Backup Configuration Depending on File Type (File Versioning / Cleanup Tab)

BackupChain contains a great configuration feature located in the File Versioning / Cleanup tab.

You can fine-tune your backups and configure different settings depending on the file type of each file.

For example, you may want to treat your heavyweight *.DB files differently than your Microsoft Word documents *.DOCX.

Second example with deduplication switched off and period limits set:

Important Note: The *.* is a catch-all configuration because it applies to all files unless another line in the table defines it otherwise. Warning: if you remove the line containing the *.* definition, BackupChain will only process the file types listed in this table and skip all other types of files.

In the File Versioning / Cleanup tab you can control the following settings on a per-file-type basis:

· Min. Number of File Versions

· Compression

· Minimal File Age

· Deduplication

· Delayed Deletion Period

· Archive Period

Limiting the Number of Backups (File Version History)

The Min. Number of File Versions formerly “Number of Backups” setting controls the automatic cleanup process. In the above example of 10, a file will be backed up ten times before the oldest backup of that file is deleted to make room for the newest backup. For example, say ImportantDocument.doc is being edited every hour of the day and BackupChain is configured to run nightly to back up this document.

Setting Min. Number of File Versions to 10 would give you a file version history going back up to 10 days because BackupChain runs nightly. If BackupChain ran hourly the history would go back only 10 hours. The Min. Number of File Versions limit, hence, depends on how often the backup is taken. Using this limit you know that you have at least the last 10 changes to that file in the backup folder.

Note that files are only backed up if a change occurred; hence, even if the backup runs 100 times but the file hasn’t changed, you will see only one file version in the backup folder.

Alternatively you can enter No Backup to exclude a file type.

Or, you may enter ALL to keep all file revisions.

You will see those two entries in the drop down box when you attempt to edit the File Versioning / Cleanup table:

Enabling / Disabling Data Compression

Data compression is useful for most types of files, especially text files, Word documents, Excel sheets, databases, and program files; however, there are certain file types that do not compress well by their nature: media files, music files, videos, encrypted files, and other digitally recorded data.

In the above example, *.db type of files are compressed and kept for up to 3 months (after 3 months the backup file will be deleted, even if the original still exists) and deleted after 15 days if the original is deleted, whereas all other files (*.*) will be compressed and kept forever, even after the original is deleted.

Minimum File Age

When BackupChain comes across a new file, that is a file that doesn’t exist in the backup store, it backs it up immediately.

If, however, the file exists already, BackupChain checks the time difference between the backed up file and the current file. This is how it determines if changes have occurred.

The Minimum File Age setting defines the minimum time period that needs to pass before another backup is taken.

For example, your backup could be scheduled to run continuously (indefinitely) every 30 minutes and your folder contains a very large database file which changes every minute. You may want to back up the database immediately when it appears in the folder but not every 30 minutes thereafter. You may want to restrict database backups (example: *.DB) to 8 hours instead. By choosing these settings, the backup may run every 30 minutes but the backup of *.DB files is taken after at least 8 hours passed since the last backup.

A setting of “0 secs” basically turns off this functionality and backs up files immediately when a change is detected; hence, the default is 0 Sec.

Note: you may enter any value you want, such as 45 sec, “1 hour, 9 minutes” as fractions of an hour, “1 year, 3 months”.

Enabling Deduplication Depending on File Type

The example above turns off deduplication as default (*.*) but enables it for *.pst files (Outlook).

You can fine-tune your backup this way and allow deduplication for all files or just particular file types of your choice.  You can add new lines to the above File Types table, as shown in the next sections.

Note: v4 renamed “retention period” to “archive period”.

Delayed Deletion Periods Depending on File Type

Note: v4 renamed “retention period” to “archive period”.

Delayed deletion is a feature that prevents the backup store from overfilling. It basically permits BackupChain to delete files once BackupChain detects that a file has been deleted at the original source.

For example, if C:\temp\testfile.txt is deleted today and BackupChain runs tomorrow, the “timer” will start tomorrow.  According to the above table (assuming there is no entry for *.txt), the delayed deletion period is 30 days; hence, BackupChain will delete the file 31 days from now or later, depending on when BackupChain runs after 30 days. The 30 day limit is hence the minimum time to keep a file in the backup folder after its deletion has been detected. If your backups runs daily then today’s deleted files will be detected at the next backup run (tonight or tomorrow)  and the deletion in the backup folder will take place another 30 days after that.

File Backup Archive Period Depending on File Type

Note: In v4 the column “retention period” was renamed to “archive period” and “number of backups” to “min. number of file versions”.

The above example shows that the default (*.*) is to keep files and file versions for 3 months. For *.pst files (Outlook), however, we want a archive period of 1 year.

What does this mean exactly? Assuming that your backup runs daily, and assuming you are backing up an active Outlook database, chances are you will hit the 10 ‘Min. Number of File Versions’ limit above (second column).

If you set ‘Min. Number of File Versions’ to ALL, this means there will be no limit in terms of number of changes retained in the backup. However, the archive period of 1 year still applies.

Assuming that your Outlook database is changed and backed up daily, you’ll end up with 365 backups a year. After 365 backups, the retention limit will be hit and the oldest backup version will be deleted. This will ensure your backup history doesn’t go back forever and space is released after a given time limit.

Example Interpretation of File Versioning / Cleanup table

This is an example of how the following table is interpreted:

Note: v4 renamed “retention period” to “archive period”. “Number of Backups” was renamed to “Min. Number of File Versions”.

The second line (*.pst) configures BackupChain to keep the last 10 copies of each file ending with a PST extension.  File deduplication is switched on, causing BackupChain to create delta files (incremental or differential). Data compression is also switched on; hence, BackupChain will compress the deltas created. If file deduplication is switched off and data compression is on, BackupChain will create ZIP files instead (or another format as configured in the Options tab). Note that deduplication and compression may also be turned on and off globally in their respective tabs “Deduplication” tab and “Compression” tab.

The “Minimum File Age” determines how much time has to pass since the last backup before BackupChain processes a given file type. For example, a setting of 20 minutes means the PST file will not be backed up until at least 20 minutes have passed since its last time the PST file was backed up. If the backups run every minute, BackupChain will hence skip 20 cycles before backing up the same PST file.

The “Minimum File Age” is useful to fine-tune your backups, especially when large files are involved. For example, if your VHD files are over 100 GB and you have small TXT files included in your backup as well, you may want to run the backup every 10 minutes (to back up your TXT files) but you would want the VHDs processed every 60 minutes or less. Instead of backing up everything in 10 minute intervals, you set the *.VHD minimum file age setting to 60 minutes. Now VHD files must be at least one hour older than the copy in the backup store before they are backed up again. This saves time and resources when files are changed often and backup cycles are kept short. Note that new files will always be backed up immediately, regardless of the minimum file age setting.

To add a new file type definition, click Add:

Note: Versions to Keep may be set to “No Backup” to omit a file type from the backup.

You may also set Versions to Keep to ALL, to have BackupChain hold on to all changes made to a particular file type.

Deduplication is recommended for large files that change often and in cases where you want to hold on to an entire history of file changes. These conditions generally apply to database files, virtual machine files, and other large documents.

How to Exclude a File Type from your Backup

Change the setting “Min. Number of File Versions” to No Backup. In the example below, *.PST files are excluded from the backup and *.MSG files are kept with all file revisions but for no longer than 1 year (Archive Period):

The *.msg example will cause BackupChain to hold each backup file version for up to 1 year and there can be an unlimited number of file versions for *.msg files during that year. *.VHD above is configured so that BackupChain will keep up to 12 versions of each VHD file without an archive period defined = store forever.

How do I Backup Specific File Types Only?

Remove the line *.*. This will cause BackupChain to only process the file types listed in the table.

The line *.* is a “catch-all” and is there to define the default backup setting for all file types not listed elsewhere. The example below shows the line *.* removed; hence, only *.msg, *.pst, and *.vhd files will be backed up: