Hard disk backup sets

[SReubart]

I recently switched from a Travan tape drive to using FireWire hard disks for backups. Three drives, with three partitions each, cycled as: 1A, 1B, 1C, 2A, 2B, 2C, 3A, 3B, 3C. Using Backup Server to back up both desktops (at night) and laptops (during the day). Also have a couple of regular scripts that run at night to back up servers. Here's the problem:

 

 

 

Last Wednesday I started a new recycle backup to 2A. Overnight stuff worked fine; all servers and desktops backed up to 2A. Everything worked fine until Friday morning, then the laptops seemed to start backing up to different cycles (2B for some, 2C for others). When I used tape, Retrospect backed EVERYTHING up to the current cycle until I changed the tape (once a week) and started a new recycle backup.

 

 

 

Is the problem that all of the backup volumes are available all the time? I really would prefer to have everything back up to a single set until I do another recycle backup (on Wednesday night). What am I missing here? Or will it all straighten itself out after every cycle has been backed up to at least once? Right now it is really hard to tell where any given file might be if it has to be restored...

 

 

 

Although I am running the OS X Preview, the same problem occurred in the OS 9 version.

 

 

 

Any help would be most welcome!

 

 

[IrenaS]

Backup Server backs up to whatever backup set it thinks a volume needs to be backed up to most - that is, the set to which it was backed up to least recently. If all sets are available, it will operate by this logic alone.

 

 

 

It was operating by the same logic before when backing up to tape, but you effectively were able to control this by putting in only a single tape. Backup Server might have been saying "I'd prefer to back this volume up to Backup Set A, but it's not available so I'll just use this tape in the drive that belongs to Backup Set B."

 

 

 

Since all your backup sets are available, Backup Server will back up to each as it sees most appropriate. There's not way to control this in Retrospect without using a regular backup script. If you're familiar with AppleScript, you could experiment with a script that mounted or unmounted certain volumes at certain times.

 

 

 

A regular backup script (not backup server) will also allow you to designate EXACTLY which backup set your data goes to, but of course you lose all the flexibility that likely led you to a Backup Server script in the first place.

 

 

 

Irena Solomon

 

Dantz Tech Support

[SReubart]

Thanks for the info. I suspected I might have to unmount the unused volumes somehow, and since I am familiar with AppleScript, that's probably how I would do it. Unfortunately, under OS X, if you eject (unmount) any one of the partitions of a FireWire drive, it unmounts ALL of them! (At least that's what happens if you do it from the Finder; I haven't yet tried it in AppleScript.)

 

 

 

I logged in as root and changed the read/write permissions of all of the volumes (except the one I wanted it to use) to read only, thinking this would keep Retrospect from writing to them. I then logged out and back in as a normal user. However, since Retrospect runs as root, it always has access to everything, and it happily wrote to a supposedly read-only volume anyway. *sigh*

 

 

 

I'll keep working on this to see if I can come up with an answer.