Multiple Music file Backups

[meld51]

Hello,

 

I perform a monthly backup of all my music which is held on an XP Media Centre PC. My source is the entire C:\ drive of the PC and I back up across a wireless network using a Retrospect client on the Media centre. I back up onto an external HDD via my laptop which holds the Retrospect software.

 

Recently, when I preview the files for a backup it highlights all my music for a backup and wants to backup multi gigabites of files that are already backed up. This is a waste of time and storage space.

 

When I perform a "find files" for a particular piece of music I see 3 versions of the same file in the Backup Set. They appear to be at the same location with the same name. I have posted an example here.

 

As I write this I realise that I rebuilt my mediacentre OS a while ago and renamed it "Elonex" rather than "Mediacentre" so I think that is why the files are shown to be on 2 separate machines; but what about the two identical files in the same location?

Am I doing something wrong?

 

I use Retrospect Proffessional V 7.5.13.100 on a Windows Vista Home OS. The files are on an XP SP2 machine.

Edited April 6, 2008 by Guest

[MRIS]

at the top of that screenshot is a combo box that says "Backed Up". Try switching that to modified. You will likely see that the modified dates of the files (on the same computer) will be different. Sometimes windows media software updates metadata and thus modifies the files thus causing them to be detected as changed and they get backed up again.

 

As for the PC name change, yes this will cause ALL the files to be backuped up again from scratch, because as far as the server is concerned, it's a different PC.

[meld51]

Thanks,

I see what youre saying. If the metadata changes, will the file be backed up in it's entirety or will it just backup the metadata stuff?

 

All a bit beyond me I'm afraid.

[MRIS]

Were the modified dates/times different?

 

If you have heard of MP3 tags, where the MP3 can contain information such as artist and track title and so on, a similar thing exists for wma, where the file is actually changed.

 

Try restoring each copy of the file to a different folder, then compare the MD5 hashes of the files.

 

Anyway, the modified date being different is the most likely cause for the files to get backed up again.

[meld51]

yes the modified dates were different.

[Mayoff]

Retrospect will always backup the file again if the modify date changes, because it is a changed file.

[meld51]

Yes I guess...but this is a bit of a problem with music files it seems...the metadata changes regularly and this forces Retrospect to create another copy of the file.

 

Is there a way round this, does anyone know?

[MRIS]

Stop modifying the files, or through in action, allowing the files to be modified by a rogue application, such as Windows Media Center.

Edited April 6, 2008 by Guest

[blm14]

Use winamp