My work has just [force] rebuilt my work lappy, which I had been backing up with my UrBackup server for files and image basis…
The new instance of the lappy has the same computer name as the original (leverages an Azura string to use the serial number in the name) so just wondering what the best way to go forward would be…?
Would prefer to retain the backups from the original, at least until I have sufficient retention of the new one…
Have a feeling that the fact that the original is still listed on the server side is going to cause issues when it sees the new instance…has anyone tried this before…?
I’m assuming you have admin access to the UrBackup Server: just log in and download the Windows/Linux installation file for your client instead of creating a new one (I’m talking UrBackup client). Computer name doesn’t really matter here.
That will erase old backup over time. If it is not what you want, then create a new UrBackup client and remove the old one only when you feel confident to do so.
UrBackup Server is smart with files de-duplication over multiple clients so you don’t need much extra space on the server.
Just to be clear about the situation:
• Lappy has been working perfectly and I have currently retained one image and the last couple of weeks [before it was rebuilt] for retention purposes…
• Newly rebuilt lappy, which has the same computername as the original build, doesn’t yet have UrBackup installed on it…
• My concern is what UrBackup is going to do with the new instance/version of the original computername set of backups - will it realise that it is a fresh install and create a new set of backups for V2 of the lappy - or will it attempt to compare with V1 instance and either get itself in a twist as the files are all different, or somehow try to merge the V1 and V2 instances into one…?
Am guessing that I could potentially just go onto the admin portal and create a new ‘profile’ for the V2 instance, but I was trying to establish whether this entire situation has been seen before, so I can at least understand what to expect…
This may be something that @uroni would know the answer to, if nobody has gone through it before…
Mark any backups you absolutely want to keep as “archive”, then download and install the client for that PC from the web interface.
I would then tell it to do a full backup (image and files if you do both) so that it’s got a clean base to go off. It will probably do that automatically anyway, but just to be sure.
If the backups are marked as archives, it then won’t delete them if it decides the new ones are going to take too much space. It’ll just stop and you can decide what to do later.
Sorry for the delay, things have been somewhat crazy busy at work and at home…but just wanted to come back to say that it is now working…
There were a few [thousands] alerts about some files not being accessible, but that was as I hadn’t told the lappy to keep the OneDrive folders (that I want backed up) on the computer…
Still a little early for me to say that it has definitively worked for the moment, but I’ll mark your post as the solution as soon as the retention cleanup kicks in for the first backups of the new instance…
Just coming back to say thanks, have left it to run for a while since getting the [rebuilt] lappy back into the system, so that the automagic retention is doing its thing…
The big drop was when I manually binned off all but the latest backup, and the new space is lower as I realised it was capturing a lot it didn’t need to and got round to trimming the selection down to just my user folders…
