Ongoing 'rolling' backup archive - Mac user
Hello everyone, hope somebody can help me. I shall try to explain myself, please bear with me.
I'm a Mac user, have been for over 20 years and have very little understanding of the PC world. I work in an advertising agency where we have a mixed environment of PC and Mac. We also have a PC server running Exchange and a Mac server that stores all design work. Normal office, sage stuff is stored on the PC server.
I had successfully been running 'Dantz Retrospect' on the Mac server for years on what I call a rolling archive. Each and every file that is created gets backed up and I just kept adding tapes. Every year I'd create a new storage set and just carry on. The system was purely to back up files and not to be used as an instant disaster recovery situation, I have other contingencies running for that.
Recently our IT Manager 'steamrollered' though a new system that covered the PC server as it wasn't being backed up. It was decided (not by me) that there would be one system to cover both the PC and Mac systems.
We are now using Back Up Exec 12.5 with a HP StorageWorks LTO-4 Ultrium 1760 Tape Drive that uses 800Gb tapes.
I am shocked, frustrated and dismayed that our IT support company tells me it is not possible/or is exceedingly difficult to back up 'everything' on an on-going basis.
I was used to having one storage set, one schedule that ran every night and just added any new files created to tape; but apparently Back Up Exec cannot do this!
They are talking about having 'incremental' tapes for Monday through Thursday and doing a full back up on Friday and then doing another 'monthly' back up. I just can't comprehend the terminology I think. He talks about how the 'incremental' tapes require the friday tape to restore anything.
I put this to him: A user creates a file on a Tuesday but inadvertantly deletes it on a Thursday, but only discoveres his mistake on the following Monday. Under the proposed system the file would be lost for good!
That's just utterly ridiculous. Surely there must be a way of doing something like I used to on the Mac with Retrospect?
Sorry to go on but I just can't fathom how we can spend over £4,000 on a system that doesn't back up everything.
Is there a way to just keep adding files; new files created everyday, new versions of files modified everyday.
Basically I want a system where I don't ever lose ANYTHING.
Comments
Hi There You are kind of
Hi There
You are kind of running into a conceptual difference between how Mac Backup products have developed and how Windows based ones have. I do use a Mac Workstation along with TimeMachine - which also provides a rolling backup type function that is similar to what you describe.
Windows systems have a concept of run a full and then run another separate backup to backup everything since the last backup (called an Incremental). The admin decides how many incrementals to run before he runs another full and also decides how long to keep his incrementals for - if he keeps his incremental sets for the same length of time as his full sets then your user deleting files scenario would not apply. A complete restore will always need the last full + any intervening incrementals as there is no merge facility in the basic concept that takes the data from the incremental and adds it to the full. There is also a Differential option that backups up everything since the last full (instead of everything since the last backup) which needs less tapes to do a restore.
Backup Exec does have the ability to merge Incremantals with a Full by running a special job after the incremental has run that is called a Synthetic, however, it is possible that this functionality is difficult to setup or not supported when a MAC is involved - it might be worth you suggesting they investigate this, however the information your Windows team have provided is essentially correct. Unless they run a full backup every day (and have extended backup windows) or keep the incrementals for as long as the fulls (and require more storage space)
Backup Exec also has an option called Continuous Protection - which does disk based replication - but this does not support MAC.
Thanks very much for your
Thanks very much for your reply Colin. What a difference a clear and concise explanation makes, I totally understand now why the PC IT people say it can't be done.
From my point of view though it's not very good as we ordered the system based on our needs for both the Mac and PC environments. Guess we'll just use our £4,000 system backing up 15 users mail boxes and some sage docs.
Anyway, thanks again for the help.
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