some questions

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mhmj
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Jul 21, 2019 6:17 pm

some questions

Post by mhmj »

1. I want to perform a full backup each weekend and a differential from Monday to Thursday. Do I have to create 2 different jobs, one for full and one for differential, or do I have to create only one job and perform the differential and full option only with the scheduler?

2. The catalog folder in the appdata roaming directory is empty. Everything is stored in the appdata temp folder. Is that really ok? The temp folder can be deleted by some cleaning tools. I mean the catalog data is important, shouldn't it be somewhere else?

3. Our backup consists about 500GB with ca 600k files and is saved on a RDX drive. The data is stored on a server and accessed by a windows network drive on the backup computer. An old version of backup exec from the stoneage (same PC) could save these files in about 6h. B4A needs for the same job about 14h (without test). The files are crypted (128bit) and compressed(low). The removable drive option is activated and the local catalog deactivated (the RDX HDDs will be replaced every day). Why is the backup so extremly slow? The OS is win10 64bit. The load of the backup comupter is at max 10% for CPU HDD, network, disk, etc when the backup is in progress. A copy of the data to the same drive with windows explorer, file sync, robocopy etc is about 4-5 times faster (I know, there is no compression and crypting). So it is not a problem with the computer, server or network.

4. Until now I tried 10 times to perform a differential backup. But B4A always runs the full backup again. For example after the full backup has completed, I change some files, click on the same job and select create backup - differential. The full backup starts again, although the files are all listed as backed up in the explorer view of the backup. This all happens, even if the RDX Hdd is not changed and the one with the full backup is still inserted.

5. Some postive words about B4A. I tested about 20+ different backup trial versions. This software was really the only one, which has the look and feel of a real backup solution. Most other programms, even some so called server editions did not even have a useable file selection tool - just plain text input for every folder to exclude, ultra minimalistic logs, no information about the actual state of the backup progress or deeper error information, are not well designed for file level backup, only optimized for VM or images and so on, or are just some expensive enterprise solutions for data centers, not small business environments.

Adrian (Softland)
Posts: 1914
Joined: Wed Dec 16, 2009 12:46 pm

Re: some questions

Post by Adrian (Softland) »

Hi,

1. You can use a single backup job and create two scheduled tasks for it: one will run full backups every weekend and the other scheduled task will run daily differentials.
I recommend you to create one more scheduled task to clean all backup versions older than X days (you can select to keep full backups if you want).

2. The default settings folder is the appdata folder. Please open Backup4all, go to File->Options->Application folders.
Make sure the settings folder location is the default one.

3. Please send us the last backup log to support[at]backup4all[dot]com, to see more information about the backup job.

4. Please send us the .bkc catalog file for that job and the last backup log.

mhmj
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Jul 21, 2019 6:17 pm

Re: some questions

Post by mhmj »

2. The programm settings are still set to default. But the catalog folder stays empty.
3,4. I tried again to perform some differential backups and suddenly I get the message that there is no data and the catalog file can not be found when trying to open the restore tool.
I will deinstall the whole programm and install it again. I think there is something wrong. If I still have the same problems I will send the files to you

mhmj
Posts: 8
Joined: Sun Jul 21, 2019 6:17 pm

Re: some questions

Post by mhmj »

With the help from the support the differential backup is now working. The problem was that the option "removable media" was activated (and so the "use local catalog" setting deactivated). With this setting and removed drives a first differential backup can never be performed because the old catalog is missing and always on the last drive. I configured it that way, because I have removable media and also it is described in the support pages that you have to activate it with this backup setting (daily removed differential drives). I think it would be helpful for a lot of users, if the information about this setting would be updated.

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