Copying My Backups

[JR13]

I have finally been successful in setting up scheduled tasks to backup my
files daily. I have two external hard drives and a fireproof box that I want
to keep one of the externals in at all times. I have performed a full backup
of my system onto one of the HD's and copied it over to the second HD. Then
I scheduled a daily incremental backup, which ran successfully today. My
dilemma is that if I swap the HD's at the end of the day, won't there be a
gap in the information since each incremental backup will contain information
that has been added or changed since the backup that is on the other HD. Is
there an easy solution to this? I would appreciate any advice anyone can
give me on this subject. Thanks.

 

[dadiOH]

I have finally been successful in setting up scheduled tasks to
backup my files daily. I have two external hard drives and a
fireproof box that I want to keep one of the externals in at all
times. I have performed a full backup of my system onto one of the
HD's and copied it over to the second HD. Then I scheduled a daily
incremental backup, which ran successfully today. My dilemma is that
if I swap the HD's at the end of the day, won't there be a gap in the
information since each incremental backup will contain information
that has been added or changed since the backup that is on the other
HD. Is there an easy solution to this? I would appreciate any
advice anyone can give me on this subject. Thanks.

All data that isn't on the backup drive du jour will be added whenever you
do an incremental backup. That means - under your system - you will always
have one drive that is up to date and another that is a day behind. Not a
cause for worry IMO.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico

 

[JR13]

All data that isn't on the backup drive du jour will be added whenever you
do an incremental backup. That means - under your system - you will always
have one drive that is up to date and another that is a day behind. Not a
cause for worry IMO.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico

Thank you for the response. I was hoping the backups would work this way,
but it appears that I must be doing something wrong because after running a
full backup on the first HD, the backup file contained 45,377,847 KB; then
the next day after the first incremental backup, there was a new file
containing 377,317 KB. I changed a couple of files, then ran another test
incremental backup, and the new file contained 36,326 KB. This all looked
good so I swapped the external hard drives and the second one received the
next scheduled incremental backup. That file contained 467,182 KB. I then
changed a few files and ran another test backup and that one contained
184,666 KB. It appears to me that the second HD does not have any of the
backup data that is on the first HD. Therefore if I should have a fire while
the first HD is attached to my computer, I'd not be able to restore
everything. Am I making any sense? I'd really appreciate any advice you
could give me that would get this working correctly. Thanks.

 

[dadiOH]

Thank you for the response. I was hoping the backups would work this
way, but it appears that I must be doing something wrong because
after running a full backup on the first HD, the backup file
contained 45,377,847 KB; then the next day after the first
incremental backup, there was a new file containing 377,317 KB. I
changed a couple of files, then ran another test incremental backup,
and the new file contained 36,326 KB. This all looked good so I
swapped the external hard drives and the second one received the next
scheduled incremental backup. That file contained 467,182 KB. I
then changed a few files and ran another test backup and that one
contained 184,666 KB. It appears to me that the second HD does not
have any of the backup data that is on the first HD. Therefore if I
should have a fire while the first HD is attached to my computer, I'd
not be able to restore everything. Am I making any sense? I'd
really appreciate any advice you could give me that would get this
working correctly. Thanks.

Best I can suggest is that you use drive A for your backups and copy what is
backed up to it to drive B.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico

 

[JR13]

Best I can suggest is that you use drive A for your backups and copy what is
backed up to it to drive B.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico

I thought about that, and it might work for me, but I would want it to run
as a scheduled task. Is there a way to schedule it so I won't have to do it
manually each day?

 

[dadiOH]

I thought about that, and it might work for me, but I would want it
to run as a scheduled task. Is there a way to schedule it so I won't
have to do it manually each day?

Not if you are keeping one of them in a fire proof box. If not - if it is
in the computer - you should be a ble to do so.

I was thinking about what you said happened...that the second backup drive
wasn't getting all the data that the program wrote to the first backup
drive. The only way I can see that happening is if the backup program is
deciding what to incrementally back up by comparing file modified/created
dates to a date and time it keeps internally, said date/time being the last
time it made a backup.

AFAIK, that comparison date is normally kept in the backup drive itself. I
think your problem may be that you never did a full backup to the second
backup drive, only an incremental one. Try doing a full backup to each
drive THEN try incrementally backing up each.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico