When will the next scheduled backup be if copmuter was turned off?

[denke]

Originally Posted by dnanian

If the computer is turned off, we don't run "skipped" jobs, since they were scheduled for a specific date and time, and that time has past. But, we're looking at improvements to this for future versions.

Dave,
If you implement "improvements" to scheduling in future versions, I hope you retain the option for the current approach - to skip "skipped" jobs. I like it this way. One of the things that annoys me about Retrospect is this: when we come home after a weekend or vacation and turn our Macs back on, Retrospect immediately wants to run all the missed backups!

[dnanian]

We wouldn't eliminate the current method, denke. We'd likely add a different one that doesn't specify a specific time/date, but a "period".

[denke]

That would be cool, Dave.
I'd be tickled if it would allow me to alternate Smart Updates between two partitions on my external FW drive from one day to the next. I had set up an elaborate system of 4 schedules, trying to get SD! to backup on Sun-Tue-Thu-Sat of the 1st and 3rd weeks and Mon-Wed-Fri of the 2nd and 4th weeks to one partition and the inverse to the other partition. The "next" dates did not make sense to me, though, and left gaps. From one of your other posts, I see that the schedule is really based on days of the month, however, so I'll just backup M-W-F to one partition and Su-Tu-Th-Sa to the other. The idea is, if something goes terribly wrong during a backup (or a restore) and messes up both source and destination, I've got another backup.
None of the scheduled backups has ever run, however, though a couple of the "next" dates have come and gone. I'm supposing that I misunderstood the requirements. I'm always logged in, and my Energy Saver settings are for the computer to sleep Never, the display to sleep after one hour, and the hard disks to sleep when possible. Is this incorrect? Does "display unlocked" mean the display cannot be asleep? I take it from another post of yours that having the hard drives asleep should be okay. (Just in case, I've now scheduled Energy Saver to wake up the computer 1 minute before the backups are scheduled.)

[dnanian]

Unfortunately, relying on "cron" -- a system service -- to do scheduling has some disadvantages, including the fact that you schedule by "day" and "weekday" (actually, day OR weekday), but there's no concept of "weeks", so things get a little weird.

Anyway, the schedules should definitely run. Try setting one up for a few minutes from "now", then quit SD. Does it start and run?

[denke]

Sure did. Tomorrow I'll see how it does tonight on a "dozing" computer.

[denke]

It seems to have worked fine. It claims to be planning to do it again tonight, to the other partition. It looks as if it's working as planned. And it's so much easier to understand what is going on and what's going to happen than in Retrospect! And it's not in a proprietary format: I can see what's backed up! Excellent!

One cavil, though: I can't find a really quick and easy way to confirm that a scheduled backup went off as expected. I don't know how to see the log unless I run SD!, then click the Schedule button, then click Cancel to get rid of the sheet for making a new schedule - at which point I can see the Scheduled Copies page. (Interestingly, if I show the log without going to the schedule page, I get an earlier log - apparently from the most recent manual backup.)

It'd be nice if I could just (optionally) see something on my screen saying that the copy happened or didn't. Actually, the main copy page of SD! after a manual backup is very nice: all that green is comforting. I'd be glad to see that when I first check my Mac each day. But after a scheduled backup, SD! seems to quit, even when I select Do nothing from the Options page. Could this be an option? Or any kind of message that just waits to be dismissed, saying that the copy happened or didn't?

Btw, am I correct to suppose that once I've made my full "Erase then copy all files" backup, I can just keep making Smart Updates until I replace the Mac or the backup drive? No need to "refresh" the copy?

[dnanian]

You can, denke. Install Growl. Once installed, run SuperDuper! one time. Then, examine Growl's preference pane. There, you'll see four different notifications you can turn on, any one of which can be made "sticky": that is, it won't go away until clicked.

You can use any number of notification styles as well.

You don't really need to do an "Erase" to refresh the copy: Smart Update continues to ensure it's the same as the source. It won't hurt to do so, though, except by taking time.