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volume retention and disk space
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Post volume retention and disk space 
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One more thought on this. Has anyone tried changing the time stamp on a
volume (so bacula thinks it's retention period is passed) and what affect
does this have in the big picture? In other words, would bacula get
confused by this?

I realize this wouldn't be best practices by any stretch. I'm only looking
at all ways I can retain part of a very large volume of data. Thanks.

On 5/29/07, Bob Gamble <kiksadiweb < at > gm...> wrote:

Well that clears pretty much all those questions up for me. Thanks very
much for the quick response.

On 5/29/07, Arno Lehmann < al < at > it...> wrote:

Hi,

On 5/29/2007 9:35 PM, Bob Gamble wrote:
Hello,

When I first started using bacula about 5 months ago, I used one
volume for everything.

Oh. That's not really a good idea.

All seemed to be fine until I realized how
quickly I was going to use up the 2.5 terabytes. At the time, I
wrongly assumed six months would pass and I would have plenty of space
after the volume was recycled.

Now, I have very little space left. I've split each backup into their

own pools (as described in
http://www.bacula.org/dev-manual/Automated_Disk_Backup.html
< http://www.bacula.org/dev-manual/Automated_Disk_Backup.html>) and
the
large volume is no longer being written to as of the first week of
May. If I understand the documentation correctly I can recapture hard

drive space like this:

Change the VolRetention period to three months instead of six (which I
did)

Set Autoprune and Recycle to Yes

I'm hoping the VolRetention is measured from when the volume was first

used, which is back in January or February,

No, the retention period starts when the volume was last used.
Otherwise, you might lose valid backups.

and that even though the
available disk space on the bacula server shows less than 100 gb left,

it will overwrite space that has been taken up by the single large
volume when another volume needs the space.

No, it will overwrite th huge volume only when it's recycled, which will
not happen before the retention time has passed.

That is essentially my question. If I understand correctly, since
bacula holds on to data as long is it can until more space is needed,
will the bacula server at some point, always have a full hard drive?

Not necessarily. In your setup, though, probably.

If I'm wrong, when does it clear the space taken by expired retention
periods? I wonder what options I have to save the last three months
of backups from the large volume while removing the backups whose time
has expired. Is there a way to do this?

Set up migration (you'll need a second sorage device for it which could
use the same archive directory) and migrate the valid jobs from the huge

volume. Afterwards, manually recycle that volume. When it's re-used,
Bacula will truncate it and your disk space will look much nicer :-)

Or do I need to just remove
the large volume to make more space? Thank you for any tips.

That would be the simplest solution, but you will lose some backups you
might consider valuable.

Arno

--
BobG



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--
IT-Service Lehmann al < at > it...
Arno Lehmann http://www.its-lehmann.de


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Post volume retention and disk space 
Hi,

On 6/5/2007 2:31 AM, Bob Gamble wrote:
One more thought on this. Has anyone tried changing the time stamp on a
volume

You'd have to change the LastWritten column in the catalog. Bacula is
not very interested in the file system timestamps.

(so bacula thinks it's retention period is passed) and what
affect does this have in the big picture?

Pruning and recycling would happen according to the changed timestamp.

In other words, would bacula
get confused by this?

No.

I realize this wouldn't be best practices by any stretch. I'm only
looking at all ways I can retain part of a very large volume of data.

If you want to make sure certain volumes are not recycled, use the
console command 'update' to disable recycling or set the retention time.
A retention time of 0 zero means automatic pruning is disabled.

Keep in mind that the job retention time still applies, but Bacula will
not overwrite your volumes.

Arno

Thanks.

On 5/29/07, * Bob Gamble* <kiksadiweb < at > gm...
<mailto:kiksadiweb < at > gm...>> wrote:

Well that clears pretty much all those questions up for me. Thanks
very much for the quick response.


On 5/29/07, * Arno Lehmann* < al < at > it...
<mailto:al < at > it...>> wrote:

Hi,

On 5/29/2007 9:35 PM, Bob Gamble wrote:
Hello,

When I first started using bacula about 5 months ago, I used one
volume for everything.

Oh. That's not really a good idea.

All seemed to be fine until I realized how
quickly I was going to use up the 2.5 terabytes. At the time, I
wrongly assumed six months would pass and I would have plenty
of space
after the volume was recycled.

Now, I have very little space left. I've split each backup
into their
own pools (as described in
http://www.bacula.org/dev-manual/Automated_Disk_Backup.html
<http://www.bacula.org/dev-manual/Automated_Disk_Backup.html>
<
http://www.bacula.org/dev-manual/Automated_Disk_Backup.html>)
and the
large volume is no longer being written to as of the first week of
May. If I understand the documentation correctly I can
recapture hard
drive space like this:

Change the VolRetention period to three months instead of six
(which I did)

Set Autoprune and Recycle to Yes

I'm hoping the VolRetention is measured from when the volume
was first
used, which is back in January or February,

No, the retention period starts when the volume was last used.
Otherwise, you might lose valid backups.

and that even though the
available disk space on the bacula server shows less than 100
gb left,
it will overwrite space that has been taken up by the single large
volume when another volume needs the space.

No, it will overwrite th huge volume only when it's recycled,
which will
not happen before the retention time has passed.

That is essentially my question. If I understand correctly, since
bacula holds on to data as long is it can until more space is
needed,
will the bacula server at some point, always have a full hard
drive?

Not necessarily. In your setup, though, probably.

If I'm wrong, when does it clear the space taken by expired
retention
periods? I wonder what options I have to save the last three
months
of backups from the large volume while removing the backups
whose time
has expired. Is there a way to do this?

Set up migration (you'll need a second sorage device for it
which could
use the same archive directory) and migrate the valid jobs from
the huge
volume. Afterwards, manually recycle that volume. When it's re-used,
Bacula will truncate it and your disk space will look much nicer :-)

Or do I need to just remove
the large volume to make more space? Thank you for any tips.

That would be the simplest solution, but you will lose some
backups you
might consider valuable.

Arno

--
BobG



------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express
Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take
control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now.
http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/
<http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/>
------------------------------------------------------------------------


_______________________________________________
Bacula-users mailing list
Bacula-users < at > li...
<mailto:Bacula-users < at > li...>
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users

--
IT-Service Lehmann al < at > it...
<mailto:al < at > it...>
Arno Lehmann http://www.its-lehmann.de

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express
Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take
control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now.
http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/
<http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/>
_______________________________________________
Bacula-users mailing list
Bacula-users < at > li...
<mailto:Bacula-users < at > li...>
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users
<https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users>




------------------------------------------------------------------------

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This SF.net email is sponsored by DB2 Express
Download DB2 Express C - the FREE version of DB2 express and take
control of your XML. No limits. Just data. Click to get it now.
http://sourceforge.net/powerbar/db2/


------------------------------------------------------------------------

_______________________________________________
Bacula-users mailing list
Bacula-users < at > li...
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bacula-users

--
IT-Service Lehmann al < at > it...
Arno Lehmann http://www.its-lehmann.de

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