Using Retrospect
Andy Dannelley
quite nicely. The Yamaha is a 4416, and fully supported by both TOast
and Retrospect.
If it makes any difference I am using a G3 266 MT, running OS 8.1.
When I use Toast to wrote to a disk, I get a disk image that is
mountable on the desktop, and it appears on the desktop as I would
expect.
When I create a backup set and backup to a CD the resulting CD does not
display on the desktop, it just won't mount. The data is there, I can
restore from the backup, but I just can't mount the CD or see the
contents anywhere except in Retrospect.
I have read through the manual as best I can, (I really don't like long,
long PDF manuals) and I can not find one way or the other wheither I
sould be able to mount a CD created in Retrospect in the Finder. Is
this the way it is supposed to work or is there an option I am not
selecting.
TIA; I appreciate any and all replies.
AndyD
Mikey
dan...@primenet.com (Andy Dannelley) wrote:
>
>When I create a backup set and backup to a CD the resulting CD does not
>display on the desktop, it just won't mount. The data is there, I can
>restore from the backup, but I just can't mount the CD or see the
>contents anywhere except in Retrospect.
That's right. The backup set is not a mountable volume. You have
to use Retrospect to extract (and browse) its contents.
--
Uuugh, I have to sit.
Howard S Shubs
<exceptions-06...@ip60.boston-xcom2.ma.pub-ip.psi.net>,
excep...@earthlink.net (Mikey) wrote:
Retrospect Express would create a mountable volume, I think. Backup sets
created by Retrospect itself are not intended to be mountable by the
Finder.
--
Howard S Shubs hsh...@mindspring.com hsh...@bix.com
The Denim Adept Is this the right room for an argument?
SPAM: u...@ftc.gov postm...@127.0.0.1 ab...@127.0.0.1
Howard S Shubs
Kindall <kin...@mail.manual.com> wrote:
>The major difference between Retrospect and Retrospect Express is that
>the former supports tape drives. They are quite similar in all other
>respects. I use the full Retrospect myself (bought it when I did use a
>DAT for backups) and would be very surprised to hear Retrospect
>Express's CD-R handling was significantly different from Retrospect's.
My understanding is that RE took over from DiskFit, which copied to
Finder-mountable devices such as floppies. If so, RE should be doing the
same.
Andy Dannelley
> In article
> <exceptions-06...@ip60.boston-xcom2.ma.pub-ip.psi.net>,
> excep...@earthlink.net (Mikey) wrote:
>
> >In article <1duizbe.cb...@ip168.pom.primenet.com>,
> >dan...@primenet.com (Andy Dannelley) wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>When I create a backup set and backup to a CD the resulting CD does not
> >>display on the desktop, it just won't mount. The data is there, I can
> >>restore from the backup, but I just can't mount the CD or see the
> >>contents anywhere except in Retrospect.
> >
> >That's right. The backup set is not a mountable volume. You have
> >to use Retrospect to extract (and browse) its contents.
>
> Retrospect Express would create a mountable volume, I think. Backup sets
> created by Retrospect itself are not intended to be mountable by the
> Finder.
I guess I should have said that I was using Retrospect Express, not full
Retrospect. How do I make the volumes finder mountable? Others have
said that this is not possible. Thanks for the help.
CU@DL
Andy D
Learn the differences! Never be lost at a Disney park again...
See my Disneyland and Walt Disney World comparison photos at,
Anaheim to Orlando: A Bi-Coastal Comparison of Disney
Also home to Independent Disneyland Polls: Express your opinion
Drop by: <http://www.primenet.com/~dannell>
Jerry Kindall
<hshubs-0607...@user-33qscu4.dialup.mindspring.com>,
> In article
> <exceptions-06...@ip60.boston-xcom2.ma.pub-ip.psi.net>,
> excep...@earthlink.net (Mikey) wrote:
>
> >In article <1duizbe.cb...@ip168.pom.primenet.com>,
> >dan...@primenet.com (Andy Dannelley) wrote:
> >
> >>When I create a backup set and backup to a CD the resulting CD does
> >>not display on the desktop, it just won't mount. The data is
> >>there, I can restore from the backup, but I just can't mount the CD
> >>or see the contents anywhere except in Retrospect.
> >
> >That's right. The backup set is not a mountable volume. You have to
> >use Retrospect to extract (and browse) its contents.
>
> Retrospect Express would create a mountable volume, I think. Backup
> sets created by Retrospect itself are not intended to be mountable by
> the Finder.
The major difference between Retrospect and Retrospect Express is that
the former supports tape drives. They are quite similar in all other
respects. I use the full Retrospect myself (bought it when I did use a
DAT for backups) and would be very surprised to hear Retrospect
Express's CD-R handling was significantly different from Retrospect's.
--
Jerry Kindall <mailto:kin...@mail.manual.com> Technical Writing, etc.
Manual Labor <http://www.manual.com/> We Wrote the Book!
Jerry Kindall
<hshubs-0607...@user-33qscu4.dialup.mindspring.com>,
hsh...@mindspring.com (Howard S Shubs) wrote:
> In article <kindall-0607...@nic-c53-245.mw.mediaone.net>,
> Jerry Kindall <kin...@mail.manual.com> wrote:
>
> >The major difference between Retrospect and Retrospect Express is
> >that the former supports tape drives. They are quite similar in all
> >other respects. I use the full Retrospect myself (bought it when I
> >did use a DAT for backups) and would be very surprised to hear
> >Retrospect Express's CD-R handling was significantly different from
> >Retrospect's.
>
> My understanding is that RE took over from DiskFit, which copied to
> Finder-mountable devices such as floppies. If so, RE should be doing
> the same.
It took over from DiskFit in the sense that they stopped making DiskFit
and replaced it with Retrospect Express. Retrospect Express's codebase,
according to Dantz's Web site, is based on Retrospect, not DiskFit.
Retrospect supports four types of backup:
1) Macintosh File. The backup is written to a single (large) file
which must fit on a single volume. You can use this to back up
to AppleShare file servers as well as hard drives.
2) Macintosh Disk. The backup is written to one or more removable
disks, such as Zip, Jaz, DVD-RAM, etc. as a single file per disk.
3) CD-R/CD-RW. The backup is written to a CD-R or CD-RW disc, but
not in an HFS or HFS+ volume format.
4) Internet. The backup is written to a single large file on an FTP
server using TCP/IP.
5) Tape. The backup is written to DAT or other tape drive. Obviously
this is not in HFS or HFS+ format.
Retrospect Express supports the first four of these. (The other major
difference in the products is that the full version of Retrospect can
act as a server for backing up multiple Macs and Windows machines over
the network. However, Retrospect Express _can_ back up any file servers
you can mount on the Mac running Express.)
When backing up to a Zip or Jaz drive, you get a single file per disk.
The disk can be mounted in the Finder, but all you can see is a locked
file called "Retrospect Data."
Inserting a Retrospect-formatted CD-R or CD-RW disc does not place an
icon on the Finder desktop at all. The disc can be left in the drive
without problems, as Retrospect is the only program that knows how to
access it. The Finder just ignores it. You can take the disc out of
the drive just by pressing the eject button on the front of the drive,
if you need to use another disc -- the Mac doesn't lock the drive.
Theoretically, you can use Adaptec DirectCD to mount a CD-R or CD-RW
disc as a regular volume, then use Option #2 instead of Option #3 to
treat the CD-R as a Macintosh Disc rather than as a CD-R/CD-RW, but
Dantz specifically does not recommend this. It wouldn't be much of a
benefit, anyway, since all you'd be able to see is the "Retrospect Data"
file.
Martin Crisp
wrote:
>Howard S Shubs <hsh...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>
>> In article
>> <exceptions-06...@ip60.boston-xcom2.ma.pub-ip.psi.net>,
>> excep...@earthlink.net (Mikey) wrote:
>>
>> >In article <1duizbe.cb...@ip168.pom.primenet.com>,
>> >dan...@primenet.com (Andy Dannelley) wrote:
>> >
>> >>
>> >>When I create a backup set and backup to a CD the resulting CD does
not
>> >>display on the desktop, it just won't mount. The data is there, I can
>> >>restore from the backup, but I just can't mount the CD or see the
>> >>contents anywhere except in Retrospect.
>> >
>> >That's right. The backup set is not a mountable volume. You have
>> >to use Retrospect to extract (and browse) its contents.
>>
>> Retrospect Express would create a mountable volume, I think. Backup
sets
>> created by Retrospect itself are not intended to be mountable by the
>> Finder.
>
>Retrospect. How do I make the volumes finder mountable? Others have
>said that this is not possible. Thanks for the help.
You have next to nil chance of doing so (you might try "Mt Everything").
Should you succeed you will have a volume with one or maybe 2 files on it.
Those files are only viewable in RE. Why bother. If you want to make a dupe
of the disk make a scsi copy using toast.....
HTH
Have Fun
Martin
--
Owner/Operator - Tesseract Computing
<hypercube 'at' tesseract.com.au> or just reply.
Computer Systems Officer - Tourism Tasmania
<Martin.Crisp 'at' tourism.tas.gov.au>
I speak for me.
Eric Ullman
> > >>
> > >>When I create a backup set and backup to a CD the resulting CD
does not
> > >>display on the desktop, it just won't mount. The data is there, I
can
> > >>restore from the backup, but I just can't mount the CD or see the
> > >>contents anywhere except in Retrospect.
> > >
> > >That's right. The backup set is not a mountable volume. You have
> > >to use Retrospect to extract (and browse) its contents.
> >
> > Retrospect Express would create a mountable volume, I think. Backup
sets
> > created by Retrospect itself are not intended to be mountable by the
> > Finder.
>
> I guess I should have said that I was using Retrospect Express, not
full
> Retrospect. How do I make the volumes finder mountable? Others have
> said that this is not possible. Thanks for the help.
>
> CU@DL
>
> Andy D
Hi all,
CDs created by Retrospect and Retrospect Express are NOT desktop
mountable.
We use a technology called "packet writing" (covered in the Orange Book
on compact disc technical standards) to write CDs. This gives us many
advantages (i.e. we don't waste 10+ MBs of space on the CD media, every
time we write a session), but the media can then only be accessed by
Retrospect or Retrospect Express.
As of yet, there is no agreed upon standard for "finishing" a CD written
by Retrospect or Retrospect Express, but Dantz is hopeful that this will
change for a future release of our software.
For additional information, check out page 55 of the Retrospect Express
User's Guide.
I also wanted to add that Jerry Kindall's observations on the
differences between Retrospect and Retrospect Express were right on, but
need one small correction. Express CANNOT backup to a hard disk using a
file StorageSet; it can only duplicate files (in Finder format) to
another hard drive.
Jerry's comments were otherwise excellent.
I hope this information helps.
Best regards,
Eric
--
Eric Ullman, Technical Marketing
Dantz Development Corporation
eric_...@dantz.com <http://www.dantz.com>
+1.925.253.3032 voice, +1.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Mario S. De Pillis
Jerry Kindall wrote:
~~~~~~~~~~~
As usual, Jerry Kindall's contribution is instructive; and I can see why
Eric Ullman of Dantz approves of his explanation of what Retrospect does
and does not do. What Retrospect does not do, namely, mount discs in
traditional Mac fashion, bothers me.
The key sentence in Jerry Kindall's explnation is:
>When backing up to a Zip or Jaz drive, you get a single file per >disk.
>The disk can be mounted in the Finder, but all you can see is a >locked
file called "Retrospect Data."
1. What good is a locked file? Why can't Retrospect (whether "Express" or
"full") mount a disk in the Finder? After all, that's one of the beauties
of the Mac OS, isn't it? Their old DiskFit Pro worked seamlessly with the
Finder. Even today, when no longer supported by Dantz, DiskFit Pro will
mount and back up even a DVD-RAM disk! (I don't advise doing this because
it is a bit shaky backing up DVD and is many times slower than Retrospect
4.1.)
2. Dantz is a grand old Mac firm with excellent support. But is there no
other decent, up-to-date Backup program for Mac users?
Mario S. De Pillis, Sr., Amherst, MA
Jerry Kindall
<depi...@history.umass.edu> wrote:
> The key sentence in Jerry Kindall's explnation is:
> >When backing up to a Zip or Jaz drive, you get a single file per
> >disk. The disk can be mounted in the Finder, but all you can see is
> >locked file called "Retrospect Data."
>
> 1. What good is a locked file?
I'm just guessing here, since I don't work for Dantz or anything. But
my guess is that it helps keep it from being deleted accidentally when
someone inserts the disk and says, "Oho, what's this?" <g>
> Why can't Retrospect (whether "Express" or "full") mount a disk in
> the Finder? After all, that's one of the beauties of the Mac OS,
> isn't it?
You mean being able to see the individual backed-up files in the Finder?
Because they take a lot less space if they're crammed together into a
single file (especially if the files are small). All the "dead air" at
the end of each file, caused by incompletely-filled allocation blocks,
is taken out. Also, it's faster to back up to one file than to keep
creating and opening new ones. And Retrospect's concept of sessions,
whereby you can have multiple copies of a single file in an archive and
retrieve _any_ older version you've ever backed up, would be difficult
to support reasonably in a standard directory structure.
If you'd like to be able to search your Retrospect catalogs in the
Finder, may I suggest VirtualDisk (a part of La Cie's Storage
Utilities). It gives you a Finder icon on the desktop with aliases to
every file on removable drives, and I believe it also reads Retrospect
catalogs.
Ron Parsons
>1. What good is a locked file? Why can't Retrospect (whether "Express" or
>"full") mount a disk in the Finder? After all, that's one of the beauties
>of the Mac OS, isn't it? Their old DiskFit Pro worked seamlessly with the
>Finder. Even today, when no longer supported by Dantz, DiskFit Pro will
>mount and back up even a DVD-RAM disk! (I don't advise doing this because
>it is a bit shaky backing up DVD and is many times slower than Retrospect
>4.1.)
I don't think you are making a distinction between backed up files and
duplicated files. If a mountable duplicate is what you want, Retrospect
will do that just fine. If you want a backup file containing all your
files in a Retrospect searchable and selective manner, then you get the
unmountable file. You just choose how and where you want your data.
Retrospect can do it.
Ron
Andy Dannelley
> In article <3784C7DB...@history.umass.edu>, "Mario S. De Pillis"
> <depi...@history.umass.edu> wrote:
>
> >1. What good is a locked file? Why can't Retrospect (whether "Express" or
> >"full") mount a disk in the Finder? After all, that's one of the beauties
> >of the Mac OS, isn't it? Their old DiskFit Pro worked seamlessly with the
> >Finder. Even today, when no longer supported by Dantz, DiskFit Pro will
> >mount and back up even a DVD-RAM disk! (I don't advise doing this because
> >it is a bit shaky backing up DVD and is many times slower than Retrospect
> >4.1.)
>
> I don't think you are making a distinction between backed up files and
> duplicated files.
> If a mountable duplicate is what you want, Retrospect
> will do that just fine.
How does one make a mountable duplicate file using Retrospect Express?
What I would really like is a mountable disk that I can see at least the
disk name, that way if I don't label a set of disks correctly (yeah I
know, I should be more careful) I can always look at the disk in the
Finder and get them in the right order for restore. From what I am
reading (here and in the docs) this is not possible (shrug), oh, well.
> If you want a backup file containing all your
> files in a Retrospect searchable and selective manner, then you get the
> unmountable file. You just choose how and where you want your data.
> Retrospect can do it.
>
Is there an easy way to look at disks in Retrosepct Express? It is not
very intuitive (at least to me, a new RE user), and because the bulk (I
mean BULK) of the manual is in PDF (several hundred pages) it is rather
hard to digest (I don't really like on-line docs when I need to study
the info).
Mario S. De Pillis
At the same time I wish to express my complete agreement with Andy Dannelley
last two paragraphs:
1) I'd like to *see* the disk, and,
2) secondly, Retro (full) has never been intuitive, though improved from v. 2 to
v. 4.1. It loves dialogue boxes. It like compression schemes. It likes automatic
processes like naming a "set" by changing one's volume name by adding a "1-" in
front of it. (Retro's "storage sets" are apparently an intellectual holdover
from the days when one used 70 floppies and are, IMHO, not a very intuitive way
of differentiating different archives or versions of a backup.)
And Andy's point about documentation is well taken. I, too have struggled with
the PDF manual, and will have to buy the "full" Adobe Acrobat to print all the
help files.
As the NYTimes noted this week printed software manuals are being supplanted
online help and by commercial manuals like the "Dummies" Guides. I think this is
an unfortunate trend, because not all software programs are covered and not all
authors are Pogues.
Mario S. De Pillis, Sr.
Jerry Kindall
<depi...@history.umass.edu> wrote:
> Thanks once again to Jerry Kindall for further elucidation.
>
> At the same time I wish to express my complete agreement with Andy
> Dannelley last two paragraphs: 1) I'd like to *see* the disk, and,
> 2) secondly, Retro (full) has never been intuitive, though improved
> from v. 2 to v. 4.1.
I have to agree -- Retrospect _could_ be easier to use. On the other
hand, it _is_ incredibly flexible if you need that power. The problem
is the UI design philosophy. When you slap what a user interface
designed to simplify things (e.g. EasyScript) onto an already
complicated program, you're not making it simpler. Complex + Simple =
Even more complex.
> It loves dialogue boxes. It like compression
> schemes. It likes automatic processes like naming a "set" by changing
> one's volume name by adding a "1-" in front of it. (Retro's "storage
> sets" are apparently an intellectual holdover from the days when one
> used 70 floppies and are, IMHO, not a very intuitive way of
> differentiating different archives or versions of a backup.)
Actually, they're a holdover from tape. If you think of Retrospect as a
very good tape backup system that treats all other kinds of media as if
they were tapes, you won't be far off the mark.
Ron Shepard
Kindall <kin...@mail.manual.com> wrote:
[...]
>I have to agree -- Retrospect _could_ be easier to use. On the other
>hand, it _is_ incredibly flexible if you need that power. The problem
>is the UI design philosophy. When you slap what a user interface
>designed to simplify things (e.g. EasyScript) onto an already
>complicated program, you're not making it simpler. Complex + Simple =
>Even more complex.
>
>> It loves dialogue boxes. It like compression
>> schemes. It likes automatic processes like naming a "set" by changing
>> one's volume name by adding a "1-" in front of it. (Retro's "storage
>> sets" are apparently an intellectual holdover from the days when one
>> used 70 floppies and are, IMHO, not a very intuitive way of
>> differentiating different archives or versions of a backup.)
>
>Actually, they're a holdover from tape. If you think of Retrospect as a
>very good tape backup system that treats all other kinds of media as if
>they were tapes, you won't be far off the mark.
I usually back up to tape, so that part is fine with me. I would prefer
for the members to be identified by a suffix rather than a prefix (e.g. I
would prefer "1999Jul01-1" to "1-1999Jul01"). That way, the storage set
date, which I think is the most important, would be seen first. I
actually switch the labels around myself, but that means that the label on
the tape doesn't really match up with the tape name.
Where I think the UI could be improved is being able to do more than one
thing at a time. For example, why can't you edit a backup script while a
backup is running, or while the backup server is idle? Or configure
remotes (err, clients ;-)? Or prepare tapes in one drive while backups
are going to the other? Or view the contents of a storageset while
something else is going on? When you do these things, especially with a
slow drive like 8mm tape, you spend all your time waiting for the tapes to
rewind rather than doing what needs to get done at the time.
Another problem is that we have recently installed Norton AnitVirus on a
bunch of our macs. NAV stops the clients from being updated. Presumably,
there is a way to configure NAV to avoid this. Anyone know the best way
to set NAV so that it still protects against real viruses, but allows
Retrospect clients to do their stuff?
One other minor complaint. If you boot your mac with appletalk turned
off, then the Retrospect client is inactive, which isn't really so bad by
itself. But if you later turn appletalk on, there is apparently no way to
activate the client without rebooting. We had a powerbook here that went
for a couple of weeks without being backed up, even though it was plugged
in to ethernet, appletalk appeared to be fine, etc. We reinstalled the
client software several times to get it working again, but eventually the
same thing happened, the client would become inactive after a few days.
Finally, by luck, we stumbled across the right combination, so we know
what is the problem now, but it is still a hassle to have to reboot just
to activate the client.
Also, it would be nice if Retrospect was a little more robust to network
failures. We apparently have a flakey router or hub somewhere, and
ethernet connections go down for a few second at random times. Appletalk,
TCP/IP and other network stuff seems to handle these alright, but they
cause a client backup session to fail. Are there Retrospect settings that
could be changed to make this situation better? A longer timeout setting
somewhere or something?
Finally, a good word to end on. We just got a Quantum DLT, upgraded
Retrospect with the Advanced Driver Kit, and everything worked fine the
first time everything was plugged in. The drive is fast and quiet and has
a large capacity.
$.02 -Ron Shepard
Roberto Celi
>
> I just got a Yamaha CD-R, CD-RW, Toast and Retrospect all semm to wokr
> quite nicely. The Yamaha is a 4416, and fully supported by both TOast
> and Retrospect.
>
> If it makes any difference I am using a G3 266 MT, running OS 8.1.
>
> When I use Toast to wrote to a disk, I get a disk image that is
> mountable on the desktop, and it appears on the desktop as I would
> expect.
>
I have almost exactly your same setup, and I use the following backup
strategy.
STEP 1
I start by copying all the files on CD-Rs or CR-RWs using Toast (not
Retrospect). Since my HD is divided into 8 partitions, with a little
planning I can fit one partition per CD. These CDs are fully mountable
and you can use them as you would any other CD. This is not the most
efficient use of space, as others have pointed out in the thread. In my
case, however, it has the added advantage that I can use the CDs on my
PowerBook, which has a HD of only 2GB; therefore, I don't have to worry
about what to throw away and what to keep on the PB HD.
STEP 2
After I have made this "copied" backup, I use Retrospect for automatic
daily incremental backups on CD-RW. By "incremental" I mean: all the
new files and those changed after the backup date, which I enter
manually. These incremental backups will not be mountable, of course.
I do this until the CD-RW is 80% full or for two months, whichever comes
first.
STEP 3
Repeat Steps 1 and 2. You may throw away the previous backups or keep
them, in which case your backups will look like this: groups of
mountable CD-R(W) written using Toast, plus unmountable individual
CD-R(W) written using Retrospect that will take you from one backup
group to the next.
In my case, all this requires 2-3 hours of work once every couple of
months to babysit the full Toast backup. The Retrospect incremental
backups run unattended every night at 12:01am.
HTH
Roberto
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Roberto Celi phone: (301) 405-1132
Department of Aerospace Engineering FAX: (301) 314-9001
University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742
ce...@eng.umd.edu -- http://celi.umd.edu
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Practicing Microsoft-free and Wintel-free computing
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jim Glidewell
> I have almost exactly your same setup, and I use the following backup
> strategy.
>
> STEP 1
> I start by copying all the files on CD-Rs or CR-RWs using Toast (not
> Retrospect). Since my HD is divided into 8 partitions, with a little
> planning I can fit one partition per CD. These CDs are fully mountable
> and you can use them as you would any other CD. This is not the most
> efficient use of space, as others have pointed out in the thread. In my
> case, however, it has the added advantage that I can use the CDs on my
> PowerBook, which has a HD of only 2GB; therefore, I don't have to worry
> about what to throw away and what to keep on the PB HD.
>
> STEP 2
> After I have made this "copied" backup, I use Retrospect for automatic
> daily incremental backups on CD-RW. By "incremental" I mean: all the
> new files and those changed after the backup date, which I enter
> manually. These incremental backups will not be mountable, of course.
> I do this until the CD-RW is 80% full or for two months, whichever comes
> first.
>
> STEP 3
> Repeat Steps 1 and 2. You may throw away the previous backups or keep
<snip>
Thanks for the detailed description of your backup strategy. It sounds
like a very workable one for many people. And having your "base" dump
being Finder-mountable is very nice.
One concern I have is whether this really picks everything up. For
example: You do your Toast copies and a incremental dump or two using
Retrospect. You then download a *.sit file and expand it. The dates
on the newly expanded files have a mod date _prior_ to your manually
entered date. Retrospect ignores those files, and they are not backed
up until your _next_ Toast "base" dump.
Therefore, if you need to wipe and restore a partition, you will *not*
end up with exactly what you had at the time of the last inc dump.
Any file which came directly from a StuffIt or other archive might
be lost.
Am I correct? Or am I missing something here?
One other question for those who use Retro and CD-R/RW for backup:
Is it possible to mix and match CD-R and CD-RW within a single
"Backup Set"?
Seems to me that doing base dumps onto CD-R, then incremental
dumps to CD-RW would give the best "bang for the buck".
Does Retrospect support this directly (without tricks)?
Given such a scenario, is it easy to "tell" Retrospect to reuse those
incremental discs while keeping the base (ideally, all within a single
backup set)? If so, how do you do it?
Thanks for any insight...
--
Jim Glidewell
My opinions only
Jeff A. Wiseman
jimgli...@home.com (Jim Glidewell) writes:
<<<stuff deleted>>>
>
> One concern I have is whether this really picks everything up. For
> example: You do your Toast copies and a incremental dump or two using
> Retrospect. You then download a *.sit file and expand it. The dates
> on the newly expanded files have a mod date _prior_ to your manually
> entered date. Retrospect ignores those files, and they are not backed
> up until your _next_ Toast "base" dump.
>
> Therefore, if you need to wipe and restore a partition, you will *not*
> end up with exactly what you had at the time of the last inc dump.
> Any file which came directly from a StuffIt or other archive might
> be lost.
>
> Am I correct? Or am I missing something here?
This is true...
> One other question for those who use Retro and CD-R/RW for backup:
>
> Is it possible to mix and match CD-R and CD-RW within a single
> "Backup Set"?
>
> Seems to me that doing base dumps onto CD-R, then incremental
> dumps to CD-RW would give the best "bang for the buck".
>
> Does Retrospect support this directly (without tricks)?
Yes, but there are different scenarios, some more useful than others. For
Example, My personal system fills 2 full CDs and about 5% of a third. Since
Retrospect will not manipulate or otherwise write to a CD after it is full,
it doesn't matter whether its a CDR or CD-RW. My first two CDs can be CDRs
and the third a CD-RW. However, I don't think that there is much benifit
in this since the third could also be a CDR. Since Retrospect treats the
CDs as a type of segmented "tape", and since it uses the packetizing method
of writing to the CDs (i.e., a little chunk at a time), the use of CDRs or
CD-RWs is totally the same. the only difference is that you cannot run a
"full backup" to a backup set consisting of CDRs.
> Given such a scenario, is it easy to "tell" Retrospect to reuse those
> incremental discs while keeping the base (ideally, all within a single
> backup set)? If so, how do you do it?
What I believe that you are trying to do CAN be done with R.E. but probably
with some gimmickry. Remember that what you are trying to do is an exception
to the standard procedure of full backup and then increments so you are
more likely to run into weirdness or bugs in the software (i.e., since noone
else is using it that way normally). HOWEVER, to answer your question, I
believe that you can do the following:
1) Run a full backup to a new backup set using CDR
2) One the next incremental, force the incremental to start on the next
"disk". R.E. allows you to do this for the situation where a person
thinks that the incremental may take more space than is available on
the remainder of the full backup media and they are not going to be
around when the backup is scheduled to run (e.g., you are running the
backup in the middle of the night and you don't want to get up to swap
discs when the original media runs out so you tell it to start on a
brand new disc).
3) Subsequent incrementals can be run as normal.
4) When wanting to "start over" with new incrementals, delete the hard disk
based backup set image/index from wherever it is and build a new one
from the original full backup. If it asks for the old incrementals, there
is a way to tell it that they have been "lost".
I would have to look at this real close to see how to make it function but
I believe it can be done -- however, in general, I don't believe that it's
worth the hassle. Consider the following:
CDRs typically go for $1.70 - $2.80 apiece in singles. Let's just say $2.
GOOD CD-RWs can be had for $4-$7 each so I'm saving $2-$4 apiece. For
a backup set and maybe 10 incrementals, I only need about 3 disks for 1.5
Gbyte of applications. That's only a difference of $6-$10 total. For 6Gbyte,
about $40 max. However, Retrospect allows you to turn on compression whcih
can save up to 50%, thus reducing the overall cost advantage to a maximum
of only $20 on a 6 Gbyte backup with several incrementals. To me, this
just isn't worth the loss of convenience and the risk of losing data by
diddling around with the sequence. Just use all CD-RWs.
Now, for the other extreme where someone is backing up a server where a
full backup is maybe 10-20 disks, even if the administrator is getting
his CDRs in bulk (around $1.00 a piece), the cost advantage of CD-RWs when
restarting a backup set is trivial compared to the total costs and how
often you are wanting to rotate media. In this case, just always using CDRs
makes more sense.
If you will rarely backup, use all CDRs. If you frequently backup (especially
if your incrementals are large) and the total size of the system is not
excessivly large (i.e., requires 10-20 CDs), use all CD-RWs.
Remeber, you can write 500 incrementals to a CD-RW thus filling the disk
and it counts ONLY as ONE write to the disk. A CD-RW take take thousands of
writes. Therefore and CD-RW backup set can be used thousands of times
multiplied by the number of backups it can contain.
In summary, I believe that using CDRs for backup only becomes really beneficial
for when the backup size starts getting large and infrequent.
Anyway, hope this helps some.
(P.S., I keep all my actual data in a separate partition/folder etc. because
I backup almost everytime I spend an evening on the system. Records data
temds to be small so I do not backit up to CDs--I use superdisks since they
are much faster and they can hold 30-40 incrementals and a full backup all
on one disk. This significantly reduces churn on my application/system
backups thus requiring fewer incrementals on the "big set")
- Jeff
--
-----
Jeff Wiseman Alcatel USA
Jeff(DOT)Wiseman(AT)aud(DOT)alcatel(DOT)com Richardson, Texas
(972)996-7092
Jerry Kindall
jimgli...@home.com (Jim Glidewell) wrote:
> One concern I have is whether this really picks everything up. For
> example: You do your Toast copies and a incremental dump or two using
> Retrospect. You then download a *.sit file and expand it. The dates
> on the newly expanded files have a mod date _prior_ to your manually
> entered date. Retrospect ignores those files, and they are not backed
> up until your _next_ Toast "base" dump.
>
> Therefore, if you need to wipe and restore a partition, you will
> *not* end up with exactly what you had at the time of the last inc
> dump. Any file which came directly from a StuffIt or other archive
> might be lost.
>
> Am I correct? Or am I missing something here?
The Mac OS stores a backup date for each file, although the Mac OS
doesn't give you access to it. Retrospect lets you use it in selection
criteria. You can easily enough set up a rule to select any files that
have never been backed up (they'd have a backup date in 1904) in
addition to those which have been modified since the last backup.
However, by default, Retrospect does _not_ set the backup date for files
after backing them up. In order for the strategy outlined above to
work, you must explicitly enable it. In a backup window, click Options,
More Choices, then Source on the left side, and make sure all three
checkboxes are marked.
(Toast does not affect backup dates.)