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What is "building a snapshot"


klubar

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After my backup competes, the backup server takes a long time "building the snapshot". What is it doing, as it has already passed over all the files, names and directories to do the backup. Is there anyway to overlap this with the backup to speed up the process?

 

Thanks

Ken

 

klubar(at)emiboston.com

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  • 6 months later...

Has this been fixed yet with the new version 7 server and clients? If not when will it?

 

I currently backup 30 PC clients via the proactive backup and the building of the snapshot takes twice as long as the copying of the files, on every client.

 

or is there another way to speed this up besides disabling it?

 

Paul

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi

 

It's not really broken although it is slower than many would hope. With luck Microsoft will provide a new API for gathering this information.

 

The snapshot is what makes restores so easy in Retrospect. I look at it like this: I would much rather have my backups run a bit slower than have a long, drawn out restore.

 

Thanks

Nate

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I don't get it... during the backup process the server has to look at every file (and could gather the required information). While it is doing the back up the CPU is nearly idle--an ideal time to build the snapshot. Somehow the usual excuse of "blaming it on microsoft" doesn't wash here. It just lazy/bad programming/too much trouble to overlap the snapshot with other activity in a separate thread. The server could be processing the registry at the same time it is doing the backup.

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Hi

 

What is say is true - Retrospect could run the snapshot creation in paralel with the backup data transfer although I would bet it isn't that that straightforward.

 

File attributes like NTFS permissions are a part of the file system and not a part of the files themselves. I suspect that is the primary reason why these two items are backed up seperately - one in the backup one in the snapshot.

 

Changing file permissions does not actually change a file. Without a snapshot of the entire file system, permissions will get missed and acurate system restores become impossible.

 

Running the snapshot creation at the end of the file copy stage also minimizes thrashing on the disk during backup.

 

Thanks

Nate

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Quote:

Hi

 

What is say is true - Retrospect could run the snapshot creation in paralel with the backup data transfer although I would bet it isn't that that straightforward.

 

File attributes like NTFS permissions are a part of the file system and not a part of the files themselves. I suspect that is the primary reason why these two items are backed up seperately - one in the backup one in the snapshot.

 

Changing file permissions does not actually change a file. Without a snapshot of the entire file system, permissions will get missed and acurate system restores become impossible.

 

Running the snapshot creation at the end of the file copy stage also minimizes thrashing on the disk during backup.

 

Thanks

Nate

 


 

Permissions are no different than any other attribute of a file.

 

NO file system attribute of a file is stored WITHIN a file.

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