There is some stuff I still don't understand here, and I'd like to avoid learning the hard way. For instance, I never realized that "File Retention" referred to the individual file records in the database, not to the actual files on backup. So I ended up losing many of my File records (learning the hard way), when what I really wanted was for the volumes containing those files to be made available for re-use when necessary. So now I *think* I have accomplished this by setting Job Retention and File Retention to 365 days, and Volume Retention to 30 days. I would assume that, after 30 days since the last time a Volume was written, it will be available for recycling, but I won't lose the database records when that happens. In my case, I'm only using Bacula for a dozen or so systems and VMs at home as clients, so I'm not overly concerned with the size of the database.
What good does it do to have database records for files that are no longer available, you may well ask? I use Copy jobs to copy my online backup media to my archive backup media. The former is just one big disk, the latter is a series of disks inserted in an external USB caddy, implemented with vchanger. I periodically run Copy jobs to copy backups from the main disk to the vchanger, so that if the main disk volume gets recycled, the files still exist on the vchanger. Since these are separate Pools, I can and do set the Volume Retention differently for each. But my impression is that the Copy jobs don't really create separate File records. File Retention seems to be set only on a per client basis, so if I want to be able to do full-feature restores from the vchanger, I need to keep the File records around even if the volume in the main backup Pool has been recycled. Am I understanding how this works correctly? Next question is about volume purging. How does Bacula determine when it is time to recycle a volume? Will it do this automatically after the Volume Retention period has expired? How exactly is the Volume Retention period measured? (Meaning, if I set it to 30 days, it's 30 days from when?) When a volume expires, does it immediately become unusable, or only when space is needed? When space is needed, will Bacula automatically use a volume that is past its retention period, or do I have to do something manually to make the expired volumes available? Sorry to be so dense here. I have spent a lot of time reading the online docs, and I've been using Bacula since August, but some of this is still not clear to me. Thanks, --Greg ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rapidly troubleshoot problems before they affect your business. Most IT organizations don't have a clear picture of how application performance affects their revenue. With AppDynamics, you get 100% visibility into your Java,.NET, & PHP application. Start your 15-day FREE TRIAL of AppDynamics Pro! http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=84349831&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk _______________________________________________ Bacula-users mailing list Bacula-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
