Cheap Admin. (no budget)

[Guest_imported]

Currently I use Back-up Exec 4.2.1 for my Windows98 boxes. And before u start to laugh....Im backing up nodes to a 10gig HD. <i requested a tape drive, but &quot;no budget&quot;> Right now the nodes are backing up on a dialy basis and overwriting the backup from the day before. Is there a &quot;better&quot; way to set this up? Whats the differential/incermential backup? Currently there useing about 6gigs out of 10gigs, so Either i need to BEG for another HD...Or change how they backup....Any thought would be really great.

 

[BernieN]

I'd set up a folder for each day of your working week. Set up the same number of backup sets.

Assuming that Friday is your last work day in the week, make the Friday backup set a full backup. Set it up so it replaces the existing backup. Schedule it to run, say, Saturday at 3:00 am.

Set up backup sets for each of the other workdays, choosing a backup method of either differential or incremental (see below). Schedule the backup for each set at, say, 3:00 am the next morning.

Differential backup backs up all changed files every time it runs, i.e., if files A, B and C change on Monday they'll be backed up Tues a.m. Now if the user changes files D and E during the Tuesday workday, the backup set for Wed a.m. will backup files A,B,C, E and E, and so forth.

Incremental backup backs up just the files that have changed since the last backup. Using the scenario above, the Tues a.m. backup will save files A, B and C. The Wed a.m. backup will save only files D and E.

See the program's help files for the relative advantages of each method. Then you'll have

The big disadvantage is that during the full backup, your canoe doesn't have oars. That is, if the full backup bombs you're stuck without a backup. But your present method seems to have the same problem, so this suggested routine is better than you now have.

BernieN, St. Louis, MO