Will newly created files be included in the backup list for the job after the job runs?

[milosh]

Hi,

I have a particularly long backup that runs a few days for a full backup. It consists of over 9 millions smail files.  My question is that during the period when this full backup is running, will any newly created files be backed up in this full backup job? or will it only be backed up in the next run?

PS:  We are using HP DataProtector 6.1, & both the backup server & the client are windows 2003 servers.

Thanks.

- milosh.

[thomasr]

My guess is that some of them are going to be backed up and some not -- that is, if you have directories A and C, and have selected the directories themself (instead of individual files in the directory) or a parent directory for backup:

I'm pretty sure that files created in C while A is being backed up will be backed up.

I am pretty sure that files created in A after the backup of A has completed and it's backing up C will not be backed up.

I don't know what will happen to files in a directory that are created during the backup of that particular directory.

Perhaps there's a way to optimize your backup?

At the very least, I would think that you could run an incremental backup as soon as the full backup finishes; this should complete much quicker, and therefore get most everything new.  The issue will still be that you'll be significantly unprotected for files created inbetween the start of the backup and the end of the incremental.

Is there a lot of these files that are pretty static?   Does the application permit segregating them in their own directory, so that you can remove them from the critical "newer files" backup?   

Could you run a full backup and then set that tape aside as an archive tape, and from then on your "full" backup will specify that only files created since that archive full started get backed up?  (that is, we start a full backup at 12:10 AM on 10 March 2011.   Whatever gets backup up, wonderful   We set that aside as our archive master.   From now on, our full backup will be all files created or modified after 12:05 AM on 10 March 2011).   Periodically, you'll run a new "archive full" and reset the create/modify date of the "pseudo fulls" to mate with that archive full.

Or -- use Data Protector's Incremental Forever feature.  This uses a disk-to-disk backup intermediary.  It runs one full backup, and then forevermore you do incremental backups.    Periodically (once a week, once a month, whatever your business needs determine) you will create a "synthetic full backup" which copies all the files to tape as if you'd run a full backup at that point in time.    Since the actual daily backup is always an incremental, you'll never again have a backup that takes days to complete, and yet the synthetic full capability means you'll still have a single physical tape with a complete backup on it.  It will cost you some disk, but add a great deal of simplicity to your backup methodology.