Effect of Clear Backup Before Run

[cjdudek]

I thought when I selected "Clear Backup Before Run" it would eliminate old files that were deleted from the source, but looking at the shadow copy, the old files are still there. What is the point of "clear backup before run?" I am doing a backup to a different folder for each day of the week (Monday-Friday), so backing up deleted files seems to be taking up a lot of space. Is that because each of those backup jobs keeps 5 previous versions? Am I basically keeping 5 weeks of backups (because each job is done weekly)? Is there a way to limit the number of backups for each job from 5 to something less?

[Adrian (Softland)]

Hi,
FBackup keeps track of only one backup version. If you put the backup into a different folder each day, FBackup keeps track of the latest version only.

[cjdudek]

So can you tell me, then, why files no longer in my source folders show up in the backups? What does checking "clear backup before run" do? I thought that basically wiped the old backup clean and started with a completely new set of files.

[Adrian (Softland)]

Hi,
Let me explain you again.
The "clean backup before run" does delete the existing backup from destination and also the backup catalog for that job, starting with a new backup.
If you are doing a backup to a different folder every day using different backup jobs, you must run the cleanup for each job. The cleanup for one job will only delete the files from that job.
If you ever changed the backup destination folder, the catalog was also deleted then, so the backup in the old folder is no more related to the backup job. With other words, FBackup won't have control on the backup files from the old folder anymore.

[cjdudek]

OK, thank you for your answer.

[dayala]

Hi,
Let me explain you again.
The "clean backup before run" does delete the existing backup from destination and also the backup catalog for that job, starting with a new backup.
If you are doing a backup to a different folder every day using different backup jobs, you must run the cleanup for each job. The cleanup for one job will only delete the files from that job.
If you ever changed the backup destination folder, the catalog was also deleted then, so the backup in the old folder is no more related to the backup job. With other words, FBackup won't have control on the backup files from the old folder anymore.

But, this is dangerous. If the backup fails then you're left with nothing.

How does Fbackups handle the backup expiration? I see no configuration parameters for this. For example, when will the daily backups be recycled?

I want to keep no more that 7 days of Daily backups, how does Fbackup handle Daily backups?

Regards,

Dennis

[Adrian (Softland)]

Hi,

If the first backup fails, you are in the same position: you fix the problem and run the backup again. As long as you have the source files, you can run a new backup in case the previous backup failed for some reason.

FBackup will keep only one backup version. If you want to keep multiple backup versions, please try our commercial product: Backup4all.

[dmcross]

The previous backup files should not be deleted UNTIL the incoming backup is complete and tested, in my opinion.

[Adrian (Softland)]

Hi,

In our commercial edition (Backup4all), there is also another type of backup versions limitation which removes the old backup only after the new one is created.