Copy only latest recovery point to hard drive?

We are currently using Rapid Recovery archiving to copy some device backups to a local hard drive.

The problem is that we are running out of space on the local hard drive.  We are running out of space because the archiving function of Rapid Recovery copies all the recovery points for these backups.  Instead, we would prefer for it to copy only the latest recovery point for these backups.

Is there any way to do this?  Is there anything outside of archiving that will copy only the latest recovery point?

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  • In the archive wizard there is an option to "Include only recovery points in the date range"

    If you set the date range to only the most recent date, it will only archive the most recent recovery points. However, please note that archiving a single incremental recovery point is not useful for restore. You can attach the archive to a core, but the incremental recovery point will show as orphaned unless it has all of the incremental recovery points and the base image created prior to it. So generally archiving only a specific incremental recovery point is a bad idea.

    Also, please note that this option does not function in the same way if you use the recycle action "incremental". This is because the entire point of an incremental archive is to review the data in the location you have chosen to save the archive and then append only the new recovery points. Hence if there is nothing in that location, a complete copy of the recovery points will be written out since there is nothing there and everything in the repository is seen as new and needs to be added to the location.

Reply
  • In the archive wizard there is an option to "Include only recovery points in the date range"

    If you set the date range to only the most recent date, it will only archive the most recent recovery points. However, please note that archiving a single incremental recovery point is not useful for restore. You can attach the archive to a core, but the incremental recovery point will show as orphaned unless it has all of the incremental recovery points and the base image created prior to it. So generally archiving only a specific incremental recovery point is a bad idea.

    Also, please note that this option does not function in the same way if you use the recycle action "incremental". This is because the entire point of an incremental archive is to review the data in the location you have chosen to save the archive and then append only the new recovery points. Hence if there is nothing in that location, a complete copy of the recovery points will be written out since there is nothing there and everything in the repository is seen as new and needs to be added to the location.

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  • Yeah, I definitely want the latest recoverable recovery point (i.e., the latest incremental, plus everything back to the latest base).  I just don't want the incrementals and bases from since forever.

    Is there any option to do that?  Or, alternatively, is there any correlation between dates and when a base is created?  For example, if a base were created once per month, I would indicate to copy the recovery points from the last 30 days or so.

    And yeah, for the recycle action, we do "Erase completely."

  • As I side note: I just looked under "Options," and I see nothing but "recycle action" as an option.  Is that expected behavior?

  • I am not a fan of archives, I think the logic/ operation is a bit flawed. I only set them up in very specific instances.

    You may want to think about installing another Core and setting up replication. This would allow you to have a much finer control on what is kept via retention and probably be a bit less demanding on your current core/ storage

  • What version of RR are you running? It looks like you maybe running an older version that did not support this option

  • It's 6.3.0.5309.  Isn't that close to the latest?

  • If you are using scheduled archiving, the only option in options is recycle action. That is expected behavior. With scheduled archiving you don't get to pick a date range (because why would you schedule an archive of the same date range). Since no date range can be specified, it archives all data for the agents you have selected and it runs at the scheduled interval you set (daily,  weekly, monthly). So in your case, if you schedule archives then they will include all recovery points.

    It is possible to archive the most recent recovery point chain (the most recent base plus all incrementals up to today) by using the one time archive job. To do that set the settings so that you specify the archive date range as yesterday and today, set the recycle action to "Erase Completely", and choose the option to "Build recovery point chains". This way the core will grab all incrementals within the date range, plus all incrementals and base images required to make the recovery point chain complete and restoreable from the archive.

    Unfortunately, to run this specific scenario on a schedule, you'll probably have to create a powershell script to with logic to choose a date range based on the date/time the script is run and then pass those dates into our Start-Archive powershell commandlet to start an archive job with the parameters you want.

    As a side note, it is probably worth logging a feature request at ideas.labs.quest.com for the ability to set a scheduled archive of the most recent recovery point chain, or of a relative date range. So that for instance you could specify that when the scheduled archive runs it archives the most recent 14 days or something like that.

  • Thanks, Tim.  Let's say that today is September 14, 2020.  Would the following command get all recovery points since September 12, 2020 (including the most recent base plus all incrementals up to today)?

    cmdutil /archive -core localhost -path F:\archive -startdate "09/12/2020 12:00:00 AM" -all -recycleaction "erasecompletely"

    Would this commend get the latest base, even if the latest base was created before 9/12/2020?

  • If you are using scheduled archiving, the only option in options is recycle action. That is expected behavior. With scheduled archiving you don't get to pick a date range (because why would you schedule an archive of the same date range). Since no date range can be specified, it archives all data for the agents you have selected and it runs at the scheduled interval you set (daily,  weekly, monthly). So in your case, if you schedule archives then they will include all recovery points.

    It is possible to archive the most recent recovery point chain (the most recent base plus all incrementals up to today) by using the one time archive job. To do that set the settings so that you specify the archive date range as yesterday and today, set spyera the recycle action to "Erase Completely", and choose the option to "Build recovery point chains". This way the core will grab all incrementals within the date range, plus all incrementals and base images required to make the recovery point chain complete and restoreable from the archive.

    Unfortunately, to run this specific scenario on a schedule, you'll probably have to create a powershell script to with logic to choose a date range based on the date/time the script is run and then pass those dates into our Start-Archive powershell commandlet to start an archive job with the parameters you want.

    As a side note, it is probably worth logging a feature request at ideas.labs.quest.com for the ability to set a scheduled archive of the most recent recovery point chain, or of a relative date range. So that for instance you could specify that when the scheduled archive runs it archives the most recent 14 days or something like that.

    How I can to set scheduled ?