Multi drive back up.

[larswik]

Hello, first time poster. Got Retrospect last week for my VXA-320 Exabyte drive and I love it for tape back up. Now I am going to re-purpose Retrospect and here is what I am trying to do. We have 8-500 gig firewire drives that our editors use for editing. We purchased a 12 space rack and right now have 4- 1 Teribyte drives installed in that unit. I would like to use Retrospect to back up the 8 - 500 gigs to the 4 - 1 teribyte drives. I would like to use the 'Duplicate' if I could instead of back up.

 

I don't know how to approach this and I could not find a good answer in the documentation.

 

Any ideas?

 

Thanks,

 

-Lars

[CallMeDave]

Quote:

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I would like to use the 'Duplicate' if I could instead of back up.

 

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Why?

 

Backups are faster and more feature-rich. The main advantage of Duplicates is speed of access to files when needed, but given the high level iron you're deploying, Restore operations would not be much of an issue.

 

That being said, Duplicate Destinations are Volumes. So you would need to create a folder for each Source you want to Duplicate, and define those folders as Subvolumes in Retrospect. Perhaps you'll want two folders on each large drive to handle two of the smaller drives, or however else is appropriate for your data amounts.

 

Create a Script for each Source (500 GB drive) which points to the correct Destination volume (on the 1 TB drive), and Schedule as appropriate.

[larswik]

Thanks for the fast reply. So if I understand you right, I will have Retrospect launch at midnight automatically and run 8 different scripts one after the other instead of running 1 script that contains all 8 500 gig drives.

 

I guess I have not used the automated 'backup' feature because I have had problems with it. It can't find the destination disk. It looks like it is trying to create a snap shot like I do when making the Exabyte to find the files later of the Tape drive. I tried putting the destination file in the Snap shot catalog folder in the Apps folder. I also tried to put it on the destination drive but now it is looking for a drive name something like '1-back up drive'.

 

What am I doing wrong?

 

Thanks again,

 

-Lars

[CallMeDave]

Quote:

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So if I understand you right, I will have Retrospect launch at midnight automatically and run 8 different scripts one after the other instead of running 1 script that contains all 8 500 gig drives.

 

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That's assuming that I understood you right when you professed a preference for Duplicate instead of Backup.

 

Retrospect can only perform a single Duplicate operation per script. Just one of the reasons I noted that Backups are more feature rich.

 

> I guess I have not used the automated 'backup' feature because I have had problems with it.

> It can't find the destination disk.

 

Backups in Retrospect are done to Backup Sets, which are offered in different Types.

 

> It looks like it is trying to create a snap shot like I do when making the Exabyte

> to find the files later of the Tape drive.

 

This is unclear. What exactly are you doing? What exactly do you see when you do it?

 

> I tried putting the destination file in the Snap shot catalog folder in the Apps folder.

 

Sorry. What is "the Snap shot catalog folder?" I don't have one in my /Applications/ folder, so this must be something you have done yourself (and as such, has unique meaning to your install). We can only offer opinions and suggestions on things that we understand.

 

> I also tried to put it on the destination drive but now it is looking for a drive name

> something like '1-back up drive'.

 

What is "it" in this context?

 

Check the User's Guide on the difference between a File Backup Set and a Removable Disk Backup Set.

 

Of course, both of those are obviously Backup Sets, which you have specifically noted that you do _not_ want to use. Again, we can only offer suggestions based on the information you provide.

 

Dave

[larswik]

Thanks again for you fast reply. Sorry to be unclear as I am still learning to use this program. Using Retro 6.1 and doing a backup to tape to unload footage from my hard drive worked well. In this process Retro creates a file called, which I thought was called a 'Snap Shot' but it is a 'Backup Set'. It asks you to save this file which I placed in a folder that I created in the Retro folder. It uses this file to retrieve files from the Tape backup I created. This allows me to retrieve individual files without having to restore the whole tape back to a hard drive. If these files are lost the manual said I will then have to retrieve everything. This is what I was referring to as a Snap Shot, sorry.

 

The 'Duplicate' feature made more sense to me because I can select a Source Drive and then a Destination Drive, when I back up from my Source 500 gig raid 0 to my Destination drive which is a 500 gig USB 2 drive. But it hasn't been that simple for the backup option. When I create my 'BackupSet' where do I put that? If I follow the Tape backup procedure that worked I would put that in the folder I created in the Retrospect in the Apps folder so I could retrieve individual files later. Or do they go onto the destination drive that all the media will be backed up to?

 

Lastly it can't find the hard drive. If I create a Backup Set and call it "Lars Files" it starts looking for a hard drive called "1-Lars Files"?

 

I don't understand why this is not as easy as Duplicate function. You pick a Source and Destination drive and your done. I hope this was more understandable for you.

 

Thanks again for you patients as I am learning.

 

-Lars

[larswik]

I think I found what I was looking for after rereading your post. I think the type of backup that I am looking for is called a 'File Backup'. I will run some tests to see if that is it.

 

Thanks,

 

-Lars