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  #1  
Old 03-28-2006, 10:29 PM
ElNormo ElNormo is offline
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Keeping archive of files

Howdy,

I'm very interested in SuperDuper for backing up my shiny new Intel Mac Mini. I've got an external firewire HD which works very well. I plan on backing up my entire harddrive to the external HD to a bootable partition. This will save me in the event of a disk crash.

I'm also concerned about deleting or modifying a file and realizing it after-the-fact. Can SuperDuper keep an archive of file changes? I'm only interested in my user files, so the space required is much less.

Can I create another partition on my firewire disk to keep multiple backups of my user files? For instance, backup to the "monday" directory on Mondays. This would effectively keep seven days of user files ready to be restored.

Of course, if there's a cleaner way to accomplish this, I'm all ears!

Thanks for the great product, look forward to using it even more!

Norman
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  #2  
Old 03-28-2006, 10:35 PM
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dnanian dnanian is offline
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You can create a 2nd partition and use day-labeled sparse images to back up your user files, yes... that'd probably be the way to do it.
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  #3  
Old 07-08-2006, 07:31 PM
kez kez is offline
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Keeping archive of changed user files

Dave,

Can you elaborate on how one might make this work. I'd like to do the same thing with my user files, i.e., for any user file (not system file) that is changed or deleted today, keep yesterday's copy around, perhaps in a folder with yesterday's date, for as long as I want (e.g., until I discover there was a problem with what happened today).

This approach will hopefully save my butt if one of my users deletes a file on the file server and I don't discover it for a while, or a database file gets corrupted and it isn't apparent for a while.

I'm biased toward SD since it seems much more stable that some of the competing tools.

Thoughts? Thanks Dave.

Kez
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  #4  
Old 07-08-2006, 07:37 PM
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dnanian dnanian is offline
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Well, for example, you decide on the amount of rollback you want. Let's say you want a week's worth of daily rollback.

To get that, create seven "User File" Smart Update backups, each to its own image, named "Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", etc.

Schedule those for every week on the appropriate day, and there you go... they'll automatically "recycle" the backup a week later. (I'd also have a full backup, directly to a partition.)
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  #5  
Old 07-09-2006, 06:40 AM
kez kez is offline
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Keeping archive of changed user files

Thanks for your reply, Dave.

But I'm not sure we're on the same page yet.

My user's data files (not system files) are currently stored on a dedicated mirrored network volume (I'll call "Current"), so I'm all set with continuously backing-up the **current** version of those data files.

My goal is to find a low-maintenance way to automatically compare that collection of current data files with the collection of data files existing yesterday (or some other user-selected previous time), and automatically save, on a separate dedicated mirrored network volume (I'll call "Archives"), a copy of only those data files that were changed or deleted since yesterday (such as in a folder with today's unique date, e.g., 20060709).

I have a copy of the post-change (i.e., current) version of each such data file (in the correct location in the folder hierarchy) on the "Current" volume, so I don't need/want to save the post-change versions every day on "Archives".

I also definitely don't need/want to re-save the unchanged data files every day on "Archives", since those files also already reside on "Current" and they take up a **lot** of disk space.

I don't even need/want to save on Archives the locations of the changed files (i.e., precisely where they were located on "Current"), since other meta-data (e.g., filename, mod date/time, etc.) will help me manually resolve any ambiguities about whether I'm considering the right archived data file when I need to manually restore that data file to "Current" because someone deleted that data file or it got fouled up somehow.

Yet page 10 of the User Manual states:
"Smart Update... is similar, in that the result is an exact copy of the source."

And page 12 of the User Manual states:
"Smart Update.... When you click Copy Now, SuperDuper! will only make
the changes necessary – replacing, adding and removing files and folders –
to ensure the backup exactly matches the source; this will typically only take a few minutes."

So I'm confused by the suggestion to use Smart Updates. It seems that doing so will reproduce all the data files each day (thereby exactly matching the function of "Current" and taking up much much more disk space than needed), rather than storing only a copy of the files changed or deleted since yesterday (thereby achiving the goal for "Archive" and taking up relatively little disk space on that volume).

Would you elaborate a little further to clarify how Smart Updates works, and how it would work in this situation to accomplish the goal for "Archive"? Thanks so much.

Kez
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  #6  
Old 07-09-2006, 10:44 AM
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dnanian dnanian is offline
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Sorry, Kez. We don't do that the way you want...
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  #7  
Old 07-09-2006, 05:10 PM
kez kez is offline
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Even if the current version of SD will not provide the solution I am seeking, given the obvious effort this potential customer put into framing the goal and questions clearly, a more helpful reply would answer the presented questions in detail without further prompting.

Please. What did you have in mind when you made the suggestion to use Smart Updates to fulfill my goal? And how does Smart Updates work anyway? Thanks in advance for taking the time to thoroughly answer my questions.
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