What is the best configuration for my environment?

[WSposato]

Hi All -

 

I use Retrospect Pro 7.5.387 (Driver + Hot Fix V. 7.5.12.103) on Windows XP Professional and want to perform the most efficient backup strategy. Unfortunately, I have zero experience using Retrospect "backup sets" and I believe that what I currently have configured is either wrong or not the best way to use the software. Here is my current configuration and how I am performing my backups:

 

I have two 10K RPM drives in RAID 0 with a combined capacity of 150GB. These are partitioned into C:, D:, E: and F: NTFS volumes and contain all of my applications.

 

I also have two 7K RPM drives in RAID 0 with a combined capacity of 600GB. There are partitioned into G:, H:, I: and J: NTFS volumes and contain multimedia data for the most part.

 

Lastly, I have a 50GB OnStream SCSI tape drive and a Plextor CD/ROM R/W drive and a Plextor DVD R/W drive to back up to. Of course, I prefer to use the tape drive at least for my "full" backups and use the DVD R/W drive for disaster recovery. Currently, I use Acronis True Image to snapshot my C: drive as I have no experience with the Retrospect disaster recovery solution, but, if you have experience with both of these products and feel that Retrospect is better, please let me know and I will gladly use it for everything.

 

Because my old backup software worked with the archive bit on each file, I have performed the following scenario using Retrospect. I created eight Retrospect backup sets named after each of the volumes C: through J: and also created eight backup scripts that are run individually. I did this "job separation" so that I would not have one big job that would be one continuous run. In essence, I was performing a "full" backup on each of the volumes and handling it like you probably would with typical backup software. All of this is OK thus far, but now I'm obviously stuck as to how to perform an "incremental" backup like I did before. Even though I have created a script to backup all of my drives to all of my backup sets, the job wants my last C: volume tape and almost seems like it wants to begin backing up all of my C: volume all over again. Here is where I am lost, and am just not getting the big picture of what Retrospect expects next.

 

If you can provide any assistance at all or have any constructive feedback, I would love to hear it.

 

Thank you in advance for your help!

 

Wayne