Retrospect... they won't help.. can you?

[beenie]

OK. Retrospect 5 backing up to AIT2 autoloader.

What i'd like to have is this:

Friday, Recycle backup, around 500Gb, tapes to be called

'1-WK1-Friday','2-WK1-Friday','3-WK1-Friday' etc etc..

then on monday i'd like a Normal backup,

'1-WK1-Monday'

then tuesday

'1-WK1-Tuesday'

Thus I can pull Fridays backup out of the loader and store it safely,
as with monday, tuesday etc.

Its not efficiant regarding tapes as the amount of data produced each
day is small, but its does give me a days roll-back.


But I can't seem to do this, as the tape name is relative to the 'set'
name, thus i can have a 'weekly' set,

'1-WK1-Backup', '2-WK1-Backup' etc etc, thus allowing the set to
compare and for the 'normal' backup only to backup files that have
changed since the last recycle backup.

Where as this could mean I loose a weeks worth of data if the backup
drive burnt down on thursday.

If I start having Friday set and Monday set, then of course monday set
is empty and thus Retrospect will do a full backup, rather than normal
(incremental)

....i've read the manual lots, posted on dantz site, emailed them
(hahaha) with little help so far,

So any Retrospect persons fancy helping me out..please!

Thanks.

[Howard S Shubs]

In article <181d2311.0307220205.50246e91@posting.google.com >,
[email]a_temp_address@yahoo.co.uk[/email] (beenie) wrote:

> So any Retrospect persons fancy helping me out..please!

I guess I don't understand the problem. You create multiple tape sets.

--
Today, on Paper-view: Pulp Fiction!

[beenie]

>

> I guess I don't understand the problem. You create multiple tape sets.

please explain.. my head hurts! a new 'set' will always require a full
backup rather than incremental....

i can't see how to do this on retrospect...

thanks.

[Howard S Shubs]

In article <181d2311.0307230619.a4cf14b@posting.google.com> ,
[email]a_temp_address@yahoo.co.uk[/email] (beenie) wrote:

> please explain.. my head hurts! a new 'set' will always require a full
> backup rather than incremental....

The first backup is a "full", true. After that, they're all
incremental. You create multiple sets and use them in rotation by
creating more than one scheduler for your script.

--
Today, on Paper-view: Pulp Fiction!

[Jim Glidewell]

In article <181d2311.0307220205.50246e91@posting.google.com >, [email]a_temp_address@yahoo.co.uk[/email] (beenie) wrote:

> OK. Retrospect 5 backing up to AIT2 autoloader.
>
> What i'd like to have is this:
>
> Friday, Recycle backup, around 500Gb, tapes to be called
>
> '1-WK1-Friday','2-WK1-Friday','3-WK1-Friday' etc etc..
>
> then on monday i'd like a Normal backup,
>
> '1-WK1-Monday'
>
> then tuesday
>
> '1-WK1-Tuesday'
>
> Thus I can pull Fridays backup out of the loader and store it safely,
> as with monday, tuesday etc.

Is the *name* of the tape important here? I will assume not.

What you want is a base dump on Friday, pull the tapes and move them
offsite, then do daily incremental dumps (inc's), moving each off site
that day / the next day.* Right?

* In Retro terminology, "base" ~= "Recycle" and "inc" ~= "Normal"

To implement this, you create a single backup set. Adjust the Retro
prefs so it goes to a new tape when the last tape of a backup set is
unavailable. When you pull out the tapes written on Friday, retro will
automatically choose a new tape, call it "7-Backup Set" or whatever,
and write the "inc dump" to it. When you pull "7-Backup Set", it will
select a blank tape for "8-Backup Set" the next night.

I am assuming here that if retro finds an empty slot in an autoloader
(that last tape you pulled), it will try to mount a blank tape from
some other slot. But I've got zero experience with Retro + autoloaders.
Worst case is that you manually mount a blank tape before leaving
each day, I would think.

> Its not efficiant regarding tapes as the amount of data produced each
> day is small, but its does give me a days roll-back.

As Howard mentioned, you actually want to do *two* backup sets, "A" and
"B", on alternate weeks. That way you _always_ have a base dump off site,
and aren't vulnerable to the catastrophic fire that starts mid-Friday,
when your base dump tapes are all onsite.

HTH.

--
Jim Glidewell
My opinions only

[Howard S Shubs]

In article <jimglidewell-2407031303510001@green.sdc.cs.boeing.com>,
[email]jimglidewell@attbi.com[/email] (Jim Glidewell) wrote:

> As Howard mentioned, you actually want to do *two* backup sets, "A" and
> "B", on alternate weeks. That way you _always_ have a base dump off site,
> and aren't vulnerable to the catastrophic fire that starts mid-Friday,
> when your base dump tapes are all onsite.

Or even more. I've got four weekly sets, PLUS two off-site sets, PLUS
one tape for every-other-day backups of only user data (other backups
are of everything but cache files), PLUS one tape for weekly MP3 file
backups, AND some other sets for less regular backups. And I'm out of
tapes for MORE backups. Just ordered more media. AIT-1 tapes can add
up to $$$. <sigh>

....But I'm not going to lose data!

(basic assumption: tape drive hardware doesn't go wonky w/o warning)

--
Today, on Paper-view: Pulp Fiction!