From: Carl W. S. <ch...@re...> - 2007-08-27 16:49:29
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On 08/26 04:38 , Holger Parplies wrote: > Carl Wilhelm Soderstrom wrote on 21.08.2007 at 09:04:40 [[BackupPC-users] wishlist: full backups whenever incrementals get too large]: > > [...] > > Would it be reasonable to have backuppc check the time used by the last > > incremental against the time used by the last full, and if it's taken longer > > to do the incremental, then automatically do a full backup next time? (Of > > course, make a note in the logs as to why this was done). > > no, not unconditionally. > 1.) Bandwidth or backup duration may not be the primary concern. Maybe an > individual setup can tolerate longer backups better than more server or > client load. > 2.) Duration of a backup is no accurate measure for the amount of data > transferred. Maybe there is a completely different reason why the > incremental backup takes significantly longer (like server/client usage > or even a network problem limiting bandwidth to a fraction of the normal > value). The point is: you can't tell if a full backup would have been > faster under the exact circumstances of the incremental. > 3.) Running a full backup in the middle of the week (or at any time it's not > supposed to be run) may be problematic for some setups (eg. you've tuned > your BackupPC server to run full backups for different machines on > different weekdays). Your points are good. Thank you for raising them. I had inklings of such problems, but thank you for articulating them. It still may not be unreasonable to offer people the option of advancing the next full backup. Perhaps send a warning message in the nightly e-mails that the latest incremental took longer than the last full? Ideally, I'm thinking of a link in the Host Summary page which warns that the last incremental took longer than the last full, and says 'click here to make the next backup a full backup' or something like that. Just some ideas for discussion. :) -- Carl Soderstrom Systems Administrator Real-Time Enterprises www.real-time.com |