Local-Only Backups

Using the Local Vault as the storage space, the local-only backup feature allows you to create backup sets which are stored only on the original machine, on a NAS device, or another local location. This feature is ideal for data that needs to be backed up but may not be the best candidate for online backup. Some reasons to use local-only backups are for:

• media files such as music files, movie files, or raw picture files which may be too large to backup online.

• any personal data that is not critical.

• any data your client does not want to pay to store in the cloud but still wants backed up.

Some backup set types (Imaging, Hyper-V Rapid Recovery, and VMware QuickSpin) are inherently local-only. Those will not be discussed in this article since they do not require any special configuration to be local-only. 

Local-only backups can run only if a computer account has the Local Vault enabled as well as the Local backup subscription. Instructions for how to enable the Local Vault, please see this article.

To apply Local Backup subscriptions, we must first add them.

1. Log in to the management portal.

2. Go to the Pay Bill tab and select the Manage Subscriptions option.

3. Clicking the Add Subscriptions button opens the Local Subscriptions window where you can add Local Backup subscriptions.
   
   

   
   

4. On the Manage Subscriptions page, you can remove Local Backup subscriptions by selecting the Remove Subscriptions button.
   Local Backup subscriptions can only be removed if they are not in use.

1. In the management portal, go to the Manage tab and navigate to the computer account you want to apply the Local Backup subscription to.

2. On the Computer page select the Edit button in the upper-right corner.
   
   
   

   Open

   

3. Check the box next to Enable local backup subscription to apply the subscription. Unchecking the box revokes the subscription. After making any changes, click Save.

Once you have enabled the local backup subscription and the Local Vault, you then have the option to make local-only backup sets.

If you have a backup set that is either online-only or online and local and you want to make it a local-only backup set, please see this article.

At this time, Barracuda only supports using a single device as the destination for local-only backups.

Barracuda does not support hard drive swapping. The reason is because new files and revisions are added to the Local Vault in a cumulative and interdependent manner. If you are swapping drives, you could have the base copies on one drive and the revisions on another; this creates problems when attempting to restore since the software cannot find all the pieces of a file you want to restore.

If you need offsite replication, it is recommended to use Barracuda cloud storage  (making the backup set online and local) as it includes several other fail-safes built into the service, including but not limited to, full data center service. However, local replication can be performed by copying (not moving) the entire Local Vault folder to another location.