Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Auto back up to multiple locations

Hello community
Can you tell me if it is possible to program multiple scheduled auto back ups to multiple locations just for the purpose of redundancy on different locations in the case one of my back up locations fails.

Thanks

Dru

Hi,

I've set up clients to use AC to back up to the AC limit of 3 shared network partitions on 3 other computers on older AC versions.

Autodelete took care of deleting older backups on the server and the 3 other computers.

Most Windows systems now ship with a single ridiculously large C: partition, say 900gb on a 1000gb drive (100gb or so is used for the utilties, restore, and other irrelevant partitions).

Create a folder on C:, share it, and leave it on at night to receive the AC backup over the network.

Check file dates and times to see how long it takes, given your data, server, and network.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

This is straightforward if you are talking about different locations that can be mapped as network drives to be mounted and written to - if different locations are typically "air-gapped" i.e. they require a remote log-on at time of write, that is beyond what the AC backup software can do.

There are other solutions, but they require additional software - typically licensed, or more skilled implementation, e.g. WINscp scripting.

If you have a specific use-case in mind, please expound.

Let me see if I understand. So with AC program you can can only schedule one back up location. You can not program a back up to lets say drive F at 1:00 AM then to drive G at 3:00 AM. Is this correct?

Good afternoon Dru,

Amazing Charts has the ability to backup to more than one location. Run Amazing Backup as Administrator. Once the screen opens click on Advanced Settings. In here you can specify up to three backup locations, in addition to the backup that is saved on the drive Amazing Charts is installed. In version 10.1 slated for a later Q4 release, you will have the ability to not have the backup saved on the drive the application is installed on.

Hi Dru,

As ChrisT explains, you can configure AC to back up to 3 extra locations.

Assume AC backup is configured to go to server and 3 other computers.

Everything starts at 10pm and goes in this order:

AC_bkup --> server
AC_bkup --> computer1_shared_network_drive_folder
AC_bkup --> computer2_shared_network_drive_folder
AC_bkup --> computer3_shared_network_drive_folder

You need a shared network folder on each computer receiving the backup.

You can use autodelete.exe to automatically delete the oldest backups, day by day:

https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/cyber_ds_autodelete.html

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

Thanks

You have to be careful. First, four backups (including the default backup) is a bit of overkill. Plus ransomware loves shared folders. You may come in with every backup encrypted.

You should be able to back one up to a USB external drive or online. If you back up to a USB drive and remove it, it is air-gapped and golden. Especially if you rotate it and take it hope.

Remember, the most important backup is the backup of the whole computer nightly.

Should the boxes for images and imported items be selected?. I noticed when this was set up those boxes where not selected. I when ahead and selected them now and ran the back up, the data was much larger than prior.

Hi Dru,

AC separates the relatively small SQL database from a huge folder full of the individual files that are imported items and scanned images.

This lets AC run a version update after a quick backup of just the SQL database, which may modify, add, and delete fields in the database.

(The SQL database includes small fields that contain just the path to each image and scan instead of the enormously larger files themselves.)

But yes, you normally want a full (and slower and larger) backup of everything, since you don't want to lose your images and scans.

How many backups you can do overnight depends on how fast your server is, how early you start, and how many scans and images you have. Most scanners and cameras can be configured to make much smaller files that are quite readable and viewable.

Cheers,

Carl Fogel