Backing Up To or From Mounted AppleShare or SMB NAS Volumes with Retrospect 6.1 for Mac OS X

Resources

To Create a File Backup Set on a Mounted AFP (AppleShare) or SMB Network Attached Storage (NAS) Volume:

Log into the Mac OS X backup computer as Root (10.4 and earlier). Change in 10.5 may allow some users to skip this step. Note: For information on how to log in as root under OS X, please read Apple’s KnowledgeBase article "Enabling the root user"

Mount the NAS Volume on the desktop in the Finder. When mounting the volume, check the box "Remember this password in my Keychain" if available.

Launch Retrospect.

Configure Retrospect to Automatically mount the NAS volume

To have Retrospect automatically mount a NAS volume on your desktop:

Using the Finder, mount the NAS volume on your desktop. 10.4 and earlier users should be logged into the Mac with the Root user account for this step.

In Retrospect go to Configure>Volumes and highlight the mounted volume

From the Volumes menu choose Configure (Command-J)

Provide Retrospect with the password to connect to the NAS volume

When it needs to access the volume, Retrospect will mount the NAS volume on the desktop, access it, and then unmount it when done.

Note: When Retrospect has mounted the volume, you will not be able to see the volume’s contents from the Finder.

Test Auto-mounting

Unmount the volume from the desktop

Go to Configure>Volumes in Retrospect

Click on the network share and click Browse

Retrospect should automount the volume and begin a disk scan.

If you are prompted for a password by the Finder, enter the password and check the box "Remember this password in my keychain" (if available to you)

Repeat the test steps above. Retrospect and the Finder should no longer request a password.

Create a File Backup Set and save it to the NAS volume.

Quit Retrospect

Login to Mac OS X as a normal user (not as root)

Launch Retrospect

Edit your backup script to include the new File Backup Set as a destination.

Run the backup script with a schedule, run document or from the "run" menu in Retrospect.

Backing up data on an AFP volume

To backup a volume mounted on the desktop, you must configure Retrospect for Automatic login using step 4 above.

If you back up a mounted AFP volume using the method listed above, privileges are not preserved and can not be restored. The only way to back up and restore privileges from a volume over a network is to back up the computer using Retrospect Client Software.

When connecting to the NAS volume, you must utilize a username and password for the login process. If you do not know the administrator username and password for the NAS disk, contact the hardware manufacturer for user login details.

Limits

Macintosh Destination:

2GB Limit when writing to a Macintosh destination that does not support AFP 3.1.

Apple lifted the 2GB limit with AFP 3.1 and later. AFP 3.1 is available in Mac OS 10.2 Server and later and Mac OS 10.4 workstations.

-Error 102 may be reported when you reach the 2GB limit writing to a pre AFP 3.1 Mac volume.

Windows Destination:

FAT32 Volumes: 4GB Limit. When writing to a FAT32 volume with Retrospect 6.1 and Driver Update 6.1.1.101 you may see an error -34 (volume full) when you reach the 4GB FAT32 file system limit.

SMB Destination:

Retrospect 6.1 with Driver Update 6.1.1.101 and later has greatly improved the ability to write more then 2GB of data to a file backup set stored on SMB volumes and should be the minimum version when using SMB destinations.

Last Update: February 14, 2012