Grooming questions

[dstranathan]

Im not sure I clearly understand how Retro 8 behaves during and after a Grooming process.

 

1) According to the Summary pane of one of my Media Sets,I have a Media set that has been backed up 40 times. This is approx. 2 months of backups (running once per night during the week days). I decided that I am going to start Grooming this Media Set down and start keeping about 1 month's worth of backups instead. So I wrote a Grooming script to keep only 20 backups (approx 1 month of weeknight backups).

 

So I decided to run the Grooming script on this particular Media Set for the first time. After the Grooming scripts was complete, the Summary pane for that particular Media Set still indicated that it had a total of 40 backups, as opposed to 20. I was surprised that the number of backups didnt change in the Summary pane.

 

Does the Summary pane ever refresh the backup count value after a Grooming script runs? if not, ow do you guys know when to run your Grooming scripts?

 

I want to run my Grooming Scripts manually for now on a as-needed basis, rather than having the Grooming process run automatically. I want to do this because I dont trust the Grooming process yet, and it it takes a really long time too, so Id rather run the Grooming when I have enough of a time window. But if I can tell how many backups have ran since the last Grooming process ran, I have no idea if I should Groom or not.

 

 

2) I noticed that after I ran the Grooming script, Retro complained that the catalog was corrupted and I was sent several errors.

 

First it notifed me that the notification was completed:

 

"Groomed 602.4 MB from Media Set m00522g19x."

 

 

Then, 1 second later it sent me a faluire notification:

 

"Grooming Media Set m00522g19x failed, error -2241 (Catalog File invalid/damaged)"

 

 

But when I went to the Retro 8 Admin Console, I didn't seen any visual signs, icons, alerts that the Media Set was corrupt or damaged. Is this correct? I dont know which message to trust.

 

It gets weirder...

 

So I decide to Verify the Media Set that I was grooming just to be safe and make sure its not corrupted. After about 20 min of the Verification process, Retro is now alerting me that it needs a Media Set. This makes no sense. The Media set is 1 single file and there is plenty of free space (a few TB's) on the volume where the Media Set lives. Im only using about 20% of the allocated total space for the Media Set. This particular Media Set has 1 member. Its a very simple and small Media Set actually. I can tell if Retro wants a NEW Media Set for Some Reason or if it wants me to show it where the CURRENT Media Set is located. It makes no sense. Obviously the Verification process is doing something that I didn't expect it to do. why else would it prompt me for a Media Set? I have no idea what it ACTUALLY wants. Can someone chime in and help me figure out what is going on?

 

Next I tried to do a "Repair" (repair the catalog). However, Retro kept prompting me for a Media Set (or a member of the Media Set). I'm positive that Retro knows exactly where the Media sets live. I dont understand why it is prompting me. What is it doing? OK Retro, you want a member, eh? OK, fine but WHICH member do you want me to show you? It doesn't tell me enough information.

 

As a side note:

 

• My Media Sets lives on NAS hard drives, not tapes. My data doesn't span physical drivers or tapes. Its all on a single volume.

 

• The option to “Generate MD5 digests during backup operations†preference is enabled.

 

• My Media Sets and Catalogs have never been moved or relocated.

 

• I have Read the Users Guide. Page 227 covers these topics but doesn't help me.

 

 

Edited April 15, 2010 by Guest