Forum Discussion

Harald_g's avatar
Harald_g
Level 2
16 years ago

BE 10d

 I am setting up some backups.  I have a couple of questions.  How I would like to do it is on wednesdays have an incremental backup and on saturday have a full backup.  Here are my questions:

1.For incremental do I want to use the archive bit option or time modified option.  Please explain
2.  Do i want to append backups or erase last.  I am guessing I want to do the append option with the incremental backups.

thanks
10.x and Earlier
Backup and Recovery
Backup Exec

4 Replies

  • p_jean's avatar
    p_jean
    Level 3
    16 years ago
     Hi Harald.g,

    1) Using the archive bits is a preffered option because you will actually backup only the files the were modified or the files that was just created.
    each time you open an existing file and you make a change in it, the archive bit is ticked and the file is added to the backup list.
    and everytime you create a new file , the file is automaticly ticked in the archive bit
    this way you save valuable space on your backup tape,

    2) it depend if you are using one tape for all the backups or you are using a defferent tape ,
        usually you really append to keep old backups ,
        you overwrite and existing tape when you are using daily back and lets say on sunday , you overwrite the contents of the previous sunday

    Hope this helps

    Thanks
    Jean
  • RonnyE's avatar
    RonnyE
    Level 4
    16 years ago
     Also depends on how much info you have to backup and how much a tape holds. Is this a single drive or a tape Library ?

    How much capacity is being used. How much data fits on a single tape and how big is a full vs. differential backup ?

    I hope this helps !

    Ronny
  • Carls's avatar
    Carls
    Level 4
    16 years ago
     Hi Harald, it all depends on the number of media you have in circulation.
    You can run the full backup to 'Overwrite' when the job begins and the incremental to 'append and terminate if no appendable media found' on the same tape,
    please make sure that you set the OPP (overwrite protection period) and the Allow Append Period accordingly and also remember that the OPP is reset everytime you run an append job.
    So if you run a full backup on Saturday and then an Incremental on Wed on the same tape,you will have to set the OPP and the AAP as stated below.
    OPP:4days
    AAP:3 Days

    Let me know the kind of setup you have (no of drive,tapes,size of backup)

    Carl
  • BernyR's avatar
    BernyR
    Level 3
    16 years ago
     Harald,
    Doesn't matter much as to whether you use archive bit or modified time for the incremental, both have drawbacks. If some engineer runs ntbackup on Tuesday before they apply a service-pack then with incremental you'll end up with data missing from the backup because it will reset the archive bit and Backup Exec won't have the data - ntbackup will have it. If you use modified time and don't use the same selection list it ends up doing a full backup instead of incremental and some virus checkers mess up modified time as they 'pretend' to modify the files.

    You can always set the full backup to overwrite and have an append period of 5 days with overwrite protection 27 days (for 28 day cycle) and set the incremental to append, then you'll end up with one full and one incremental on each tape.

    Berny