6 replies to this topic

[kayache]

Question to those that use Robocopy or Allway Sync to backup their data. If I were to use one of these, I understand that I will have an exact copy of my hard drive and that I can restore to the state of the latest backup. But what do I set up so that I can also restore to a state previous to the last backup? Unless I misunderstand, I don't think robocopy or Allway Sync are the right tool for this - correct? Do you rely on Shadow Copy for this or is there a better or more common setup? I want to be able to roll back to a few weeks ago in case I accidentally deleted an important folder of files or something like that.

I know that I can use a number of third party backup programs that do the full and incremental backups, so if I choose one of these, I likely will not be using robocopy or allway sync. So, I am curious about those that are using Robocopy and Allway Sync - how are you handling this?

thanks

[kayache]

oops - how do I move this to the Backups thread?

[pcdoc]

There are a couple of things. First your true backups (i.e. via the WHS) are always versioned based on the parameters you have setup so you can always go back to a previous backup. Second, you can set file versioning in Allwaysync to a specific number (5, 10, 20, etc.) if that is what you want to do, or you can do both. It depends if you are talking about file restore or system restore.

[ikon]

AFAIK, you are correct, RoboCopy does not do versioning. If a file in the source directory has changed, that change will be reflected in the destination copy, and the former version will be gone.

Now, if it's just something like accidentally deleting a directory RoboCopy can handle this because its default behaviour is to add to what's already in the destination. IOW, it doesn't delete files or directories from the destination, unless you specify the /MIR paramater. The caveat for this method is that your destination folder will continue to grow in size over time.

[kayache]

pcdoc, I'll check into the file versioning with allway sync. I previously tested a backup and restore with it and it seems great, but I didn't see the versioning feature and thought it was purely sync capability - thanks a lot!. The 40,000 file limit would be a problem but I don't mind paying to handle that.

ikon, using /MIR was exactly what I was thinking, but that causes the versioning problem as you mentioned. That is what made me wonder how people using robocopy, which appears to be many, handle this. Looks like this issue with robocopy may be the big advantage of allway sync. thanks for the feedback.

The only reason I was looking at either of these is because of the 2TB limit for backups with WHS.

[ikon]

The 2TB limit is one main reason I use RoboCopy. The other is that I prefer to be able to get at my backup copies of files in their native format, without having to use some archive browser tool.

[pcdoc]

pcdoc, I'll check into the file versioning with allway sync. I previously tested a backup and restore with it and it seems great, but I didn't see the versioning feature and thought it was purely sync capability - thanks a lot!. The 40,000 file limit would be a problem but I don't mind paying to handle that.

ikon, using /MIR was exactly what I was thinking, but that causes the versioning problem as you mentioned. That is what made me wonder how people using robocopy, which appears to be many, handle this. Looks like this issue with robocopy may be the big advantage of allway sync. thanks for the feedback.

The only reason I was looking at either of these is because of the 2TB limit for backups with WHS.

Right click on the backup tab, select properties, and click on "file versioning". You can set what ever level you want.