adamld Posted August 13, 2009 Report Share Posted August 13, 2009 (I searched for an answer here, but couldn't find one.) Is there a way to get the server to recognize a client's mapped drives? I am running the latest client/server versions of retrospect pro, XP on server, VistaSP2 on client. The client has one large non-system drive with about 500GB to be backed up (to a 750GB drive on server). Straight backups of the full drive ("E:\") consistently hang the server around 80% complete (not exactly, just approximately). As a workaround, I decided to break the backup into pieces (used to work with three separate HDs; I recently moved data to one large HD), so I mapped the three root directories on the client to three volume IDs (e.g. "Paperwork to P:, Finances to F:"). But on the server, when I try to replace E:\ with the client's new mapped volumes, they don't appear. Is there a way to get mapped drives to appear, or a better way to make those root directories be separate pieces of the backup (without scheduling separate backups; I already have three backup sets and would rather not have to juggle three backups per set). Thanks in advance, AdamLD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamld Posted August 18, 2009 Author Report Share Posted August 18, 2009 OP here. Am I just being dense, and the answer is obvious? Anybody care to share a clue? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted August 18, 2009 Report Share Posted August 18, 2009 Retrospect is not really designed to backup mapped network drives on a client. Performance will be really bad. You may be able to select them from the client properties volumes tab. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramon88 Posted August 20, 2009 Report Share Posted August 20, 2009 Instead of using a mapped drive you will be better off just using a UNC share from within Retrospect: - Go to the Volumes Database and click the "My Network" button. - Click the "Advanced" button (lower left in the new window) - Specify the UNC path (format: \\server name\share name) Retrospect can even remember a different username and password. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamld Posted August 20, 2009 Author Report Share Posted August 20, 2009 Thank you, Ramon88, but the client is running Vista, which is lousy at UNC paths. Robin, are UNC paths as inefficient as mapped drives when backed up from a Retrospect server? If not, I'll try to pursue Ramon88's suggestion. Thanks all, Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted August 20, 2009 Report Share Posted August 20, 2009 If the source is running Vista, then you should install the Retrospect client on the computer directly and not use UNC or filesharing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramon88 Posted August 21, 2009 Report Share Posted August 21, 2009 I totally agree with Robin's last post. If you can you should use the Retrospect Client. To answer your question: Robin, are UNC paths as inefficient as mapped drives when backed up from a Retrospect server? If not, I'll try to pursue Ramon88's suggestion. In the past that might have been true with drive mappings between certain versions of windows and windows server. However nowadays there is not much performance difference between a drive mapping or a UNC path. Drive mapping/UNC path sharing take more I/O resources though, which explains why a Retrospect Client can be faster as it doesn't have to deal with some of the required overhead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamld Posted August 21, 2009 Author Report Share Posted August 21, 2009 I have installed the client, I assume that's how the server is able to see the root drive. The problem is that the server crashes (I assume because the drive is so large (100K files/folders and 500GB in size) and so I was trying to split up the backup of this large drive. The client couldn't see mapped drives, but it sounds like it would be slow anyway. Does anyone else have trouble with large backups? Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramon88 Posted August 21, 2009 Report Share Posted August 21, 2009 500 GB and 100.000 files isn't that much actually. Retrospect can handle that easily. But I don't know your setup's software and hardware, so it might be related to that. Your backup isn't large compared to what we backup with Retrospect. It's not clear to me what your problem might be, but I get the impression (no offence) you don't actually know enough about how to set up Retrospect. Do you actually know how to make Retrospect aware of a network client? Did you install the Retrospect client on the client machine or on the server? To make client directories available to Retrospect go to "Configure" > "Clients" > Press the "Add" button and add your client. Then go to "Configure" > "Volumes" > Choose your Client from the list and use the "Subvolume" button to 'map' a directory in Retrospect so you can use it in your scripts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamld Posted August 22, 2009 Author Report Share Posted August 22, 2009 No offense taken; I'm always happy to learn something new! And you're right, I can add subvolumes to a client volume from within each script. This is the functionality I needed, but I was expecting to find it in Configure/Clients (not the selection, but the identification). Bedankt, Ramon88! Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamld Posted August 24, 2009 Author Report Share Posted August 24, 2009 Epilogue: Once I had separated my single volume (600,000 files/folders, 650GB) into separate subvolumes (four) the backup completed without locking up. Thanks to Mayoff and Ramon88 for their guidance! Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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