Amalgamate two backups?

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Chris_I
Posts: 7
Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2012 11:13 am

Amalgamate two backups?

Post by Chris_I »

Hello Barry & Co -
I have been backing up all files on my PC to an external 14Tb USB3 drive. I have a very large number of files spread over several drives with a huge volume of data (8-9 Tb in all). That backup was password protected if that is relevant.
I obtained a second 12Tb external drive and did another backup, using the same job, same settings, but changing the destination to the new drive letter and a new folder name and I forgot about password protecting it.
I then asked AIS to back up to variable destinations by converting that 12 Tb backup to a multiple destination style backup.
Reconnecting the earlier 14Tb drive, with the original backup job and settings, I added it to the drive list, so there are now 2 drives on there, and left it to find my first backup and update it with the new files since 3 months ago.
Coming back next morning, it seemed to be in the midst of a totally new backup of all the files - not just the changed ones, in a new destination on the drive. The existing backup, which was in a different folder, was not being used
I aborted the process (it takes a week to do over USB3 and I hoped to avoid doing it twice!). I then moved the new overnight files into the same folder as the original 3-month old one, hoping that would get the program to amalgamate the two when it looked at the available files. But when I asked it to validate by checking filenames, it still is not recognising the older backup's files as far as I can see. And the new backup is the only one it seems to recognise now.
The Drive List now has 3 destinations, with two that look identical on the 14 Tb Drive, and one on the 12Tb drive. Alas, it sees the new partial one on the 14Tb drive as belonging to the 12Tb drive and the older full 14Tb backup as a separate entity with no relation to the 12Tb one.

I am pretty sure I should not have tried to amalgamate the two sets of files and my setting up must have been wrong to have this effect. Am I able to use that old 14Tb backup with my 12Tb one so I can swap them each time, or must I write off the week it takes, delete all those files, and start all over again from the part done one and re-backup all those files?!
Thanks for any help -
Chris

AISB version 5.4.0.494
Windows 10 Pro (Enterprise) 1909 on a 64 bit desktop
Chris
Barry
Site Admin
Posts: 1529
Joined: Tue Aug 20, 2002 3:16 pm

Re: Amalgamate two backups?

Post by Barry »

Hi Chris

Having the same backup job with and without a password is not a good idea, it may mean in the future that both will be unreadable.

You may copy an existing backup using Windows (drag and drop) to another disk that has been added to the list of disks for that backup, when a new backup is run AISBackup will use the database on the attached disk to decide what to backup. The other disk can then be stored safely and swapped as required. So, copy an existing backup to the 'partial', making sure that the same directory structure is maintained. The volume name of each disk should be different, e.g. BACKUP01, BACKUP02, BACKUP03 etc.

I hope this solves the problem.

Barry
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