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

[macjonte]

I'm looking for alternatives to SilverKeeper, since it can't make backups to network drives.
After checking like 10 different backup applications I found this one on recommendation. (gee, there is a lot of bad backup apps out there)

This seems to do same job as SilverKeeper, except for the nice thing to save everything into a sparse image, a solution I like a lot. Much better to do backup of the backup server with 10 sparseimages than one million files.

but, what happens if the computer was turned off when the scheduled time occurs? SilverKeeper runs the backup when the computer is tuned on again.

Besides, I find it too bad to not be able to test the entire app before buying it. let me try 10 backups or 20 days or something. I'm interested if it can be something that fit my demands.

[dnanian]

Hi, macjonte. 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.

As far as demo limitations are concerned, please read my blog post The Limited. That explains why we do what we do, and offers a solution for you as well.

[loosegroove]

Perhaps using a program like Anacron would help ensure that a missed task gets run once the computer is turned back on.

http://members.cox.net/18james/anacron-tiger.html

--
Bronson

[macjonte]

Originally Posted by dnanian

Hi, macjonte. 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.

As far as demo limitations are concerned, please read my blog post The Limited. That explains why we do what we do, and offers a solution for you as well.

Looking forward to that improvement, very important for us.


*reading The Limited*
You have thought about evaluation opportunities in a very sense way I think. I understand your point of view now.

/John

[dnanian]

If those skipped jobs are important, you can do it now. Follow the steps for the "OneTouch Button" in the FAQ, but instead of settings things up for the button, schedule with iCal, and tell iCal to run that little application as an alarm event. iCal will always show you pending alarms when you start, and you should be all set.

[gryphonent]

Dave,

Can you give any indication as to when the scheduling feature in SD will be improved? Roadmap or timeline?

I can see various posts here in the forums addressing this issue through AppleScripts and other helpers... but truth be told, I would expect SD to do these jobs out of the box! Especially given the price level this app is sold for. I’m not a technophile and have switched to SD for ease of use. However, since purchasing the app it has not been reliable when it comes to running scheduled jobs. Today I had the chance to be present at my Powerbook when the 11AM weekly backup sessions was skipped yet again. This is a serious shortcoming of SD and as a previous user of the more complex SynchronizePro! I start toying with the idea to return to this app or find yet another backup solution.

Don’t get me wrong, I like SD and appreciate your support and app... but it just doesn’t run scheduled jobs as it should. And this is a MUST! Also, if scheduled jobs don’t run for whatever reason, then they should kickstart the next time the computer is switched on and the backup drive is present.

[dnanian]

Sorry, Jurgen. I rarely if ever discuss planned features or timelines.

In general, forums contain posts from people having problems or asking questions, so I'd expect you to find various questions and problems here. We designed SD! to allow for these types of things, as the replies indicate.

SD! is reliable when running scheduled jobs. Your computer, however, has to be on and awake when the time comes to run the job: it's a documented requirement. If followed, the jobs run.

That isn't to say things can't be enhanced to have other behaviors -- such as "back up once a week" as opposed to "on Friday at 1am". They're semantically VERY different, and I'd expect the first to run whenever my machine turned on after a week had gone by, whereas I would not for the 2nd. After all, on Saturday at 11am, it's not Friday at 1am.

If you want those copies to run regardless, as I mentioned elsewhere, please follow the steps in the "OneTouch" FAQ and schedule the little application with iCal. iCal will fire its "alarm" (and thus run the backup) even if the computer is asleep when the time arrives (as soon as you log back in).

Apart from that, though, I don't have any short-term solution for you: sorry!

[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?