RE: [ActiveDir] OT - Differential Backups..

[Craig Cerino]

Differentials do just that – they refer to the inventory from the full backup (with out a need for the tape) and back up only the info that has changed since that inventory. We do FULLs every night.  We don’t do differentials - not because we don’t like them or anything like that – we just like to have a daily FULL set.  We have a LOT of boxes too. Every morning 11 tapes for our I-Series boxes (8 3590 and 3 SLR) and 6 DLT tape (that grab info from 10 different NT based systems) go into the media cabinet. Our FRI/SAT and SUN (weekly) tapes go off site for three weeks. Daily tapes (Monday – Thursday) are rotated every two weeks.   The Monthly Full Saves and year End saves are on a different schedule that is way more info than you’re looking for here.   From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Frank Abagnale Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 2004 10:53 AM To: Active Subject: [ActiveDir] OT - Differential Backups..   Hi all,   I currently do Full backups on all my network servers to a tape library system. Each morning I take our the tapes from the library which have backed up the servers and they are sent off site. Due to the size of the data and the backup window I have, I need to think about alternative options to Full Backups.   I have read about Differential backups, from what I have read, it requires One full backup, then every night after that intil it does the next full backup it backups up only the files which have changed since the last full backup.   My questions are:   1. Does a differential backup require a Full Backup to be placed inside the tape library for referral, or does the differential backup compare it's data to the catalog from the last full backup?   2. What's the general practice for you guys in your environment, do you take out your differential backups from the library each morning and send them off site, or do you only send off your Full Weekly backups and not worry about the differentials. For the latter I struggle to see what you would gain by doing that.   thanks for your advice. Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage! Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish.