Archiving a final backup

I am migrating a server to a new machine. That server has been backed up regular by urBackup. Mainly File Backups (I stopped doing image backups long ago)

The new machine is holding that same data and will get a new urBackup solution in place.

What I would like to do is “freeze” the last ever backup of the old server for 5 years. What is simplest way to do this?

I have never used archive. So in my simple case I assume I can reduce the count of Full File Backups to one. And that would free up the space of the older backups.

This is a media server so contents didn’t really change much over the years, just a few hundred CD rips added.

The new server is holding that same data, and if I understand correctly the first backups of that will just use this same old data anyways? So is there any point me tidying up at all?

From the docs:

What does the “Archived” column show?

If the box in that column is checked the backup is archived. As long as a backup is archived UrBackup won’t delete it under any circumstance. If there is a stop watch next to the box it means the backup will stop being archived after some time. This time is shown if you hover over the stop watch.

Edit - Re-read your post, you have additional questions.

To “Freeze” your last backup and keep a record of your old system in it’s last known state, this is exactly what you want.

Backups are deduped, so yes there’s not going to be much change when you start backing up your new system assuming the data is mostly the same as the old like you claim.

If keeping the last known state of your old system isn’t important to you and you only care about the CD rips, then there’s no point in this. Just start backing up the new system before the retention period of the old data expires.

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When ticking the “archived” box, I assume this means it keeps the whole of the version of that date. Ticking that last “incremental” backup therefore preserves the whole state of the client that day and not just that last 1.26GB.

Dumb question, but I like to check I am not thinking dumb. The interface has the tick box next to the size column instead of the date column. :grinning:

I’m mainly only keeping that “last known state” for maybe a year while I make sure I didn’t make any kinda mess with my transferring to a new server. Five hard disks have moved out of a Win7 box and NTFS into a new build Unraid server and XFS. And yes, my understanding of the de-dup process is exactly as I was hoping as this should mean my backup server doesn’t actually need any more space.

Thanks for reassuring me I have this right in my head. UrBackup has been running so smooth for so long I forget how some of it works, and don’t like disrupting such a solid system.