Simple but not quite ...

[boogiestudio]

Ok here's the deal. I work in a studio and take care of the backup.

 

- Here's my setup.

Mac Pro (Intel)

os X 10.4.9

Retrospect 6.1.126

Backing up using exabyte tapes

 

So i thought I had a pretty simple backup system until I realized it didn't work like I wanted to.

The setup is pretty simple. There are 2 mixers who backup on a server and Retrospect is on that server.

Here's my problem and i'm probably not using the software right.

 

There's a main folder "Backup" in that folder are the agencies we do projects for i.e "Ford" and finally in the agencies folders we put our different sessions (simple enough).

I setup Retrospect to backup the folder "Backup" and all its content every night.

It worked fine but here's the problem. We often have to restore a session to do minor changes. When that happens well the engineer removes some stuff from the session folder to save space on his computer. And when I put the agencie folder back on the server prior to backing up, I replace the existing one wich had more data but was already backed up. So basically I replaced "Ford" (lets say was 50mb) with "Ford" (2mb of new data) I tought retrospect would know its new data and add it to the "Ford" folder on the tape. But what it does is replace the "ford"(50mb) with the "ford"(2mb) and I loose all my data (what's incremental about that) !!! I must be doing something wrong, perhaps I can't be replacing folders, but then again I can't be creating new folders for existing sessions every time I change something.

 

I hope it's clear enough. Please help me out. Maybe retrospect doesn't like the way I work. Tell me a better way ...

 

Thank you very much !!!

[twickland]

"Incremental" refers to the backup process, assuming you're performing "Normal" backups. The data for each of your various backup sessions remain on the tape unless and until you perform a Recycle backup. If you haven't configured your selection criteria to exclude certain files, you should have a copy of every file that was on the source at the time of each backup.

 

The issue would seem to be with the type of Restore you're performing. Please spell out the exact steps you're taking, using Retrospect terminology (i.e., what each screen, selected radio button, etc., says).

 

Also let us know what you're trying to achieve. For example, are you trying to restore the Ford folder to the exact status as of the time of a particular backup, or are you trying to retrieve particular files to add to what's currently in the folder?

[boogiestudio]

Thanks for your help Twickland, ironically I figured it out 5min ago.

It was the type of restore I was trying to achieve.

I didn't know that the feature "restore from a backup" was searching only through specifics snapshots and not through the whole Backup.

 

Thank you very much thought, it would of fixed my problem.

 

By the way ... I would like to start backing up to 2 tapes, well actually not backing simultaneously to 2 tapes but having a safe copy of each tape I already have and for the upcoming ones. Is there an easy way to do that ?

[rhwalker]

Quote:

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By the way ... I would like to start backing up to 2 tapes, well actually not backing simultaneously to 2 tapes but having a safe copy of each tape I already have and for the upcoming ones. Is there an easy way to do that ?

 

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Yes. Create a second backup set for the second set of tapes. Add the new backup set as an additional destination in your existing script(s). Interleave the schedules so that, for example, you back up to one backup set on MWF and to the other backup set on TTS.

 

And get an autoloader. It will change your life. Really. You don't understand until you have one - fill it up and forget it. Exabyte has some nice and inexpensive VXA-2 and VXA-172/320 drives with autoloaders that could read your old tapes and the new ones. The VXA-172/320 is an interesting product that is really a VXA-3 drive (twice the density of VXA-2 - i.e., 160/320 uncompressed/compressed GB on X-23 tapes) that can be purchased in the VXA-172 configuration in which the firmware is crippled to only write in VXA-2 mode. When you want to double the density (capacity) of your tapes, you purchase a field upgrade to the firmware, and it starts writing as VXA-3 (VXA-320) but can still read your older tapes, and will still continue writing tapes that were started in VXA-2 mode, in that same mode. If you do the math, the VXA-320 pays for itself in a couple of loads of a 10-slot autoloader by savings in media costs.

 

We have a VXA-2 1x10 1u PacketLoader (SCSI) (VXA-2 with 10-slot autoloader) attached to an ATTO UL4D in our Xserve G5, and are very happy with it. Exabyte has a VXA-2 model with Firewire, but the VXA-172/320 is not yet available in Firewire, I believe.

 

Russ