Please forgive me in advance – I’m still very new to SyncBackSE (v6.5.22.0). I’ve been asked to setup a weekly full backup of the data on our server (roughly 270 gb), with incremental backups during the rest of the week. I first copied the source data to an external USB hard drive, then set up the backup routine.
Source is: \\servername\folder\ (I had it mapped as a drive letter, but SyncBackSE suggested I use the direct path)
Destination is to an external USB hard drive attached to my PC: h:\datafolder\%dayofweek%\
Under options, I have a check next to “perform a fast backup”, “delete all the files and folders on destination before the backup (only if it is not a rescan)”, and “use a different folder for full (rescan) backups”.
0) The different folder for full (rescan) backups is: h:\datafolder.
I’ve also got a force rescan when %dayofweek% equals 1.
So, I have three sets of questions (and I very much appreciate your help on these!):
1) Should the actual folder be called %dayofweek% or should it be called 1? While the instructions suggest the former, it’s not really clear – at least, to me (although I admit I don’t have a lot of experience with SyncBackSE.
2) When I took a look at the log from last night, there were 107 “copied, deleted, renamed, and changed” files… but none of them seem to be in the “%dayofweek%” folder. It seems as though they overwrote the files in the “different” folder and not the “destination” folder. Indeed, the actual destination folder was empty… and I was expecting the changed files from yesterday to be in there. So, I’m sure I’ve done something wrong
3) Is this all the result of me starting mid-week? And should I adjust the parameters to reflect that? Again, the instructions are not clear and suggest that people want to do full backups on a Monday – although I’d prefer to do them on a Friday evening which, I’m guessing would be day 5.
Now, second set of questions:
My understanding is that if files are deleted from the source, they aren’t deleted from the destination during any backup routine. In that case, I believe I’d need to mirror the drives to ensure that any extraneous files in the destination were deleted prior to a full backup.
4) Is it recommended to simply set up a 2nd profile to mirror the drives immediately prior to a full backup as described above?
And my final set of questions:
If I want to maintain 4 weeks’ worth of full and incremental backups, how do I set up versioning? I don’t quite understand the instructions although here’s what I think should happen:
5) I enable versioning on the destination
6) I keep a maximum of 4 versions
7) I keep versions for a maximum of 21 days (so on day 28 the cycle begins over)
8 What do I do if I don’t want the versions to be stored in hidden folders, but instead store them in different folders on the destination drive?
So, what I’m after is a full backup on Friday evening, and incremental backups on Saturday through Thursday. I then want to create new full and incremental backups for each week thereafter and keep each weeks’ backups for 4 weeks afterwards. I also want to be sure that when I create a full backup on a Friday evening, that extraneous files in the destination are deleted prior to running the routine on Friday.
Again, I apologize for the length of this inquiry and I’m grateful for any assistance in this.
Ian
Source is: \\servername\folder\ (I had it mapped as a drive letter, but SyncBackSE suggested I use the direct path)
Destination is to an external USB hard drive attached to my PC: h:\datafolder\%dayofweek%\
Under options, I have a check next to “perform a fast backup”, “delete all the files and folders on destination before the backup (only if it is not a rescan)”, and “use a different folder for full (rescan) backups”.
0) The different folder for full (rescan) backups is: h:\datafolder.
I’ve also got a force rescan when %dayofweek% equals 1.
So, I have three sets of questions (and I very much appreciate your help on these!):
1) Should the actual folder be called %dayofweek% or should it be called 1? While the instructions suggest the former, it’s not really clear – at least, to me (although I admit I don’t have a lot of experience with SyncBackSE.
2) When I took a look at the log from last night, there were 107 “copied, deleted, renamed, and changed” files… but none of them seem to be in the “%dayofweek%” folder. It seems as though they overwrote the files in the “different” folder and not the “destination” folder. Indeed, the actual destination folder was empty… and I was expecting the changed files from yesterday to be in there. So, I’m sure I’ve done something wrong
3) Is this all the result of me starting mid-week? And should I adjust the parameters to reflect that? Again, the instructions are not clear and suggest that people want to do full backups on a Monday – although I’d prefer to do them on a Friday evening which, I’m guessing would be day 5.
Now, second set of questions:
My understanding is that if files are deleted from the source, they aren’t deleted from the destination during any backup routine. In that case, I believe I’d need to mirror the drives to ensure that any extraneous files in the destination were deleted prior to a full backup.
4) Is it recommended to simply set up a 2nd profile to mirror the drives immediately prior to a full backup as described above?
And my final set of questions:
If I want to maintain 4 weeks’ worth of full and incremental backups, how do I set up versioning? I don’t quite understand the instructions although here’s what I think should happen:
5) I enable versioning on the destination
6) I keep a maximum of 4 versions
7) I keep versions for a maximum of 21 days (so on day 28 the cycle begins over)
8 What do I do if I don’t want the versions to be stored in hidden folders, but instead store them in different folders on the destination drive?
So, what I’m after is a full backup on Friday evening, and incremental backups on Saturday through Thursday. I then want to create new full and incremental backups for each week thereafter and keep each weeks’ backups for 4 weeks afterwards. I also want to be sure that when I create a full backup on a Friday evening, that extraneous files in the destination are deleted prior to running the routine on Friday.
Again, I apologize for the length of this inquiry and I’m grateful for any assistance in this.
Ian