Help - scripts for a backup strategy

[Guest]

[FBTFQYCS]

I am trying to work out the scripts for a monthly backup strategy thus:

•   Day 1:         full backup
•   Days 7, 14, 21, 28:   differential backups
•   Other days:      incremental backups

I want to retain the full back for last month when I am creating the full backup for the current month. Similarly, I do not want to overwrite the differential and incremental backups for the previous month, week or day.

I know CBU has the macro facility to add revision and increment numbers to the destination file name. If I use the revision number to create a new full backup each month, that will work fine. However, when I create the differential and incremental backups the file name of the baseline will have changed each month as the revision number increases. This means I will have to change my scripts for the differential and incremental backups each month. Is there any way, I can avoid this?

Any comments and suggestions will be most welcome.

[Emanuel Sescu]

Hi

Here is what you can do:

Define 3 jobs:

1) full backup, run every 1st day of the month. Let's say backup full path is "D:\MyBackup.cbu"
Add a task to run before backup (.bat file) to move "D:\MyBackup.cbu" to "D:\OldBackup\MyBackup.cbu". Destination directory must exist. Make sure you check the "wait for task to complete" option.

2) Create an incremental backup job to run weekly (every day except Sunday) to be saved in the same file
"D:\MyBackup.cbu"

2) Create a differential backup job to run weekly (every Sunday) to be saved in the same file
"D:\MyBackup.cbu"

This will help you keep all your backups from last month in "D:\OldBackup\MyBackup.cbu" file and all your backups from the current month in "D:\MyBackup.cbu" file.

Just make sure you use version 4 for this, because version 3 still has some issue with appending a backup to same file. Version 4 can be found here.

Edit: There isn't a easy way to create scripts exactly the way you want, but I hope the above helps.

Thanks

[FBTFQYCS]

Hello Emmanuel

Many thanks indeed for your suggestions. The simplicity of your approach is most appealing. 

I must admit I had not considered using the Run Task Before Backup option in the way you have recommended.

My only reservation about using v4 is that it is still in beta testing and, therefore, potentially unstable.

Once again, thanks very much

Stellios

PS. Creating scripts isn't too much hassle. I use CBU's export facility and then I tweak as necessary with the CBU's comprehensive command line parameters.

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