Yet another "NeedsMedia" issue?

[bovilexic]

Just upgraded from Retrospect 6.1 to 8....

 

Context:

- Mac Mini with external FireWire drive (250GB) named "Backup"

- Making Disk media set

- Retrospect 8 just being used to back up the Mini itself.

- Main HD in Mac Mini to be backed up was a little less than 100GB

 

So I created a script to do a nightly backup, and once it got going my file hierarchy on the backup destination was this:

 

- Backup

--- Retrospect

----- Catalogs

-------- Mac Mini Nightly Media Set.rbc

----- EMC

----- Mac Mini Nightly Media Set

------- 1-Mac Mini Nightly Media Set

 

At somewhere between 80-90 GB into the backup, it stalls, and I see the "Needs Media" (or is that "Media Needed?) button asking me to push it. OK, this is pretty odd, since the hard drive still has another 90 GB or so of free space. This seems wrong - is the disk media set size hard-coded?

 

When I clicked the button I get a prompt asking me to find "2-Mac Mini Nightly Media Set". Of course this doesn't yet exist. I tried various combinations of simply trying to select "Backup" (my backup drive), folders underneath "Backup/Retrospect", etc., as well as using the "Create new folder", but the best I could get was something like this:

 

- Backup

--- Retrospect

----- Catalogs

------- Mac Mini Nightly Media Set.rbc

----- EMC

----- Mac Mini Nightly Media Set

------- 1-Mac Mini Nightly Media Set

----- Retrospect

------- EMC

------- Mac Mini Nightly Media Set

--------- 2-Mac Mini Nightly Media Set

 

That is, it stuck a new version of the "/Retrospect//#-" hierarchy within the existing one.

 

Several questions arise:

 

- Why would Retrospect think my destination media set is out of space (as if it were a tape drive that was telling the system that it's at its end)?

- Is there no way to tell Retrospect that the disk media set capacity is larger? (Again, should default to "as much space as the hard drive has".)

- Why wasn't I able to at least get the new media set to be located in the same folder as "1-Mac Mini Nightly Media Set"? I can see this might be a user error, but it's not clear if/how this is possible...

 

I was able to work around this when I realized had done an "Archive and Install" OS X upgrade last time around, and could eliminate 12GB off the Mini's drive. This brought the overall space used to under 90GB, and a subsequent full backup went through without running into the "media needed" issue. Clearly, this is again going to be a problem once enough system changes happen so as to require the media set to go over this apparent ~90GB limit (like during an unattended scheduled backup where I'm not there to hand-hold it).

 

There have been a few other discussions of this "needs media" issue, most involving optical or tape or dvd backups, but in one of them involving disk media sets, I saw a reference to using a "File Media Set" as a workaround...hmm...

 

The behaviors I'm seeing look like garden-variety first release bugs and/or interface flaws, but some help here would be greatly appreciated...Thanks!

 

 

 

 

Edited May 10, 2009 by Guest

[Maser]

I don't have it in front of me at the moment, but if you select "media sets", does it say your disk media set has 0GB "free" space? And what does the "capacity" say?

 

When I first started using Disk Media sets I ran into this as my external hard disk didn't have a lot of free space.

 

So when I *created* the first disk media set, it only set the capacity to the free space on the drive -- even when I deleted the other stuff on the external drive, that "capacity" setting doesn't expand automatically.

 

It's not intuitive, but you can increase the "capacity" of a disk media set by highlighting the set, selecting the "members" tab, then click the "pencil" icon.

 

If your external HD has 200G free (for example), you can walk through reselecting your external HD and it should update the capacity of that disk set to 200G or so.

 

Something like that (this is from memory...)

 

However, if your disk media set capacity is already showing 200G and it stopped after 90G, then that sounds like a bug.

 

 

[bovilexic]

It's possible that I initially created the Media Set when I had a large Retrospect 6 backup set still on the drive, and that the capacity didn't update when I removed the latter. So, I'll consider that one mystery tentatively solved - thanks! t

 

(Though if that is the case, then there's a relatively minor program state and UI issue here.)

 

Still not clear to me how I'm supposed to make a new Media Set that lives alongside the previous one...am I just not understanding the controls...? Entirely possible...

 

 

[CallMeDave]

my file hierarchy on the backup destination was this:

- Backup

--- Retrospect

----- Catalogs

-------- Mac Mini Nightly Media Set.rbc

{snip}

I haven't read any farther then this, so I have no idea if it's the cause of or even related to your problem, but this hierarchy is wrong.

 

The beauty (and power) of Disk Media Sets is that you store the Catalog file on a different volume then where you store the actual data. Generally that location is one that's online all the time, so it's easy to know what was backed up even if the actual storage media (tapes, disks, etc) are on a shelf somewhere.

 

By default, Retrospect would have prompted you to save the Catalog of your Media Set at:

 

/Library/Application Support/Retrospect/Catalogs/

 

where "/" is the root level of the volume booting the machine running RetroEngine (what you called "Main HD")

 

But for some reason you decided to save the .rbc file in a totally different location on a totally different physical volume.

 

I'd suggest starting with a proper configuration and then seeing if the program works as expected.

 

 

Dave

[bovilexic]

my file hierarchy on the backup destination was this:

- Backup

--- Retrospect

----- Catalogs

-------- Mac Mini Nightly Media Set.rbc

{snip}

I haven't read any farther then this, so I have no idea if it's the cause of or even related to your problem, but this hierarchy is wrong.

 

The beauty (and power) of Disk Media Sets is that you store the Catalog file on a different volume then where you store the actual data. Generally that location is one that's online all the time, so it's easy to know what was backed up even if the actual storage media (tapes, disks, etc) are on a shelf somewhere.

 

By default, Retrospect would have prompted you to save the Catalog of your Media Set at:

 

/Library/Application Support/Retrospect/Catalogs/

 

where "/" is the root level of the volume booting the machine running RetroEngine (what you called "Main HD")

 

But for some reason you decided to save the .rbc file in a totally different location on a totally different physical volume.

 

I'd suggest starting with a proper configuration and then seeing if the program works as expected.

 

 

Dave

 

The reason I put my catalog on the drive containing the backup is because the default location is on the drive I'm trying to protect with the backup. If the drive fails, then my catalog will be unavailable. I rather hope that the other issues are not related to where I've chosen to store the catalog, and in any case they ought not to be. I've been using Retrospect in this fashion since the mid-90's...

 

[Mayoff]

If the drive containing the catalog fails, you can just perform a catalog rebuild.

 

Saving the catalog to the backup disk itself will result in slower performance and greater chance of catalog corruption.

[CallMeDave]

I've been using Retrospect in this fashion since the mid-90's...

Retrospect for Maintosh hasn't had "Disk" type sets before, and Removable Disk Media sets weren't compatible with fixed platter hard drives till around 2001.

 

File Backup Sets, however, were designed to maintain the Data and Catalog on the same volume (in fact, they were originally configured to maintain them in the same file).

 

Retrospect 8 continues to support File Media Sets, so if you prefer them (and the limitations they impose) then that's still an option.

 

 

Dave