On Wed, 2008-06-25 at 07:03 -0400, Dan Langille wrote:
> On Jun 24, 2008, at 1:18 AM, Kendall Shaw wrote:
> 
> > I think I can't afford a tape backup system for my home (I think the
> > average computer user can't afford a tape backup system sufficient to
> > backup their computer, these days).
> 
> I bought a number of used DLT7000 tape drives and tested them.  I kept
> a few good ones and use them.  Prices varied betwen $50 and $150.
> 
> But I fear most of this thread has digressed from your original question
> which I think is asking for a strategy given your set of constraints.
> 
> > So, I can only afford to keep backups for the purpose of recovering  
> > from
> > hard drive failure, or restoring a file I deleted within the last week
> > or so. I have a "backup computer", that runs bacula, and I think I  
> > want
> > to have it rotate through volumes on the disk, where backups older  
> > than
> > a week vanish.
> >
> > How do you do this?
> >
> > What I'm doing now is having it do a full backup every week, during
> > which it's wiping out the previous week's full backup, since I'm not
> > ready to settle on having approximately double the disk space used  
> > to be
> > protected during that period. I also am not sure yet if I have enough
> > disk space to backup the other clients, even without using double the
> > disk space.
> 
> You really should have one full backup at all times, even when the
> new full backup is being created.
> 
> Consider not backing up data that can be 'easily' recreated.  For  
> example,
> the operating system.  I backup only the data that cannot be easily  
> recreated,
> such as source code, configuration files, etc.  I do not backup the  
> operating
> system which I can reinstall from CD.
> 
> > When I add another client it's going to be close to 24 hours per  
> > week of
> > backup activity for no purpose. Is there a better way?
> 
> Why do you think there is no purpose?

I really mean that there is no purpose to the majority of the full
backup, since most of it doesn't change. If I were writing it to
different media each time, it would make sense, but writing the same
bits over the same bits each week would not serve a purpose.

> > What I think would be ideal would be to have one and only one full
> > backup, and then have rotating differential and incremental backups.
> > But, if that means that I have to have file information continuously
> > accumulating, my catalog will get too big.
> 
> Yes, you could do that, by putting Full, Incr, and Diff backups into  
> different
> pools, each with different Volume retention periods

Ah! Thank you. It looks like that is what I should do.

Kendall

> > Is there a way to just have file information saved for job #1 (the  
> > first
> > differential that got bumped up to a full backup) and allow later jobs
> > to be autopruned?
> 
> Look at File retention versus Job and Volume retention.  These settings
> dictate how long the respective data stays in the Catalog.
> 


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