Advanced Backup Scheduling
I love this product, however I have a need to schedule a Disaster Recovery backup twice a year. The current scheduling options do not allow me to schedule a full backup of one or more disks on two specific days per year. For example; May 1 at 4:00 a.m. and December 1 at 4:00 a.m. I want to be able to have the backup scheduled and executed on these two days to an attached USB hard drive. Upon completion, this backup USB drive will be removed from the premises and only used for Disaster Recovery.
Daily backups to a separate internal hard drive "Secure Zone" are performed. These backups would be of no value in a disaster situation. Therefore, if I could define 2 Scheduled Tasks to perform a full backup, my needs would be met. So, which binary do I execute and how do I pass it the correct parameters to run on the date and time of my choosing? Is there an API that I could use to invoke the backup from a custom .Net program that I could write. Are there any solutions out there today that I could use? Other consultants have expressed a lot of interest in having this capability.
Thanks for responding.
Yes, as MVP Pal L has indicated.
1. Create a non-scheduled backup task and have those those be "disk option" backups for whichever disks you want included within the backup with validation if preferred.
2. From within the backup task, use the option to "Create shortcut" which will place an shortcut on your desktop.
3. Right click on the desktop shortcut and click properties and copy the highlighted path into your clipboard.
4. Open Windows Task Scheduler and create May 1 scheduler.
Actions: Create Basic Task Wizard
The general is to "Run with highest privileges" and "run whether user logged on or not"
The trigger is run once on May1.
The action is to start a program and the program is is to start is the contents of your clipboard.
The conditions is "Wake the computer to run the task."
5. Create Windows Task Scheuler idenitical do #4 except change the run date to Dec 1.
6. Much of this is covered in link 1 below, iindex item #3-A and possibly 3-RA if shutdown is needed after backup.