pruning old backups?

[moshes]

I have several years worth of backups from an old PC taking up a significant amount of space on a NAS. It seems that for one of my old PCs I was keeping all the generations of backup. That PC isn't around any more. Is there a way I can get rid of all but the last generation of the files in that backup, or do some other reasonable cleanup?

[Barry]

The Manage Backup / Undo Backups (Prune Backup Sessions) option may be used to remove unwante backup data.

Barry

[moshes]

Thank you Barry. Follow up question: the documentation for that feature states:

Files that were created in a selected session that exist in higher sessions are moved to the next highest session number. Files that were created in earlier sessions but marked as deleted in the selected session are marked as deleted in the next highest session number.

What about files that exist only in the session that I mark for deletion? Will those be lost?

Can I safely select all sessions created in 2007 and delete them, with the understanding that I'll either have access to later versions from 2008 backups, or the Prune process will move the 2007 versions into the 2008 zip files?

Because what I'm really after here is a way to clean up safely, so that I have at least one edition of each file left somewhere.

[Barry]

Files that only exist in a session will be deleted if that session is removed.

If you have got room you could take a copy of the backup before pruning, and then delete the copy if you are happy.

There is an option to keep 1 copy of deleted files. You may test this option using a small backup, delete a file change a file then backup again. Delete session 1 and you will see that the deleted file is moved to a session called deleted. Manage Backup / Change Backup Job settings / Session settings / Keep one copy of deleted files.

Another option is to use Manage Backup / Backup Maintenance and manually remove any large files that will never be needed. You may display the folder size to help you with this option.

Barry

[moshes]

Thanks again for the explanation. Making a copy of the backup isn't practical. I also can't predict today what files I may want to restore tomorrow. Changing the backup job settings I believe will only affect future backups, of which there won't be any. "Backup Maintenance" was what I tried first, but it seems to require going one file or folder at a time, which is quite painful, especially when it takes tens of minutes for each delete that has to visit many zips of an old and long running job.

Perhaps as a future enhancement, I think it would be great to have a way to say safely prune this backup so that there are only X generations of each file, with no files deleted irretrievably.

[Barry]

Perhaps as a future enhancement, I think it would be great to have a way to say safely prune this backup so that there are only X generations of each file, with no files deleted irretrievably

That's what undo backups does, as long as you choose to keep 1 copy of deleted files. I suggested you test this option before you start so you can see how it works.

Another option is to convert the backup into a generation style backup; a generation style backup is only really suitable for data backup's but you can specify how many versions of each file you want to retain. Manage backup / Change Backup job settings / Session Settings (Tab) / Type of backup / Generation and choose the number of generation to retain. If you see a cue card error click Yes.

To force the backup to prune the old generations you must make a backup (we could make that better); select one small file for backup and run the backup, the old generations of files will be removed.

If you would like to practise this before you go ahead make a backup of the AISBackup database settings (this is an auto select option) using an all sessions backup, run 5 or 6 backups and then convert to a generation style backup with 2 generations. The current backup job's files will change between each backup and therefore make many generations (versions). To mimic your read only backup deselect all files on the Manage Backup / Modify File and Folders list and then select any one file for backup. Run the backup and you will see that the old generations are removed.

Barry

[topinstruments]

Cool! Thanks guys. Works fine.

[nikkil]

Manage backup / Change Backup job settings / Session Settings (Tab) / Type of backup / Generation

That worked out for me very well! Thanks a lot.