Creating Backup Schedules Questions

This pertains to DB 10 Pro.

Here is what I want to do. On a weekly basis I want to create a complete disk image. For the next six days, I want to create a differential backup.

So - I think I see how to do this with the scheduler - set up a 'partition backup' that runs once a week, then set up a differential backup that runs daily. Is this correct?

Now for the questions: When a full image partition backup is done (weekly as above), does it REPLACE the existing full backup or do I get another folder for the new image backup?

If it creates a new folder (ie, I have two complete image backups on my backup hard drive), then how do I go about automating the process to delete the old backups? Actually, I would like to maintain 3 or 4 weeks worth of backups and rotate the oldest off the end as I create a new one. How can I do this?

And if the image backup is just simply overwritten by a new backup, is there anyway to stop this behavior so that I could create archival backups as above?

Thanks.

 

When you schedule a weekly backup, there's the option to regenerate unique names. If that feature is disabled, the same image will be overwritten every time the backup runs. If you want to incorporate a weekly backup that overwrite itself with differential backups, schedule the differential backup as you normally would, and as long as the basic image is the same name and location, your differential will always reflect the changes of your current computer and the at most 1 week old base image.

For instance:

Sunday: Basic image is overwritten
Monday-Friday: Differential backups are made in comparison of the current system and Sunday's base image.
Sunday: New base image overwrites the old one.
Cycle continues.

However, your differential backups also have the same option to "generate unique names". But if you have that option enabled and only setup ONE differential schedule to run daily, then you will only have one set of differential not 5. To have 5, you have to independently set 5 scheduled differential backups running, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday etc.

For instance:

Sunday: Basic Image
Monday: First Differential backup point to base image, on a weekly basis with unique names disabled.
Tuesday: Second Differential backup point to base image, on a weekly basis with unique names disabled.
Wednesday:.....

If you need the above backup, and only have one partition to backup, the Cyclic Backup makes it all easy. You simply set the max size, max number of backups to retain, and the program takes care of the rest; but only one partition per schedule, so setup more cyclic backups for additional partitions.

 

I am running B&R 10 Suite, and would like to do cyclic backups of 2 drives, containing a total of 7 partitions. This could be setup using the Cyclic wizard, but would be a challange to restore if a drive went belly-up.

Is it not possible, for someone cleverer than I, to modify the cyclic backup script to handle individual drives rather than individual partitions?

I would like to store 3 backups total, with the 4th backup overwriting the first one. Sort of a 3 backup pushdown stack. Between each backup, I swap out the drive, and store most recent backup off site.

Reed

 

Hello Reedm,

Just to summarize and clarify the steps below, I wrote up this tutorial to setup a two week scheme, but it's applicable to as many weeks as you need.

http://ftp.paragon.eu.com/support/DB10/Drive_Backup_10_Custom_Cyclic_Backup.pdf

 

Hello Paragon_Tommy,

What am I doing wrong. I cannot duplicate your suggested commands in B&R 10 Suite. I do not get the option to not hit Apply and to run another cyclic wizard. At the end of the wizard, there is a Backup Summary screen, with a note at the bottom stating "To start the backup process, click Next" When you click next, the next screen announces "Completing the Cyclic Backup Wizard" At the bottom of the screen is text stating: To close this wizard, click Finish" When you click Finish, the wizard closes and you are taken to the Scheduled Tasks Tab, where the task is shown. If you run the wizard twice, and create 2 scheduled tasks, they cannot be selected simultaneously. The Generate Script option remains greyed out.

In other Paragon backup programs, at the conclusion of the initiation of a backup, I am often taken to a window that asks if I want to Apply or Discard the operation. That option seems not to be available in B&R 10 Suite.

How do I enable that option.

Reed

 

Reedm,

Instead of selecting "Schedule Backup", choose "Backup Now", finish the Wizard, once you're back on the main interface with the Apply button lit up, begin another wizard. Do the same "Backup Now" for the second wizard, once it's finished, go to Changes and Save to Scheduler.

 

Hello Paragon_Tommy,

That approach works fine for Smart Backup in B&R 10 Suite. However, in B&R 10 Suite, going to Wizards>Backup Utilities>Cyclic Backup, when I follow the Cyclic Backup Wizard, I get no option to "Backup now", with the Apply and Discard checks highlighted. It just schedules the backup and closes the wizard. Could you please post the exact steps to set up the scheduling as you mentioned in your previous posting. I can't create several schedules to be subsequently combined with the Changes>Generate Script tool.

Reed

 

Hello Reedm,

You are correct. Unfortunately there's no easy way of stacking up two cyclic backup into one scheduled task. I'm looking at the scripts now and trying to gut the thing apart to include two tasks. I'll have to do some testing to make sure it's sound and reliable. For now, you may have to just scheduled two backups running hours apart.

I'll get back to you.

Regards,
Tommy

 

Hello Paragon_Tommy,

Just as I feared. We can't stack up multiple cyclics. If you do figure out the script, please try to extend it to 3 cyclic backups, and then overwrite the oldest. To get greedy, I would also hope for a way to do drives instead of partitions, and multiple drives at that.

If you have some thoughts on any of this, please pass them along, and I will code and experiment a bit, too.

Reed

 

Hello Reedm,

There's a way to setup multiple scheduled task to replicate a cyclic backup that will work with multiple partitions, and multiple sets that run in alternating weeks. Let me know if you're interested and I'll try to write this up.

 

Hello Paragon_Tommy,

That sounds like what I am trying to do. 3 cyclic backups onto an external backup drive, and the 4th cyclic backup overwrites to oldest one, so I always have the 3 most recent backups.

Each cyclic backup should consist of all the partitions from each of 2 drives. Ideally, I would just select the drives, as I do now when scheduling a regular backup. If I had to select all the individual partitions, that would be a bother, but could be done.

The task should have all the normal scheduling setup options available now.

If the resulting script was thoroughly annotated, I could modify the script to fit changing backup requirements. Such as more or fewer hard drives and their associated partitions to be backed up. Since I am not yet a scripting expert, such modifications would probably involve a bit of trial and error, but that is fine.

Thanks again for your generous offer, I accept.

Reed

 

Updated DOCUMENT:

http://ftp.paragon.eu.com/support/DB10/Drive_Backup_10_Custom_Cyclic_Backup.pdf

Paragon Drive Backup™ 10 - Custom Cyclic Backup Tutorial
Introduction:
In this tutorial, we explore methods to expand beyond basic backup schemes to provide additional efficiency and data protection without sacrificing resources. Essentially, overcoming the following limitations:

• Create complex cyclic backup scheme to include multiple partitions and hard drives.
• Applicable to multiple sets of backups, custom number of week cycles
• Maintain updated base-images and reduce differential backup size
• Provide additional fault tolerance

For this scenario, there will be two set of full backups and 5 set of differentials for each. A total of 12 backup archives will perpetuate for 2 weeks, maintaining the 2 latest weeks of backups. Understanding the process and methodology will make it applicable and expandable to multiple sets.

For demonstration, Week 1 full backup will begin Sunday, August 1st and Week 1 differential backups will run August 2nd to August 6th (Monday to Friday); while Week 2 full backup will begin Sunday, August 8thand Week 2 differential backups will run August 9th to 15th. This cycle repeats and overwrites its respective archive.

Week 1:
Sunday – Week 1 Full Base Image
Monday to Friday – Week 1 Differentials

Week 2:
Sunday – Week 2 Full Base Image
Monday to Friday – Week 2 Differential

STEPS:
1. To schedule the first week full backup, click on Smart Backup, Disk or Partition, and select the disks or partitions to backup. Check Change backup settings, and press Next.

2. In the Advanced Backup Settings, uncheck Enable image splitting. This option will simplify archive management but limits how archives can be stored (on CD/DVD or FAT32 if exceed 4GB size).

3. Proceed with the wizard to select the storage location. In the Scheduler, set task to perform Weekly, uncheck Generate Unique Names for scheduled backups, change Run the Task on to the next available Sunday, in this case August 1st and Every 2 week(s) with only Sunday selected.

4. Specify user name and password if the computer is logged out or locked during the time of backup.

5. REPEAT the same wizard to schedule our second week full base backup. Run the task on will be set to the following Sunday, August 9th.

In summary, there is now two scheduled backups to run every 2 weeks and alternate between weeks. With Generate Unique names for scheduled backups disabled, the two images will be overwritten and updated every two weeks. Although the scheduled tasks are to run on Sundays, the full base backups need to be run once to create the differential backups.

6. Right-click each task in Scheduled Task tab and Run Now to backup immediately. REPEAT with the second scheduled full backup.

7. After the 2 full base archives are created, run the Differential Partition Backup wizard, select the week 1 archive if listed or switch to File Level View and locate the week 1 PBF file. In the following screen, a list of all the partitions backed up in the base image. By default, the program will save the differential backup in a sub-directory of the base folder. Change the differential archive name, for example “differential_day”.

8. In the differential backup Scheduler, set task to perform Weekly, uncheck Generate Unique Names for scheduled backups, change Run the Task on to next available Monday, August 2nd and Every 2 week(s)with Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday selected.

9. Specify user name and password if the computer is logged out or locked during the time of backup.

10. REPEAT the same wizard to schedule the second differential backup. Set Run the task on to the following Monday, August 9th.
In summary, we setup two differential backups to run 5 days a week, every 2 weeks and overwriting itself. In its current state, it will only retain 1 set of differential and we need 5.

11. In the Scheduled Task tab, right-click the differential task and Edit Script.

12. Take a look at the following lines in the script, for example:

We need to change the differential backup path to include a string to change the differential archive directories every day. If the backup runs on Monday, it is written to a Monday folder and same for Tuesday, Wednesday, etc.

13. REPEAT this to multiple lines for every partitions being backed up. After a week of differentials, you will have 5 sub folders of differential_Monday, differential_Tuesday, etc.

14. REPEAT steps 11 and 12 for week two differential backup script.

 

Hello Tommy,

OK, thanks. I will give this methodology a try and report back. It may be sometime before I am back, to give this system a chance to work.

Again, Thanks

Reed