Full vs Incremental Backups in TIH 2009

I am setting up a new backup system using TIH 2009. Backup is done to a network share and network congestion is an issue. I want to run a full backup every two weeks and an incremental daily.

Suppose I create a profile for an incremental backup. On the first run, it automatically creates the full backup. On each later run, an incremental TIB file is produced. Some questions:

1) Can I, in a batch file as the pre-processing command, simply erase all the *.TIB files in the output directory and cause TIH to create a full backup instead of incremental? Is it that simple?

2) What is the file naming convention that TIH uses for incremental files? I created a profile specifying steward.tib and a full backup with that name was created. The first incremental was steward2.tib. 2? What happened to 1?

3) Is there any way, in a pre-processing batch file, to abort the backup?

Thanks.

Guy

 

Not as of TIH 2009, because the tib files on your system are catalogued in the new "archive database", and you should only remove them via the TIH GUI. (Plenty of discussion about this "feature": search for "archive database". )

When using an incremental task that creates a full and a series of incrementals, the incrementals will be named "full2", "full3", etc. As you have observed, there will be no "full1".

If your task is set to create a new full after some number of incrementals, the new full will be named "full(1)", and its incrementals "full(1)2", "full(1)3", etc.

Well, there is an option on the "Edit user command" dialog that says "Abort the operation if the user command fails". I've never tested it myself.

 

Oops! I'm coming from a TIH 10 background and keep stumbling on changes in 2009. I have some more questions then.

The strategy I was planning on was this: Make incremental backups nightly for 14 days. The first would automatically be a full backup. After 14 days, a batch file was going to move all those files to an external drive, leaving the backup directory empty. I was hoping TIH 2009 would then simply create a new full backup and incrementals thereafter (I don't care what TIH does with the numeric suffix on the file names). It won't do that?

One way or another, I need to get TIH to restart the full+incremental process automatically, without user interaction, and without using the consolidation feature.

I suppose I could delete the archive database itself in addition to moving the files. I suppose I'd have to do that while TIH wasn't running? That may mean using the Windows scheduler instead of TIH's, but that's doable.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Guy

 

Not as you would like. The next operation is persisted in the task definiton itself; TIH 2009 actually changes the "backup location" field in your task definition to remember what to do (you can see this in the task editor after the task is run).

What does work (mostly) is the "Create a new full backup after..." option on the Backup method dialog. I run my incremental task every night and have that option set to 8. My archive name is "user", so I get this result:

user.tib (full)
user2.tib
...
user9.tib
user(1).tib (full)
user(1)2.tib
...
user(1)9.tib
user(2).tib (full)
...
etc.

I say "mostly" because I have had it glitch twice in four cycles: once it went on to 10, and once it restarted after 7.

 

Unfortunately, I cannot let TIH decide when to do a full backup. I need to control when it does to manage network congestion.

I'll explore deleting the archive as well as the files and see how that works.

 

Using your method, can you delete the old backups without any problems (user, user2, user(1), user(1)2 etc.)?

Carol

 

If I go through the TIH UI, yes...

 

HUH? TIH = True Image Home, but what is UI? Sorry for me being so dense. Do you keep all the backups or do you delete them? What are your settings.

Thanks,
Carol

 

My testing has different results. I'd appreciate any comments on why I am not seeing what you describe.

I download a trial version of TIH 2009. Build number appears to be 9709. I set it up to make incremental backups every 15 minutes. Backups are written to E:\Backups directory.

I started it, it created A, followed by A2, A3, ... as you described.

I then erased all the TIB files in the backup directory from Windows Explorer, without shutting TIH down. On the next automatic backup, a full backup named A was created, followed by incrementals A2, A3, etc.

Then I erased the files again, rebooted, and again TIH created the same sequence of files: A (full), A2, A3, ...

After running the first incremental (A2), the XML database had been purged of A3, A4, etc. that I had erased.

In other words, TIH 2009 seems to be doing exactly what I want. Now that's a surprise!

Guy

 

User Interface. I mean you should delete archives from within TIH, not via Explorer or whatever.

I manually delete my backup sets after they're two months old or so. There's no way I've found to have TIH do this for me.

I have my incremental task set to make a new full after 8 incrementals.

 

Ah! Thank you. Let me see if I have this right. You highlight the backups you want to delete, and then either right mouse click and select remove or select remove from the top menu that shows up after highlighting a backup, correct?

Also, you don't consolidate do you?

Carol

 

Correct and correct.

 

Thank you so much for your help.

Carol