Test Backup Integrity...

[iconbill]

I'm trying to understand 'Test Backup Integrity...' , but could not find additional information in the help file and also not in the forum, so let me explain:

- I make a new profile, and did an 'exact mirror'. (zipping is enabled and no cached destination database is used)
- then i removed from the target 1 zip file

now i want to test the integrity, so:
- i trying the option 'Test Backup Integrity' , with the option 'only report the errors' checked.

Then i get the 'preview windows' and i see, SFFS wants to copy everything to the left(source). And every file has action type 'test'. This makes me confused again...because if this is the 'test integrity' with 'only report errors', why he is going to copying everything back? And in the preview my manually deleted target file is not listed! (it is listed in the list type 'unaffected'). I continued and in the 'process window' it looks like he is copying everything back.

Q1: please explain me how the 'test backup integrity' works.

Q2: And why he is not seeing my missing zipped target file.....?

tip 1: in the preview list replace in the action colomn the text: 'test' to 'integrity check'
tip 2: in the 'process windows' must be very very clear that he is not overwriting source. now i killed SFFS from task manager because i was thinking he was copying everything back to the source from the backup location.

[superflexible]

This function is only for "Synthetic Backup". It verifies the integrity of the files on the backup by test-downloading them to a temp folder and then deleting the downloaded files. It does not look for missing files.

To look for missing files, just run the job manually in attended mode. Then you will see all files that need to be backed up in the Sync Preview.

So, as a summary, you do not ever need to use "Test Backup Integrity" because you are not using Synthetic Backup.

[iconbill]

aha , ok

ps: maybe you can grey out this option from each profile in the case the 'systhenic' was not selected. Then i can never make this mistake anymore in the future

[superflexible]

I will do something like that.

[iconbill]

Because the option 'Test Backup Integrity...' only works with Synthetic Backup I'm looking for other settings to verify my backup on monthly interval.

Goal: a method to check my backup every month, and i need to know it is 100% the same like the source.

Possible solution: editing all profiles and enable 'Binary comparison', let profiles unattended run , once. Then enable profile again, and disable 'Binary comparison'.

Is this the way to get a 100% backup check once in a while?

[superflexible]

Yes, unless you are using zipping. Binary comparison is not implemented for zipped files.

You can also make a copy of your profile for the verification settings.

If everything is identical, the test run would result in "Nothing to be done". If it finds different files, it will copy them again. If you have any doubts about the copied files, you can look in the log file. Any file that failed the comparison will be explicitly listed.

[iconbill]

Hello, because i upgraded to version 5.40a i got a message to run the profiles with option 'test backup integrity'. But i have 500GB data on my usb drive and it takes like days to do this kind of test. And because the computer is shutdown in the night, i will never be able to comple this test, because there is no resume function. Please add somekind of resume in the 'test backup integrity', so i can do this test every day a couple of hours and continue the next day.

[superflexible]

Normally, the backup integrity test is only necessary for online backup via FTP and such.

The message will be triggered if you have at least one job using either Synthetic Backup or Encryption combined with the Auto-Resume setting. I think you are probably not using Synthetic. And the Auto-Resume setting is highly unlikely to have any side effects with a local hard drive. A possible problem could only occur if a transfer failed and was resumed later. In such cases, older versions of Superflexible may have resumed incomplete files despite the fact that encrypted files cannot be resumed, because they are entirely different every time they are encrypted.

In any case, a resume function for the integrity test is not easy to implement and I'm afraid it won't happen very soon. For such tests, it would be better to leave the machine running until the test is complete.