I've been using AISBackup in earnest now for a while, and thought I'd better buy it!
I was wondering, I have been doing weekly incremental backups using the scheduler in XP. On week 1 I will force a full backup, with incremental backups for the next four weeks.
If I miss, say week 2, then before week 3's backup I do Manage Backup -> Reset backup, will the backup on the next week 1 just be another restart of the process.
Also, I have set the number of kept sessions to 5, as I am restarting my backup process every five weeks, does the number of kept sessions make any difference?
Cheers
Weekly backups
Managing a backup
I am assuming the backup destination is a disk (or network drive).
The number of sessions retained instructs AISBackup to remove files physically from the backup destination once they no longer exist in the remaining sessions. In a 3-session script if file XYZ is backed up in session 1, the file is not altered, but after sessions 2 and 3 even though it is not physically backed up it will exist in sessions 1,2 & 3.
If after deleting XYZ from the PC you run backup session 4: XYZ will exist in sessions 2 & 3 but not 4.
After session 5 XYZ will exist in sessions 3 but not 4 or 5.
After Session 6 XYZ no longer exists in any session so XYZ will be physically deleted from the backup destination (not CD), thus reclaiming some disk space.
As you can see from the example AISBackup is keeping the usage of the backup destination fairly constant after the 4th session (in your case 6th session) so there is no real reason to Reset the backup and start again.
Care should be taken if you want files to remain on the backup even when they are deleted from the PC. This normally only applies to data files like pictures, music, documents etc. The Generations style backup was introduced for this reason as you can instruct AISBackup to keep a number of versions of each file; the file is never totally removed from the backup destination even when deleted from the PC.
To get AISBackup to prune zip files ensure that Manage Backup / Edit Script Parameters / Prune Zip Files is checked.
Barry
The number of sessions retained instructs AISBackup to remove files physically from the backup destination once they no longer exist in the remaining sessions. In a 3-session script if file XYZ is backed up in session 1, the file is not altered, but after sessions 2 and 3 even though it is not physically backed up it will exist in sessions 1,2 & 3.
If after deleting XYZ from the PC you run backup session 4: XYZ will exist in sessions 2 & 3 but not 4.
After session 5 XYZ will exist in sessions 3 but not 4 or 5.
After Session 6 XYZ no longer exists in any session so XYZ will be physically deleted from the backup destination (not CD), thus reclaiming some disk space.
As you can see from the example AISBackup is keeping the usage of the backup destination fairly constant after the 4th session (in your case 6th session) so there is no real reason to Reset the backup and start again.
Care should be taken if you want files to remain on the backup even when they are deleted from the PC. This normally only applies to data files like pictures, music, documents etc. The Generations style backup was introduced for this reason as you can instruct AISBackup to keep a number of versions of each file; the file is never totally removed from the backup destination even when deleted from the PC.
To get AISBackup to prune zip files ensure that Manage Backup / Edit Script Parameters / Prune Zip Files is checked.
Barry
Thanks for the reply.
I am using RW CDs to do the backup, and each week I use a new one. In this case does the number of sessions retained mean anything in this case. I took the incremental backup to mean that only files that had changed would be written to the disk each week.
Have I misunderstood this and I should I be using the number of generations retained?
I am using RW CDs to do the backup, and each week I use a new one. In this case does the number of sessions retained mean anything in this case. I took the incremental backup to mean that only files that had changed would be written to the disk each week.
Have I misunderstood this and I should I be using the number of generations retained?
CD-RW option
I can see now why you want to start the backup again.
There is no real benefit in limiting the number of sessions as you may as well have access to the whole backup that exists on the CD set while it still exists. Keeping all sessions is equivalent to keeping all generations as if you are not deleting any files from the backup destination you are not 'losing' any files. Files cannot be physically deleted from a CD unless you are using a packet writing system, in any case AISBackup does not delete files from CD-RW. The limited number of sessions and generations is more useful when the backup destination is a disk, although keeping the size of the Backup Contents File down does improve efficiency.
If I were you I would run with at least two backup sets, and erase and swap them to maximise how far back you can restore from. As mentioned in the previous post, if you want to keep files on a backup that no longer exist on the PC then you may prefer to keep the backup on going (or one of your backup sets).
Barry
There is no real benefit in limiting the number of sessions as you may as well have access to the whole backup that exists on the CD set while it still exists. Keeping all sessions is equivalent to keeping all generations as if you are not deleting any files from the backup destination you are not 'losing' any files. Files cannot be physically deleted from a CD unless you are using a packet writing system, in any case AISBackup does not delete files from CD-RW. The limited number of sessions and generations is more useful when the backup destination is a disk, although keeping the size of the Backup Contents File down does improve efficiency.
If I were you I would run with at least two backup sets, and erase and swap them to maximise how far back you can restore from. As mentioned in the previous post, if you want to keep files on a backup that no longer exist on the PC then you may prefer to keep the backup on going (or one of your backup sets).
Barry
I am currently using five RW disks to keep five weeks worth of backups, but one main consideration I had was that I wanted the first week to backup everything, possibly using more than one disk, and the consecutive weeks to be just an incremental backup, saving me swapping disks first thing in the morning!
What would be the best way to set that up?
What would be the best way to set that up?
Backup options
AISBackup will run a full backup first time a script is run (or after it is reset) and then only backup new and changed files and make a note of deleted files on subsequent backups. If you restore from the 3rd of 6 sessions all files that existed on that day are listed, not just those that were physically backed up. There is therefore no real need to re-set the backup (if the number of CD’s you use is not an issue). If the number of CD’s you use is not an issue and you can get the AISBackup CD Writer to work you may as well use CD-R instead, these are faster, cheaper and seem to be more reliable.
I would run at least two scripts using this scenario so that each backup is duplicated, CD’s can be easily damaged.
If you can get the AISBackup integrated CD writer working you may re-use the last CD used if your CD writer supports multi-session.
Barry
I would run at least two scripts using this scenario so that each backup is duplicated, CD’s can be easily damaged.
If you can get the AISBackup integrated CD writer working you may re-use the last CD used if your CD writer supports multi-session.
Barry