Mac: What's the difference between "UserName's Computer" and "Macintosh HD"?

[nyung]

Hi Everyone,

 

I'm new to this forum, and I'm new to Retrospect too. I would appreciate very much for any help!

 

What is the difference between "UserName's Computer" and "Macintosh HD" in term of Retrospect backup?

 

I tried to set up Retrospect to back up on one of the users in a computer in a network environment, not the whole drive. And I think I did it correctly by setting a script and pick the "Subvolume" in Retrospect clients listing? But when I'm checking the Log the next day, it looks like Retrospect not only back up that particular User folder, but also everything else. And when I double check this by going to Restore (but not actually doing any restore) to see what files/folders are backed up and what I see is 2 listings for that computer, one is the "UserName's Computer" with the UserName right next to it - the one I want to back up, and the other one is the "UserName's Computer" with "Macintosh HD" right next to it.

After confirming, it looks like Retrospect back up everything, including Applications folder and so on. What happen? What do I need to change to configure the way I want it to?

 

Thank you very much,

nyung

[scsctech]

Which version are you using?

The best way to do this in 8.1 is to create a favorite folder of the user folder in question.

Go to Sources. Click the drop down arrow next to the client machine and then keep clicking the drop down arrows until you see the user folder you want to back up. Select the folder, then click Add Favorite up in the toolbar.

This will create a favorite folder as a source that you can select independently in your script.

 

Hope that helps.

[nyung]

Hi scsc tech,

 

I'm using Retrospect 6.1. Are you familiar with this version of Retrospect that you could help me with?

 

Thank you,

nyung

[scsctech]

Unfortunately no, just 8.1

 

There are many users here who are however. I am hoping one of them will jump in.

[rhwalker]

I'm using Retrospect 6.1.

Ok, then the right place for you to post your question would be in the Retrospect 6.x forum, here:

Retrospect 6.x forum

 

Yes, the forum names are non-intuitive. But this forum where you have posted is pretty much dead, and is not the right place for your question.

 

Russ

[rhwalker]

What is the difference between "UserName's Computer" and "Macintosh HD" in term of Retrospect backup?

It all depends. You could have a computer named "Macintosh HD" and you could have a volume (not the same as a disk drive) named "UserName's Computer". Your question is not quite clear. Please explain.

 

I tried to set up Retrospect to back up on one of the users in a computer in a network environment, not the whole drive.

Are you using Network Home Directories ("NHD"), such that the "user" data is stored on a network server?

 

Or are you using Portable Home Directories ("PHD"), that sync on login/logout from a central server?

 

Or are these purely local accounts on the networked computer?

 

The answer you receive depends on how you are set up.

 

If you are simply trying to back up a particular local account User's home directory, desktop, etc., just define /Users/thatusername as a "subvolume", choose that as the source.

 

And I think I did it correctly by setting a script and pick the "Subvolume" in Retrospect clients listing?

Did you first define a "Subvolume" on that client?

 

It's a bit unclear to me what you did. Could you post a screen shot of your script and also of the screen where you "Picked the Subvolume in Retrospect clients listing"?

 

The right place to define the Subvolume is:

Configure > Volumes, select a client computer, open (click on) the triangle next to the client computer name to see the volumes for that computer, select a volume (perhaps "Macintosh HD" ?), click the Subvolume button, define a Subvolume for the portion of the filesystem tree ( /Users/thisusername ) you want to back up.

 

Then, the right place to choose the subvolume for backup is:

 

Configure > Clients, choose a client computer, Configure, General tab, Backup: Selected Volumes, Volumes tab, click the triangle next to the volume name (perhaps "Macintosh HD" ?), select the Subvolume that you defined above.

 

Clear? It's all in the manual.

 

Russ

[twickland]

After you have set up a subvolume on a client computer, there are two ways to back up just that subvolume:

• Include only that subvolume as a source in your backup script.
• Follow the method Russ describes above, which allows you to add the client computer itself as a source in your script but back up only the desired subvolumes.

We find the second method to be most convenient in our situation, where we have lots of scripts, multiple subvolumes on each client computer, and have defined a number of client source groups.