudl install Desktop (or Express) to do local duplicates of each computer. My reply was warning you about the caveats that might prevent this from being an ideal disaster recovery solution.