Reserve copy
When i create a backup, I state how many of them to keep (to manage disk space) and they are then automatically deleted (as required to maintain that number). Why can't I do the same with the Reserved Copies creatyed? They cause a drive to run out of disk space.
From the ATI 2018 User Guide:
Backup reserve copy
Location: Options > Advanced > Backup reserve copy
Backup reserve copy is an independent full backup version created immediately after a normal backup. Even when you create an incremental or differential backup version containing only data changes, the reserve copy will contain all the data selected for the normal backup. You can save reserve copies of your backups on the file system, a network drive, or a USB flash drive.
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The automatic cleanup rules for managing backup version chains does not apply to reserve copies and these do not conform to the same backup scheme as used by the main task here, i.e. reserve copies are full versions only, not incremental or differential chains.
Hi JP Miller,
I've added a reference to this thread to the corresponding feature request (TI-101359) for the product team to consider its implementation.Thank you!
Ekaterina,
Thanks for that information.
Any updates re: TI-101359 ?
Hi!
Unfortunately this feature request is still in backlog, as there were only votes for it.
I, too, tried using backup reserve copy and found it lacking for reasons already mentioned (no automatic deletion of backups, not a true mirror of backup versions, etc.).
I considered robocopy, but decided against it because it would be a second backup solution to manage, with its own set of scripts, scheduled tasks, disk monitoring, notifications, etc. Also, ATI wouldn’t know about those copies, so recovery would be less straightforward.
Ultimately, I settled on replicating each backup in ATI. For each backup in ATI, I create a second backup that’s almost identical: Only the names, destinations, and scheduled times are different. (Each backup destination is local and its replicant destination is non-local.) This way, I can leverage all the capabilities of ATI for each backup and its replicant.
Yes, this means I have to manage multiple pairs of backups and run additional scheduled backups, but once I set it up, it just works. I realize this is not ideal and won’t work for everybody, but I’m sharing in case others can benefit.
Also, please add my vote for feature request TI-101359.
Joel, welcome to these User Forums.
Thank you for sharing your approach for this issue with reserve copies.
I just run a script that keeps the last n copies. I find it is better to run a script from the drive being backed up rather a network target. My script is:
pushd
net use t: /d
net use t: \\Server\Offsite\My-PC\Data
T:
allbut tib 3
popd
net use T: /d
As you'll see it runs a second script, "allbut" located on the computer with backup below. The parameters are the file extension "tib" and how many copies to keep. The files kept will be the most recent.
echo off
Rem
Rem Allbut filesext number_to_skip
Rem
if [%1]==[] goto Miss1
if [%2]==[] goto Miss2
FOR /f "skip=%2 delims=" %%A IN ('DIR /a:-d /b /o:-d /t:c *.%1 ^2^>nul') DO IF EXIST "%%~fA" del "%%~fA"
goto done
:Miss1
echo Missing File Extension
goto done
:Miss2
echo Missing number of files to skip
goto Done
:Done
It's never failed me but you must use a dedicated subdirectory for reserve backups as it will treat all tib files the same.
Richard