Am I setting up my Back-ups correctly?

[Amer786]

I just want to verfiy that I am setting up my backup jobs correctly.

My current hard drives:

Laptop HD ---> backs up to External HD 1TB
Desktop HD -->backs up to External HD 1TB
External HD 1 TB --> backs up to Extternal Backup Drive 2 TB

Under My Backup Jobs I have the folling set up:

Desktop(Full) -- Runs monthly
Desktop (Differential) - Runs Daily
Laptop (Full) - Runs monthly
Laptop (Differntial) - Runs Daily
External Drive (Full) - Runs Monthly
External Drive (Differential) - Runds Daily

My aim is, for any one hard drive I should have a full back + X number of differntial back-ups that make up my total hard drive and this should cover me in case of hard drive failure. Is my current set-up going to acheive this? How will by differential back-ups know to look for the correct full back-up if they are set up as different jobs? I think I am doing something wrong here.

Also,

I am using customized prefixes <BACKUP NAME><DATE>.

Can someone explain to me the naming conventions of files. I see:

Diff2010-07-17.17.zip, what does the ".17" mean and how does it relate back to the other differential backups and/or the full back-up?


Thanks for your help in advance

[Adrian (Softland)]

Hi,

1. The way you configured the backup process is not correct.
Please read this article: http://www.backup4all.com/kb/using-back ... 79.html#69

You need to delete these jobs:
Desktop(Full) -- Runs monthly
Laptop (Full) - Runs monthly
External Drive (Full) - Runs Monthly

The remaining jobs should be:
Desktop (Differential) - Runs Daily
Laptop (Differential) - Runs Daily
External Drive (Differential) - Runs Daily

The first backup execution is a full backup after that differential backups will be performed.

2. The naming convention is:
Diff2010-07-17.17.zip
Diff = <BACKUP NAME>
2010-07-17 = <DATE>
17 = the backup number; it must be present in every zip file.