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| Author | Scheduling multi-generational backups under vintage MacOS (Read 112 times) | ||||||||||||||||||
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68040
512 MB  Posts: 971 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done ! |
on: April 13, 2026, 16:44
One thing that always bothered me about my vintage system was the seeming inability to generate automated multi-generational backups for a prolonged period. Retrospect can't handle datasets larger than 2GB if saved to file and I obviously can't connect a SCSI DAT drive to an emulator running on an ARM64 tablet. :O I tried my luck with Synk Pro, but that app is so badly written, that the run files it stores randomly change target destinations upon launch. Utterly unacceptable for automated execution. Tri-BACKUP was my biggest disappointment. It looked so good and it seemed so easy to set up. Until I found that it refuses to overwrite files in the backup target if their timestamp is more recent (happens frequently when backing up to a fiel system connected to another host) unless you-confirmed-each-file-separately. I got fed up with ti after the first 100 or so "OK" button pushes. Also, it just can't digest certain file names w/o crashing. Then by sheer happenstance my malnourished brain discovered the "sub-volume" pushbutton in the Retrospect config dialog box. And suddenly the sun went up. I could now split large drives into multiple subvolumes, containing only those dirs that change frequently. Each [collection of] sub-volumes stays under 2GB in size, which means with compression I can store quite a number of generations in each backup set. Last not least I utilized Retrospect Run Docs in combination with T-Minus to get a user friendly scheduler set up. After a week of testing I can confirm, that my important data is finally secured as it should be. Vintage computing does not have to be any less safe, than present day "cement sack" systems. |
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Last Edit: April 13, 2026, 16:46 by 68040
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ovalking
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128 MB Posts: 204
Reply #1 on: April 13, 2026, 20:41
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> Retrospect can't handle datasets larger than 2GB Did you realise this is the limit of Retrospect's catalog file? This is not the limit of actual data or volume being backed up. I have used Retrospect 4.0 for a long time and the catalog file limit has not been an issue. It is possible for a catalog file to reach 2GB but it takes several source volumes/files/years! When it does you can just start a new storageset and catalog. My storageset currently consists of about 70 DDS tapes and growing. I think it more likely a tape drive will fail before reaching the catalog limit. w
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 971 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #2 on: April 14, 2026, 15:42
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I think I wrote in my post, that I am not able to connect a SCSI DAT drive to my tablet.  I doubt anybody could. Therefore I have to backup to file and then MacOS 8.1 very much enforces a 2GB limit for the backup set itself.
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ovalking
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128 MB Posts: 204
Reply #3 on: April 15, 2026, 13:20
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Sorry, I think I've misunderstood your setup - not sure if you are backing up to tape or not. And I've no idea how to backup a tablet... Yes, the Mac OS has a 2GB file limit. But for a sequential storage system like tape (that does not show in the Finder) that limit is irrelevant. One of my storagesets is about 900GB! I guess if you are trying to backup direct to an HFS(+) volume the 2GB might be a problem.
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68040
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512 MB Posts: 971 68k - thy kingdom come, thy will be done !
Reply #4 on: April 16, 2026, 02:55
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Backing up to another disc volume wouldn't do me any good in case of a disaster recovery. I'm running my system of a custom compiled version of B-II, within an chroot'ed Debian Linux on an ARM64 tablet. So that means I got to be able to start a complete system rebuild from within Linux, which means I need to export my backup sets to the host FS. Thus I created a backup dir on the Linux side and have Retrospect write its data sets into that directory structure. My host FS could handle terrabyte sized data files. But MacOS 8.1 on 68k won't permit sizes beyond 2GB.
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