mweier Posted February 6, 2004 Report Share Posted February 6, 2004 We're new to Retrospect & only just realizing that it isn't doing what we assumed it was. Namely, we thought that it would, when performing a backup, ensure that the backup is a mirror of the source clients (aka removing only the recently deleted client files from the backup; adding new client files to the backup, and leaving everything else as-is). However, it seems to us that instead it simply continues to add new or updated files, leaving the old outdated ones behind in an ever-growing mountain of backup. Is there a way to effectively end up with a "mirror" every time? Or do we just have to somehow schedule it to wipe out our entire backup destination in order to prevent it from growing until it exceeds the destination max size? As none of us here are really IT folks (we're multimedia artists forced to putz with the backup solution against our will) any advice you can give would be greatly appreciated. We currently have about 6 clients going to tape. Our combined data now exceeds a 50GB AIT2 tape since most of our files are already compressed video and audio files. We also have a media server with 512GB on it which we're trying to keep a second copy on the 512GB of Hard Drive that's on the backup machine. Is this enough to keep our media server safe? It seems like if Thanks very much for your expertise! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
awnews Posted February 6, 2004 Report Share Posted February 6, 2004 > Namely, we thought that it would, when performing a backup, ensure that the backup is a mirror of the source clients (aka removing only the recently deleted client files from the backup; adding new client files to the backup, and leaving everything else as-is). > Is there a way to effectively end up with a "mirror" every time? Or do we just have to somehow schedule it to wipe out our entire backup destination in order to prevent it from growing until it exceeds the destination max size? What you're describing is the "Duplicate" function in Retrospect. This will make a 1-1 "mirror" copy of your files (only copying the new stuff each time) in the normal Windows/Finder format. With this type of backup, there's only one (the most recent) copy of a file. But the backup won't grow any larger than the source data. This from of mirroring is not real-time (Retro doesn't do that) so you need to run it on whatever schedule you want. I'm using a program called PeerSync to do real-time mirroring (between two sites over a T1). Retro's Backup function saves the files into a proprietary format. But this style of backups will save the original file and *each* changed version, so you can revert to any one in between. It will grow without bounds, so you need to do a Recycle from time to time to clean out all the intermediate files and start over. > We currently have about 6 clients going to tape. Our combined data now exceeds a 50GB AIT2 tape since most of our files are already compressed video and audio files. We also have a media server with 512GB on it which we're trying to keep a second copy on the 512GB of Hard Drive that's on the backup machine. Is this enough to keep our media server safe? Retro will work with tape and span multiple tapes, so you can use multiple 50GB tapes if needed. Your backup (Duplicate or Backup) from one HD to another HD is also an excellent strategy for doing scheduled (non-realtime, which can be pro and con) backups. If you have enough space you can do both (e.g. Duplicate for quick and easy access to files, Backup for archiving multiple version of the files) and have multiple backup copies. BTW, running Retro from a "server" you can also install Clients on PCs to allow Retro to backup other PCs to the large 512G harddrive or tape in the event that you don't always remember to work from or copy your files to the main media server. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mweier Posted February 9, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 9, 2004 So if we do a duplicate schedule to mirror the 512GB to the 512GB of backup, it will be removing the files that are no longer on the 512GB source? I don't need to select a recyle option on the duplicate or anything? also, what's the best means of automating the recycling for our tape backup so that it backups normally every weeknight, and then recycles maybe 1 time per month? if I make an additional script that recycles, won't that interfere with my normal 5-day rotation script? thanks! -Matt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
natew Posted February 10, 2004 Report Share Posted February 10, 2004 Hi You don't need to set recycles for duplicate operations. It works a lot like mirroring. This article compares duplicate and backup: http://www.dantz.com/index.php3?SCREEN=kbase&ACTION=KBASE&id=28094 The scripts would run one after another if they overlap. Just schedule them to launch at the same time, the Recycle will take precedence and run first. I like to set up my recycles on a 5 week staggered rotation. (see attachment) You can stretch it out to 10 or 15 weeks etc. by adjusting the start dates and weeks box in the recycle script. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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