multiple identical drives

[ageorge]

I have 4 identical USB hard drives to use for backups. In another thread I read that if you are using identical drives with the same drive letter, it is not necessary to list each one as a destination drive.

I used autorunning to schedule a full backup each night. The second night I swapped a USB drive for the first one. the next morning i found an information box saying it couldn't find the old backup, did i want to start over with a full one. It didn't do the backup because it was waiting for a response.

Should I have set something different to avoid this?
Once the job has run at least once on each of the drives, will it stop asking this question?
andy

[Barry]

Sorry about the delay answering this post, Some tests need to be set-up to check that this option is working okay.

Barry

[ageorge]

To add some additional info: I am on my second time through, and getting the same message--so my backups aren't running overnight.

[Barry]

I can confirm that this option does not work in version 2.5 of AISBackup but is working in version 2.4 of AISBackup. The option will be corrected as soon as possible.

Version 2.4 can be downloaded from:

http://www.aiscl.co.uk/build303/aisbi303.exe

Please note that this option will likely require all external drives to be present when making backups because the backup files will be spread over several disks.

I actually prefer to make full backups to multiple external drives to facilitate a logical on-site off-site arrangement. The backup to same volume option was really only created to enable very large backups to span multiple external drives.

Barry

[ageorge]

I thought the job was supposed to look at the backup file before each time it runs, and decide what needed to be added based on what it saw. Thus each drive would end up having a backup that was complete as of the last time that drive was used. And it would still work even if you used the wrong drive on the wrong day. That would make off site very convenient--if you forgot to bring in the right drive one day, you would still get a backup.

But if they all have to be connected every time you make a backup, then it isn't off site at all.



So---

I should create one backup job for each drive, and schedule them on different days, and make sure I bring in the right drive on the right day?

[Barry]

The external drive backup was designed to use mutilple external drives with different names and use the 'open backup contents frim drive' so the backup is then based on what is on the drive. The drives must have different names in this case as a local copy of each drive's database is kept on the local PC.

This is not the same as one backup using multiple drives using the same name, i.e. the option which is not working in version 2.5

I recommend backing up to multiple external drives as shown on this web page:

http://www.aiscl.co.uk/externaldrives.php

Using this method AISBackup handles up to 3 drives per backup job; I guess AISBackup could be changed to increase the number of drives.

Barry

[ageorge]

Okay! Looked at the tutorial, looks good.

I was planning to use 4, but 3 is likely enough. As I read it this will still make a backup on any day with any of the three drives. I just need to name them different and register each one.

[ageorge]

I followed the tutorial, but this still is not working--keep getting message that it can't find the backup.

Maybe I missed the point--even though I followed the tutorial, was I supposed to go back to version x.4 also?

Andy

[Barry]

Was one of the drives connected at the time of backup? If you want the job files checked please e--mail the job files using the Help / Bug Report option.

Barry

[ageorge]

I always had at least one of the listed drives connected.

I have rolled back to version 2.4 and it is working fine now. Apparently "open backup contents from drives" is not working in 2.5 for multiple drive either. But with 2.4 it seems to be working great.

Thanks