B2 Incremental Backup Question

[Davywhizz]

Hi all

I seem to remember one of the recommendations about doing a B2 export backup was to do a full back up rather than an incremental one if you have added tracks to the B2 other than through ripping CDs direct. However, this was before the software upgrade which took care of the problems with large export runs. 

Most of our recently bought CDs have ripped perfectly, but yesterday I had three which were unrecognised by the B2 so I did them with dBpoweramp and added them to the B2 via memory stick.

Is it OK to do an incremental backup (export) next time rather than starting afresh?

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Davywhizz,

The recommendation to do a full backup was made for the situation where existing artists or albums or tracks have been renamed.  This is because after the renaming, the artists or albums or tracks will be saved in the incremental backup under the new names but the originals are already saved.  Therefore they will be in the 'Export' backup under their original names and under their new names (i.e. duplication).  Taking a new full backup will not have the items under their original names.

If you are adding new artists, albums or tracks then continuing to use your current 'Export' backup will be fine.

Regards,

Peter.

[Brian Ward]

Looking at this I checked my external HDD and it is showing around 1.1Tb used to back up my Brennan however the internal HDD is showing around 650Mb used. Is there anyway I can locate any CD that I renamed after compression and delete them on the external HDD and do they remain on the internal HDD. It seems maybe not due to the difference in usage between the two although I believe when you reload the Brennan from an external HDD you see a duplication of files in yellow?

Cheers

Brian

[Daniel Taylor]

I think the easiest and simplest way to compare the two would be to view the B2's HDD as NAS and plug your backup HDD into your computer and look at the folder directories side by side.  I use a program called Beyond Compare which automates the process quite nicely, but it has a significant cost.  You can do the same job manually, looking at each hard disk in their respective file manager wiindows.

[AndyC]

As well as using NAS to display your b2's music in Explorer and manually comparing it with the backup, there is another way you might like to try. I have written a program that primarily organises the b2db file alphabetically so you can rearrange the order the music appears in the GUI. It also has the ability to compare your most recent backup with the current contents of your B2 as listed in the b2db file and tell you all the differences. It's for Windows 7/8/10 and is freeware and here's the link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7zudqut3m15c4vl/b2%2BBackUpSort7.4.zip?dl=0

With 500GB of music it takes about 30 minutes to run, most of this time being spent in searching the backup for each song title. IF you have to run it a 2nd time, the drive is then indexed and it runs about 5x faster. It outputs a number of information text files, including a list of all the album and the track titles - another Forum question recently asked where such a list could be found. My list also includes track and album playing times, just like you get on the rear of most CD cases.

The relevant file for you is "Backup Problems.txt" where you will find a 2 lists - 

- all the files in your b2 that aren't yet in the backup - generally due to an incomplete "Export to C"

- and all the files in the Backup that aren't in your b2 - ie duplicates generated by renaming.

There is another source of detected discrepancies - there's been some Forum discussion about 'unusual' foreign language characters that cause display problems and I've found that even the humble Apostrophe ' can be rendered by different language keyboards with at least 3 different ASCII codes. Windows interprets the apostrophe its own way and this causes the comparison process to flag up an error so you get the same apparently similar track title in both error lists in the txt file. One solution is to ignore these apparent discrepancies as simply 'lost in translation' - being a txt file, you can just delete both song titles and so prune the list down to the real errors. Or you can edit out the rogue characters in the GUI, do another incremental backup, delete the resultant duplicates and all will be well.

Another thing my program discovers is 'illegal' tracks hidden in your b2. Mine has 5 tracks with the file extension '.flac.flac'. Heaven only knows where they came from. However they aren't displayed in the GUI and I can't play them. So I delete them from my backup but b2 faithfully restores them again each time! One day, I'll take the time to use NAS to delete them in my b2. They hardly take up any storage space but for other owners, there may be lots of them. This would show up as excessive usage of b2's disc space with no apparent explanation. I've mentioned them before in the Forum but no-one's come up with a reason for why they are there in the first place.

I use my program all the time to check my 2 backups after loading new music and resorting b2db. I find it very useful for 'peace of mind' that the backups are actually accurate and fit for purpose.

Having said all that, if your 650GB of music is now 1100GB on the backup, it rather implies that the vast majority of the tracks have been renamed! So deleting the whole backup and starting again might be quicker! But perhaps not as much fun....

All the best, Andy

[bennyb]

This sounds terrific Andy and I will certainly try it. Just posted a couple of questions about B2 indexing which your programme might answer.

[Jamie]

AndyC,

I have a possible explanation on where your “.flac.flac” files came from.

It used to be that, when you added a track to a playlist, the track would be displayed in the playlist area of the user interface with its suffix e.g. “.flac”. The B2 allowed you to rename the track from the playlist area in the normal way by double-clicking the track name, changing it, and saving it.

Suppose you had a track whose name was displayed in the playlist area as “a.flac” and suppose you renamed it to “b.flac” and saved it. The B2 would save it as “b.flac.flac”.

This problem predated the forum. I mentioned it to Martin in an email and he fixed it so that track names are now displayed without their suffixes in the playlist area. This is consistent with the rest of the user interface. The rename function still correctly adds the suffix to the displayed name when it saves a renamed track.

If I am right, the “.flac.flac” problem should not arise now. However, any tracks that were renamed in the playlist area before Martin fixed the problem will still be there and will require identifying and fixing manually.

I agree with you on apostrophes. A long time ago, I went through a laborious process to standardise the character I use for apostrophes. From memory, I used ASCII 39. It is so long ago that I forget why I needed to do this. It was probably something to do with how Excel or Sonos handled the variants of apostrophe.

[Daniel Taylor]

Andy C.

I've tried to run your program for the purposes of comparing my B2's music to my backup.  My backup disk has the 'music' folder as the top level - there is no b2Export folder.  I take it that the b2Export folder must be there for your program to work - right?

[Peter Lowham]

Hi Daniel,

While you are wating for a response from Andy, you could create a top level folder named 'b2Export' and then drag and drop the 'music' folder into the 'b2Export' folder.

Then run Andy's program again and see what happens.

Regards,

Peter.

[AndyC]

Hi Daniel,

If you use the 'Export to C' command, b2 should create a folder called 'b2Export' and 2 subfolders called 'music' and 'playlists'. If your Windows computer recognises the backup as the E: drive, for example, then all your music will have the following folder path E:\b2Export\music\artist\album.

I have no idea why your backup isn't like this. Maybe you have used the 'Backup to C' command instead, which creates a old fashioned JB7 compatible backup. This does NOT use the b2 style folder structure which is compatible with iTunes. 

If this is the case, you need to create a new backup using the Export command. Simply creating a master folder called b2Export above the existing backup won't work because the subfolders have to be iTunes compatible for my program to work. (I suspect that if you ever have to restore a backup to your b2, the process will work better with a backup that uses the b2 style folder structure. Thankfully I've never had to put it to the test!)

If you go to the Brennan website and look under Questions > Menu Overview ( https://www.brennan.co.uk/itemcontent.php/content/Menus )  the 'USB Menu' section explains all this and recommends that 'Export to C' always be used for backing up. It's a little counter-intuitive not to use the 'Backup' command for backing up, I know, but 'Export' is the one to use every time.

Hope this helps. Andy

[Daniel Taylor]

My "backup" was created manually, not by the B2.  The B2 will Import from a disk without need of the b2Export folder.  I could easily add it, but until now, I didn't see the need.  I expected your program to allow me to point it to the location of the music folder.  I see now that I was mistaken.

[AndyC]

Hi Daniel. I understand now. Providing your backup disc is of the structure \artist\album\track files then it will work given a little bit of editing. My program looks at any external drives and searches each for the \b2Export\music folder that contains all the artists (as per my previous reply). So if you edit your disc to this structure, it should work.