Limiting Each Client to 2GB each for backup

[kloda]

I looked around in both the Mac OS X and Windows server, there is a way to limit file sizes in a client's backup but not limit the backup size to 2GB. Does anyone know of a way to do this?

 

Thanks!

[AmyJ]

I couldn't tell from the question whether you're asking on how to exclude files greater then 2 gig or how to limit the backup of all files (total copied) from a client to 2 gig. Here is the answer to both:

 

You can create a "selector" to exclude files greater then 2 gig from being copied.

 

You cannot set a limit not to backup more then 2 gig total from a client. Retrospect would not have any way to determine which 2 gig to backup. What if the backup stopped at 2 gig because there were large video files, but did not yet get to the mail file?

 

The best way to pare down the amount of data to backup is to either use subvolumes, selectors or a combination of both. When used properly they give you a great deal of control.

[Maser]

This is something I've been asking for quite some time.

 

If retrospect can stop a backup based on a "speed" threshold (in the preferences), it should be able to do the same based on a *size* threshold.

 

I'm hoping patiently that this will be in the "Leopard" update for Retrospect...

[CallMeDave]

But Steve, how do you address the question of _which_ size limited set of files would be backed up? Would it be alphanumeric, based on filenames? Would it be based on creation or modification dates?

 

Imagine that your responsibility as a backup administrator were to grab the new or changed files in the /User/Fuser/Foo/ directory. The set of files in this folder should generally be small, but they are very valuable.

 

One of your users copies a multi-gigabyte file named " aArdvark.flac" to this folder. Bad user, bad.

 

Your backup runs, and your theoretical size-limited script copies the first two gigabytes of the first file in the Source, which then doesn't get any other file in the Foo directory.

 

The next day, the user's drive crashes and there are no current backups of critical files.

 

> I'm hoping patiently that this will be in the "Leopard" update for

> Retrospect...

 

Given that AmyJ makes the same point above as I raise here, and that she actually works at EMC, I'd suggest that it's a safe bet that such a major feature change will not be something to be anticipating.