Duplicates are compared by 'Date of Creation' i.s.o. 'Modified date'

[cosmos55]

Hallo,

 

I want to use a Network Harddrive (Iomega Netstore) to make a duplicate of all my Data.

The problem with Retrospec is that, when you have a file which has a Creation Date of for example 1 september 2007, but a Modified Date of 2 september 2007, when you duplicate it to a Network Harddrive, the duplicated copy has a Creation date that will equal the Modified Date of 2 september !!

This gives a comparing error in Retropsec, he says 'Different Creation Date / Time' Source = 1 september - Destination = 2 september'.

As a consequence, even if you haven't changed anything in the file, each time you start the duplication process, Retrospec will re-copie the file, while this was not necessary !!

 

Is it not possible to adapt Retrospec, so the comparation is made on base of the 'Modified Date' of a file instead of the 'Creation Date' ???

 

Thanks for any replys...

[revans]

I have the same problem duplicating from my PC or laptop to a SimpleShare network drive. However, if I duplicate a file from the network drive to the PC or laptop, duplicate works correctly. So I think the issue is with the operating system on the network drive rather than being a problem with Retrospect.

[cosmos55]

Yes, same behaviour as you describe !! But, I think the problem would be resolved when Retrospect would compare files on 'modified Date' of a file in stead of 'Creation Date' ! When I want to update my backup of duplicated files, I'm only interested in files that were modified ...

You don't happen to know a way to communicate this to Retrospect specialists ?

[revans]

Your suggestion to use "Modified Date' does sound straight forward, but it seems like the program is using more than just the dates to determine when to backup a file during a duplicate operation. Perhaps 'check sum' or some other method is also used.

 

I use duplicate to copy my catalog files to a second drive. There a 6 catalog files in the folder that I duplicate. All have the Creation date versus Modified date issue, but during the last duplicate operation only 4 of the files were chosen for the operation. As a test, I purposely ran my "duplicate" script several times in a row. And even though none of the files had changed, Retrospect consistently picked the same 4 files out of six to duplicate. ...so something isn't working as it should besides just the dates.

 

Another thing you might check: If you are using a script to duplicate your files, go to manage scripts, select your script for doing the duplicate and then click on edit script. When the edit dialog box opens, click on the 'Destination' button. That will open a dialog box where you can identify the destination drive, but it also contains a dialog box for specifing what to duplicate. The default is "Replace Entire Volume", it should be changed to "Replace if Source in newer".

 

If you are using the basic wizard, it is always "Replace Entire Volume" and it can not be changed according to the help file.

 

How to contact EMC direct is a bit of a mystery to me too. I could only suggest going to the "contact us" web page. At the bottom is a link for customer service and support. Clicking on that link takes you to a page that has some phone numbers at the bottom. Not sure what you will get at those numbers though. Good luck!

[cosmos55]

Thx for your feedback.

 

I have checked the 'Replace if source is newer' option, but this is not what I want... Besides just replacing the 'newer' files , it also leaves, files who were deleted on the source, unaffected on the destination ! In my case this is not my purpose, I would get a backup of duplicated files + all the old files... Still, thank you for the suggestion.

 

I think there will be no other way to use my network drive as my main data storage, and my internal hard drive as the destination backup up drive, if I want to use Retrospect Express as a duplication tool.

[revans]

Yes I see what you mean about the 'Replace if source is newer' not removing files such as deleted one.

 

As you mention, I do use the network drive as the main source for all files that I want to share with other users on my home network or files that I want to have accessible when I log on to one of the other machines. I backup those files nightly to a drive on my main desktop. I use duplicate set to "Replace entire volume' and it works properly. Only changed files are backed up and the file dates are correct.

 

All other files on my PC, including the shared files that I duplicate from the network drive, are backed up nightly using a standard 'Backup' script. Those files are backed up to second network drive, which I rotate every few months with one that I keep offsite.

 

It all has worked well and I was able to recover when the network drive failed as well as another time when I lost the use of my main PC for several weeks. In both cases I was able to restore all my data from the surviving drives. Redundancy can be good!

 

There are other programs that do duplicate type functions (Microsoft’s free SyncToy is one) but they are all going to have the same problem due to the way that most network drives seem to handle ‘Creation Date’ and ‘Last Modified Date’. I did ask SimpleTech, who make the drive that I use, about potential changes to fix the problem, but they feel it is already handling it properly.

 

...Good luck with developing your own strategies.