Entourage Database and Time Machine

[Richard Cawdell]

I have read that use of Time Machine may cause corruptions in the Entourage
Database, if run when Entourage is open. Is this so? Given the way Time
Machine operates, does this amount to "use of Time Machine is mutually
exclusive with use of Entourage"? Unless, of course, one wants to spend
hours cleaning corruptions from the Entourage Database, when Rebuild will
not run....

 

[Diane Ross]

I have read that use of Time Machine may cause corruptions in the Entourage
Database, if run when Entourage is open. Is this so? Given the way Time
Machine operates, does this amount to "use of Time Machine is mutually
exclusive with use of Entourage"? Unless, of course, one wants to spend
hours cleaning corruptions from the Entourage Database, when Rebuild will
not run....

Yes. This page has links to several options to backup Entourage including
how to safely backup once a day to Time Machine.

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/articles/backup_articles.html>

Even when backing up using third party software like SuperDuper, it's
important to quit all Microsoft applications first.

I suggest having multiple types of backups for all of your data, but for
Entourage if your mail is important, keep backups of individual items as
well. It's very easy to backup your contacts so don't forget those too.

Personally, I backup daily using SuperDuper to smart backup my entire drive
to my clone. I create a copy daily of my Identity and use a folder action to
keep them organized by date. (I keep snapshots of these daily backups in
case I find corruption that is not evident in recent backups.) I export by
contacts weekly as an Entourage archive (.rge) file and I use Time Machine
to backup Entourage on a daily basis.

I verify my Identity using File --> Export --> all items as Entourage
archive (.rge) file. If this fails I know there is corruption. This is
easier and faster than the Database Utility verify and I have a backup of my
data when I'm finished.

 

[Ed Kimball]

I have read that use of Time Machine may cause corruptions in the Entourage
Database, if run when Entourage is open. Is this so? Given the way Time
Machine operates, does this amount to "use of Time Machine is mutually
exclusive with use of Entourage"? Unless, of course, one wants to spend
hours cleaning corruptions from the Entourage Database, when Rebuild will
not run....

I don't believe that RUNNING Time Machine backups will cause corruptions in
the Entourage database. I believe, however, that it is likely that the copy
of the database that Time Machine stores will be corrupt. Thus RESTORING a
Time Machine backup of the database will likely lead to a corrupt copy.

Here is some advice on a safe way to use Time Machine to backup your data:
<http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2008/01/alternative_method_to_use_entourage_
and_time_machine.html>

 

[Richard Cawdell]

I don't believe that RUNNING Time Machine backups will cause corruptions in
the Entourage database. I believe, however, that it is likely that the copy
of the database that Time Machine stores will be corrupt. Thus RESTORING a
Time Machine backup of the database will likely lead to a corrupt copy.

Here is some advice on a safe way to use Time Machine to backup your data:
<http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/2008/01/alternative_method_to_use_entourage_
and_time_machine.html>

Which amounts to "Time Machine is not an appropriate backup mechanism for
Entourage" does it not? (And, incidentally for any database that is open
when Time Machine runs)

 

[Richard Cawdell]

Yes. This page has links to several options to backup Entourage including
how to safely backup once a day to Time Machine.

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/articles/backup_articles.html>

Even when backing up using third party software like SuperDuper, it's
important to quit all Microsoft applications first.

I suggest having multiple types of backups for all of your data, but for
Entourage if your mail is important, keep backups of individual items as
well. It's very easy to backup your contacts so don't forget those too.

Personally, I backup daily using SuperDuper to smart backup my entire drive
to my clone. I create a copy daily of my Identity and use a folder action to
keep them organized by date. (I keep snapshots of these daily backups in
case I find corruption that is not evident in recent backups.) I export by
contacts weekly as an Entourage archive (.rge) file and I use Time Machine
to backup Entourage on a daily basis.

I verify my Identity using File --> Export --> all items as Entourage
archive (.rge) file. If this fails I know there is corruption. This is
easier and faster than the Database Utility verify and I have a backup of my
data when I'm finished.

Why do you use Time Machine to back up Entourage if the Database so stored
may be corrupt, i.e. Restoring it would only create a corrupt version?

 

[Diane Ross]

Why do you use Time Machine to back up Entourage if the Database so stored
may be corrupt, i.e. Restoring it would only create a corrupt version?

I make a copy of my Identity at night quitting all Microsoft applications
first. This copy is stored outside of the excluded Identities folder. The
next day Time Machine has a copy to backup that's safe.

Alternative method to use Entourage and Time Machine

Which amounts to "Time Machine is not an appropriate backup mechanism for
Entourage" does it not? (And, incidentally for any database that is open
when Time Machine runs)

Correct... any database that is being written to during backup could result
in a corrupted copy.

The announcement for Outlook for Mac coming in v14 indicates this issue will
be addressed.

Outlook for Mac to Ship With Next Version:
<http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/aug09/08-13macoutlookpr.mspx>

New database. A high-speed file-based database with support for backing up
files with Time Machine and Spotlight searching

 

[Ed Kimball]

Which amounts to "Time Machine is not an appropriate backup mechanism for
Entourage" does it not? (And, incidentally for any database that is open
when Time Machine runs)

Yes to the first question (with the caveat that Diane's approach works);
maybe to the second. It depends on how frequently the application flushes a
coherent copy to disk. Entourage chose not to do that frequently; it didn't
make much difference before Time Machine.

 

[Kerry]

Yes to the first question (with the caveat that Diane's approach works);
maybe to the second. It depends on how frequently the application flushesa
coherent copy to disk. Entourage chose not to do that frequently; it didn't
make much difference before Time Machine.

There is lots of debate around the whole backup issue with Entourage
and Time Machine and hopefully when they implement Outlook in Office
for the Mac this will be resolved. Personally, I just let Time Machine
run and have restored Entourage Dbs from it and they've been fine.

However, to be on the safe side I use two other backup systems that
start to run at 3 am. All this is fully automated using Quickeys. If
you don't have this you might want it. Its very powerful and I've used
it since 1990. In v4 which was just released its Startly's nicest
implementation.

Anyway, at 3 am a backup program which is excellent called Data Backup
begins. At 2:55 it wakes the computer. At 2:57 am Quickeys closes all
running programs including Entourage (I'm happily asleep while all
this is happening). At 3 am Data Backup does a full HD backup but only
of changed items. I have it set for a 14 day rotation so I can go back
14 days to recover anything. Then, at 3:30 am SuperDuper! Runs and
clones my drive so that if there were a drive failure I could just
boot from the SuperDuper clone (Data Backup clones also but I just
prefer Superduper). Quickeys is set to monitor when SuperDuper
finishes. Once SuperDuper finishes Quickeys shuts my computer down for
the night. At 9 am, I have the Mac startup from the energy saver prefs
schedule. At startup once Quickeys loads I have a Quickeys action that
then loads what I use every day. I actually have Quickeys do a couple
of other things but there's no need to get into that.

You might find Quickeys well worth it not for just this but for
everything else it does. I use it constantly and have a couple hundred
actions defined of which I am constantly using at least a couple of
dozen continuosly. It saves me so much time and reduces input errors
etc. Its an excellent program and using it to control the above backup
method gets around all this Entourage backup debate.