Incremental backups from SOURCE, NOT BACKUP OF BACKUPS!

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flashlight
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Incremental backups from SOURCE, NOT BACKUP OF BACKUPS!

Post by flashlight »

I followed the instructions for setting up "incremental" backups per http://support.asustor.com/index.php?/K ... -installed

But this process seems rather pointless.

Let me explain

1) I use backup plan to create a backup from my windows 7 pc
2) The backup gets copied to an external drive/another asus nas
3) I can schedule/run an incremental backup of the BACKUP from the asustor to an external drive

Do you see the problem here? The incremental backup is going to be a backup of a backup. The only way an incremental backup would ever be current is after running a FULL BACKUP. if im running a full backup, just before running an incremental backup, what is the point of running the incremental backup?? i might as well just be duplicating/mirroring the backup to another drive rather than incrementally updating it.

The backup plan software should have incremental updates BUILT IN as a scheduleable update. Incremental backups are useless in their current form. My windows home server 2003 could do incremental backups, i would hope a NASbox 10 years later would have the same ability, instead of whatever this nonsense with rsync is.
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orion
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Re: Incremental backups from SOURCE, NOT BACKUP OF BACKUPS!

Post by orion »

I use Backup Plan (my PC -> nas) that is working correctly. I'm not sure that I fully understand your problem. The first time of the backup will be full copy. After I change some files, the next backup will only copy the modified files (incremental). That saves my time dramatically. Anything that I missed?
flashlight
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Joined: Mon Mar 03, 2014 4:23 am

Re: Incremental backups from SOURCE, NOT BACKUP OF BACKUPS!

Post by flashlight »

So on my win 7 pc in backup plan i have 3 options

http://www.asustor.com/images/admv2/014 ... zation.png

backup once
synchronization
schedule backup

How would I perform an incremental backup, to backup/change only the files that were modified? Based on what i had read, i needed to setup an rsync service to backup "archive" or incremental changes to another NAS or external drive. Which means incremental backup, of a full backup.
ho66es
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Re: Incremental backups from SOURCE, NOT BACKUP OF BACKUPS!

Post by ho66es »

I don't use the asustor backup software on my windows client but use cobian

http://www.cobiansoft.com/index.htm

also free, maybe not as pretty but much more configurable. I think it will do what you need
608t
flashlight
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Re: Incremental backups from SOURCE, NOT BACKUP OF BACKUPS!

Post by flashlight »

I havent tried it yet but how would cobian access the asustor nas? via ftp, or rsync? in terms of which services need to be running on the 604t
ho66es
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Re: Incremental backups from SOURCE, NOT BACKUP OF BACKUPS!

Post by ho66es »

flashlight wrote:I havent tried it yet but how would cobian access the asustor nas? via ftp, or rsync? in terms of which services need to be running on the 604t
I do it to a mapped drive, i believe it also supports ftp
608t
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orion
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Re: Incremental backups from SOURCE, NOT BACKUP OF BACKUPS!

Post by orion »

flashlight wrote:So on my win 7 pc in backup plan i have 3 options

http://www.asustor.com/images/admv2/014 ... zation.png

backup once
synchronization
schedule backup

How would I perform an incremental backup, to backup/change only the files that were modified? Based on what i had read, i needed to setup an rsync service to backup "archive" or incremental changes to another NAS or external drive. Which means incremental backup, of a full backup.
You can select "synchronization" or "schedule backup". "synchronization" should remove those files on destination side that do not exist on source side. That is the meaning of "sync" (source and destination will own the same contents). "schedule backup" should keep those files. It means destination can own more files than source after you delete some source files. In my experiences, the second backup action will deal with those modified files only. ;)
flashlight
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Re: Incremental backups from SOURCE, NOT BACKUP OF BACKUPS!

Post by flashlight »

Im just disappointed it doesnt have home server 2003 level backups. With a dated folder you could open, and see every file that was present on that date, including updated ones. I imagine the non changed files were hard links to previous backups, as they were incremental backups not a series of FULL backups every day.

Cobian is a decent backup program if i map the NAS but youd think 10 years later asus would have something comparable to this built in. I dont like synchronization because it does not allow for restoring deleted files. Though somewhere i recall a checkbox for deleting or not deleting missing files during a sync process.

I cant test it right now im rebuilding my raid 5 and its taking days and days
ho66es
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Re: Incremental backups from SOURCE, NOT BACKUP OF BACKUPS!

Post by ho66es »

I thought cobian did ftp? therefore map not required?
flashlight wrote:Im just disappointed it doesnt have home server 2003 level backups. With a dated folder you could open, and see every file that was present on that date, including updated ones. I imagine the non changed files were hard links to previous backups, as they were incremental backups not a series of FULL backups every day.

Cobian is a decent backup program if i map the NAS but youd think 10 years later asus would have something comparable to this built in. I dont like synchronization because it does not allow for restoring deleted files. Though somewhere i recall a checkbox for deleting or not deleting missing files during a sync process.

I cant test it right now im rebuilding my raid 5 and its taking days and days
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orion
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Re: Incremental backups from SOURCE, NOT BACKUP OF BACKUPS!

Post by orion »

flashlight wrote:Im just disappointed it doesnt have home server 2003 level backups. With a dated folder you could open, and see every file that was present on that date, including updated ones. I imagine the non changed files were hard links to previous backups, as they were incremental backups not a series of FULL backups every day.

Cobian is a decent backup program if i map the NAS but youd think 10 years later asus would have something comparable to this built in. I dont like synchronization because it does not allow for restoring deleted files. Though somewhere i recall a checkbox for deleting or not deleting missing files during a sync process.

I cant test it right now im rebuilding my raid 5 and its taking days and days
Sounds that I have not tried. You should try this function.