Bacula-users

Re: [Bacula-users] What is the best to do ? I need some space.

2009-02-11 05:45:43
Subject: Re: [Bacula-users] What is the best to do ? I need some space.
From: Kevin Keane <subscription AT kkeane DOT com>
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 02:37:46 -0800
First of all, depending on your situation, I find that a full backup 
once a month, and weekly differentials, as you suggested, can be a 
pretty good schedule.

When you run out of backup space, ultimately the problem isn't the 
schedule but interaction between schedule and retention times. If you 
have, say, six month retention times for full backups, your proposed 
change in the schedule will accomplish not all that much. You also don't 
mention whether you are backing up to hard disk files or to tape - but 
since you mention "space" rather than "number of tapes" I'm assuming 
hard disk.

So what you would want to accomplish in the end is really to make sure 
you keep only two full backups of each client (you could even try for 
only a single backup, but at that point your data may not be quite safe 
any more, so I'd say, two is the minimum).

Keep in mind that you will always need space for a third backup - the 
one that is in progress or that has just completed.

You can accomplish that in two ways:

- stretch the schedule.
- reduce retention times.

So for the full backups, you should pick a retention time that is a 
little longer than twice the distance between backups (it has to be a 
bit longer because the you want the backup to stay around until *AFTER* 
the next one has finished). If you do go for monthly backups, make the 
retention time 65 days. I would use the same retention time for the 
differentials, and maybe 15 days for the incrementals.

After changing the retention times, you will need to restart the 
director and then update your pools and all the volumes that already 
exist in the pool. Otherwise, changes to retention times will only 
affect future backups.

Depending on your setup, you may also be able to add additional hard 
disks. Do one set of backups on the first disk, then the next set onto 
the second disk. That will keep your data much safer because you no 
longer rely on just one disk to store your precious data, and it will 
even allow you to take one disk off site - and at the same time, you 
double your disk space.

François Mehault wrote:
> Hi All
>
> I would like to know what the best to do is. Today, in my company, backups 
> are scheduled like this: Full every Sunday and Incremental backups other 
> days.  But resources becomes fully, I need to configure Bacula to take less 
> space. But also I need to preserve data safe. So I would like to schedule 
> backups like this: full backup on first Sunday of the month, differential 
> every other Sunday and incremental backups other days. Is it a good idea to 
> fix my problem? Have you some advice for me about my problem? My Bacula is in 
> version 2.0.3 (director, SD). I ask myself if I have to upgrade also.
>
> Thanks
>
> Regards
>
> François
>   

-- 
Kevin Keane
Owner
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