🚀 go-pugleaf

Re:  backing up your mac via Gatorbox to Sun-based tape.

I know of two programs that do this:  Fastback II and Retrospect.
I've purchased and tried both, prefer and use retrospect, but still
have some stability problems.

Since we have a backup scheme on our suns/etc. net (daily, weekly,
monthly, incremental and full), all I want is incremental from mac
to sun.  Fastback doesn't have that; it keeps adding newer copies
of files and the disk used on server(sun) grows and grows until
you manually go and delete it to start over.  Retrospect isn't smart
enough to back up only latest version of file, but it has a simple
work-around:  you can limit the size of the backup file on the server
(in either bytes or "sessions"=number of backup runs), after which
it erases the backup file and start over.  So, I set it to run to two
backup files alternately (MWF and TuThSa), with each set to reset itself
twice a month, with one resetting at start of month, other at mid-month.
In that way, even if disaster strikes just after one resets itself,
the other is available, at most a day out of date.

Also, I like unattended backup.  Fastback doesn't really have that, because
you must leave the application (fastback, >1MB) running for it's
auto-scheduler to kick in.  Retrospect does have it, via an INIT that
will automatically launch retrospect at scheduled days/times (e.g.,
middle of the night).  Works great.

Other programs I've tried (Redux, SUMII, etc.) do not work to server.
There are a couple that I didn't try, and might work (I've forgotten
the names, but they have "net" in them, which is encouraging), but
when I called customer support for them, they didn't understand what
I wanted to do -- seemed to be thinking only of tapes and macintosh
servers -- so I chose not to spend the money to try them.

Minor quibbles:  Retrospect's user interface is better than fastback's,
but not as good as redux's.  It's sometimes confusing, in retrospect,
whether your choices of which files to back up will be saved (in the
"script" for unattended backup) or not -- strange things need to be
done to ensure that.  Not terrible, but...

Major quibble:  I don't know if this is just me, but I do have problems
with Retrospect occasionally hanging.  (It was worse with fastback!)
I really don't know why, but the symptoms (hangs immediately on trying
to open backup file on server, with appletalk arrows frozen in upper
left corner of screen) suggest a network problem.  I've seen it only
when backing up to server through gatorbox, and not when backing up
locally.  This seems to happen about once a week.

I've reported this to makers of both Retropsect and Gatorbox and they
are both trying to be helpful.  In the meantime, I have developed the
following work-arounds, which are important because sometimes rebooting
from these hang-ups can damage disk to the point that Disk First Aid
can't fix it, and I have to reformat.  First, I've turned off ram
cache.  I'm guessing that cached disk directory structures that aren't
posted to disk when I push the restart button after a hang could cause
the corruption, or make it more likely to happen or worse when it does
happen.  Second, I've saved a copy of retro.prep, and whenever crash
occurs, I copy a clean one.  This file is created automatically in the
system folder by retrospect and contains your configuration junk (scripts,
calendar, etc.).  So, again, I start fresh (trash any previous copy),
create scripts, calendar for unattended backup, set preferences, etc.,
and then, without actually doing a backup, quit immediately and copy
retro.prep so I know I have a good copy.  It seems that crashes often
corrupt the retro.prep file, causing further crashes/hang-ups.  I suspect
that the combination of these two things may significantly reduce
my crashes/hang-ups, but I don't yet have enough data to be sure.

Another point: backing up to across the network, while *much* faster than
floppies, is *much* slower than backing up to daisy-chained scsi
hard disk.  If you can afford the latter, it's nice.  Now, if backup
occurs in middle of night, maybe you don't care, but once you get
several macs on the net, and other things happening on the net, ...
Also, I'd recommend backing up only what you need to backup, not the
standard system and application stuff, which can be over half the
disk space on typical macs.  We maintain standard System and Applications
Folders for all macs on the net, so only need to back up those once.

Good luck.

-Drew Wade
drew@objy.com