RoboCopy Backup Scripts

[ikon 439]

For your NearLine backup that looks fine. I want to mention 1 caution about using "/mir". It's the 'mirror' command. It makes the destination folder match the source folder exactly. The caution is that, if you accidentally delete a file in the source and the backup cycle takes place, the file will get deleted from the destination. On my email and client computer backup folders I do use it but, on my regular Server Folders backup I don't..... just in case It's your choice of course; just wanted you to be aware of the consequences.

[Jason 84]

Appreciate the advice. Erring on the side of caution, I'm going with your proven settings until I get some Robocopy experience under my belt. So far I've implemented Nearline. The first copy is lengthy. After will test Offsite and finally the script you use to launch them in sequence (via task scheduler). Nice that Robocopy is light on resources too!

[ikon 439]

RoboCopy is very light on resources -- no GUI after all

 

You're right, the 1st copy IS lengthy, but they get a LOT shorter after that, since a huge % of most peoples' data doesn't change. What won't get shorter is the Client Computer Backups. Basically, they change every day so, as far as RC is concerned, they're new or changed files every day. It's become the longest part of the backup for me, but it's still not bad. My NearLine backup takes about 38 minutes every day.

 

I like your step-wise approach: implement 1 thing, get it all working and debugged, move on to the next. Nice job.

[Jason 84]

Ikon, may I ask what your client backup retention settings are in WHS? While tasking the Nearline script with the /Mir switch, I've noticed it's taking quite a while to backup the client computer backups folder even over USB3. If it's doing a full folder backup, there may be more data than I need.

 

Mine are... Retain daily backups for 5 days, retain weekly backups for 4 weeks, retain monthly backups for 6 months. These are defaults in WSE12R2.

Edited May 23, 2014 by Jason

[ikon 439]

Sure, no problem. I have mine set for 22 days, 15 weeks, 13 months.

[Jason 84]

I'm try to do your task scheduler method (1 script):

 

call "BackupToNearLine_RoboCopy.cmd" %1
call "BackupToOffsite (AorB)_RoboCopy - Drive-B.cmd" %1

 

Doesn't seem to launch the offsite script no matter what I do.  Fires off the NearLine and completes successfully.  Doesn't call the Offsite script.  But if I launch the offsite script manually, it runs as expected.  I've tried everything: shorter script filenames, with/without quotes, etc.  Any ideas?

 

EDIT: the only way I could resolve this was by removing the 'exit' command from the end of script #1 (nearline).  The 'backup_script.cmd' would then consistently launch nearline script, complete successfully, then fire off the offsite script and EXIT at the end of it.

Edited May 25, 2014 by Jason

[ikon 439]

Interesting. Wonder why.

 

You now have 3 CMD files, right: the short 'launcher' one, the NearLine one, and the OffSite one?

[Jason 84]

Correct. Am launching the short file via task manager. As long as I use the step in my EDIT above, it works. Whereas both of your scripts - Nearline and offsite include an EXIT command at the end.

[ikon 439]

Like I said, interesting. But hey, it works; that's the important thing. Sounds like you're pretty much done.

 

BTW. when reviewing the logs, I use Notepad. After I open a log file, I first search for "retry". Ideally, it's not found at all. Then, I search for "ended :". This takes me to the summary section for each backup command, so I can easily see if any file copies failed.

[jmwills 284]

I now this isn't PowerShell but the following is an example of a script I run to call four others to run at the sam time:

 

cd c:\scripts\metrics
.\Get-SPSiteMetrics.ps1
.\Get-SPWebMetrics.ps1
.\Get-SQLStorageMetrics.ps1
.\Get-ClosedWebParts.ps1