What are "past backups"

[gasser]

Something I don't quite grok. :confused2: My Activities window shows 20-30 recent backup sessions completed. My Past Backups window, however, only shows two backups for each of my volumes, my very first one from 2 months ago and the most recent one. What happened to all the ones in between? How do I restore an older version of a file from a previous backup that wasn't either the first one or the last one?

[Mayoff]

The old snapshots are not always part of the catalog. The past backups window has a button to retrieve missing past backups from the catalog

[gasser]

When I click on that button, I see one entry for each of my volumes, from over two months ago, and that's it. What if I want to retrieve a file from last week?

 

Still I'm quite confused by the terminology. What is a "backup" vs. an "activity" vs. a "snapshot"? What am I doing when I "retrieve a backup"? It sure sounds like it's going to restore files, not give me a catalog of what was in a snapshot.

[CallMeDave]

Still I'm quite confused by the terminology.

 

Retrospect has always had specialized terminology that's not always (ever?) intuitive. I remember fondly my first econ professor who told us at the beginning of the class that until we learned exactly what "debit and credit" actually meant we should, whenever we came across the terms in the first chapter of the text, think of them instead as "mumbo and jumbo."

 

The creator and original programmer for Retrospect was a very, very precise individual, and the use of language (in most cases) reflected this. The current terminology seems to be less consistent; so now it's not only unintuitive, but confusing even when you understand the intended concepts.

 

What is a "backup" vs. an "activity" vs. a "snapshot"?

 

An "Activity" is any Retrospect operation. A "Restore" is an Activity, a "Backup" is an Activity, a "Copy" is an Activity, etc.

 

That being said, I have no idea how the "Activities" list is intended to operate, as my use has not been structured enough to know what parts that are confusing to _me_ are the result of my own actions (deleting Media Sets, changing share points on my test file server, etc) and what parts might be either broken or poorly implemented; I look forward to full documentation for that. I do see that in the "Type" column I have some Activities that are defined (Backup, Find Files Restore, Restore) yet other Activities have no Type listed (just "-" in the column). At least some of those are Copy activities, where the "Source I want to copy from" and the "Destination for my files" are still present on the local boot volume, yet they don't list "Copy" in the "Type" column of the "Activities" window. I'm not gonna sweat this one for now.

 

What am I doing when I "retrieve a backup"? It sure sounds like it's going to restore files, not give me a catalog of what was in a snapshot.

For this we have a bit of guidance in the Retrospect 8 Getting Started document that comes with the program. Page 10 states:

 

[color:purple]Past Backups combine the Retrospect 6.1 concepts of Snapshots (the listing of all

files present on a source volume during a backup) and sessions (the actual files

copied during a backup operation).[/color]

 

It seems that "Snapshot" is no longer a term in use; so like Backup Set (and Storage Set for the old timers out there) we have to adjust our language to remain precise.

 

As Robin notes (using the old language, but he's an old, old timer and habits die hard) every "Point-in-time" list is not maintained in the Catalog. That doesn't mean all the _files_ in the catalog are not maintained, they are. Just what we used to call the Snapshot gets culled out after some number of, er, it used to be "Sessions" but since that is also a depreciated term, I'll just use "Mumbo" instead.

 

So since "Past Backups" includes what we used to call Snapshots (and now are, I suppose, "point-in-time listings" (page 33)), and since older Past Backups are not maintained in the Catalog, if you want to go back to an older point-in-time you'll have to go out to the original media that contains that older listing and "retrieve" it. I'm pretty sure that the way the Media stores the point-in-time listings (just rolls off the tongue, no?) is more advanced in 8 then it was in older Mac versions, but again I'll wait for the docs (or Robin's help) to understand that.

 

What am I doing when I "retrieve a backup"?

 

The button is not named "Retrieve a Backup," the button is named "Retrieve" and it's in the "Past Backup" window.

 

 

It sure sounds like it's going to restore files...

 

Just East of the "Retrieve" button is a "Restore" button. So there shouldn't be confusion over what to click when you want to restore files.

 

 

Dave

 

[gasser]

Thanks Dave, for trying to clarify, but I'm still not sure how to get what I want.

 

So since "Past Backups" includes what we used to call Snapshots (and now are, I suppose, "point-in-time listings" (page 33)), and since older Past Backups are not maintained in the Catalog, if you want to go back to an older point-in-time you'll have to go out to the original media that contains that older listing and "retrieve" it. I'm pretty sure that the way the Media stores the point-in-time listings (just rolls off the tongue, no?) is more advanced in 8 then it was in older Mac versions, but again I'll wait for the docs (or Robin's help) to understand that.

Can you describe more precisely how to "go out to the original media that contains that older listing and "retrieve" it"?

 

In the old Retrospect, I could (1) select any past backup event (sorry if my terminology is imprecise) and browse the entire contents of my disk as it looked as of that point in time, restoring specific files by checkmarking them. Or, (2) I could search across all backups for files that matched a criterion and restore them all. The new Retrospect help gives me two choices: restore an entire volume (which I don't want to do) or restore based on criteria, but in fact the "restore a volume" option actually lets you choose files and folders (I think). So what if I want to find the file to restore by browsing to it as in the old Retrospect option (1)? If I use the Restore Assistant and select "Restore an entire source volume or favorite folder to a previous point in time" the only "points in time" choices that I get are the paltry handful of points in time corresponding to what I see in the "past backups" screen. I'm unable to browse the contents of my backups for all the daily backups over the last two months.

 

 

What am I doing when I "retrieve a backup"?

 

The button is not named "Retrieve a Backup," the button is named "Retrieve" and it's in the "Past Backup" window.

 

I guess. When I click on a line item in the "Past Backup" window and then click the "Retrieve" button, I sure thought I was going to retrieve files from the backup I clicked on.

[CallMeDave]

In the old Retrospect, I could ... select any past backup event ... and browse the entire contents of my disk as it looked as of that point in time.

 

No, not any past backup; the "Current Snapshots in Backup Set Foo" field in the "Restore from Backup: Source" window contains a list of Snapshots going back in time, but it's quite possible for there to be even more points in time earlier then what's listed there. That's what the "Add Snapshot..." button is for. Clicking that button shows you the list of Snapshots that were taken, but the actual Snapshots (the lists of what files where where) are not available unless you have the backup Media online and available for Retrospect to read from.

 

Honestly I can't give much guidance as to how Retrospect behaves, as I'm just not using it enough to have a long history of Past Backups. But I expect it will work the same way; at the time of the backup Retrospect will write Point-In-Time-Lists to both the Catalog and the media. Over time the Catalog lists will be culled, but you can always "Retrieve" earlier lists from the media where it was written in real-time. Retrieval copies this list back to the Catalog where you can Browse the way you want to.