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
The NetTech
Find the Uncommon: Expert Solutions for a Network You Never Have to Think About

Office: 866-642-7116
http://www.4nettech.com

This e-mail and attachments, if any, may contain confidential and/or proprietary information. Please be advised that the unauthorized use or disclosure of the information is strictly prohibited. The information herein is intended only for use by the intended recipient(s) named above. If you have received this transmission in error, please notify the sender immediately and permanently delete the e-mail and any copies, printouts or attachments thereof.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Create and Deploy Rich Internet Apps outside the browser with Adobe(R)AIR(TM)
software. With Adobe AIR, Ajax developers can use existing skills and code to
build responsive, highly engaging applications that combine the power of local
resources and data with the reach of the web. Download the Adobe AIR SDK and
Ajax docs to start building applications today-http://p.sf.net/sfu/adobe-com
_______________________________________________
Bacula-users mailing list
Bacula-users AT lists.sourceforge DOT net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users