I just wanted to flag up an issue I have had with the latest version of Data Backup 4 (ProSoft Engineering:) using the ‘Versioned” backup feature.
Last week I created a versioned backup set of my local ~/Downloads folder (with about 2GB of data) onto a 4TB drive which already had data but had 500GB free. I left the “Missing Items” option set to “Leave” but unchecked the “Create new folder” as I wanted to the backup to be added to the root of the drive. What then happened was that without any warning all previous data on the drive was removed, as the root of the drive was effectively ‘synchronised’ with the “Downloads” folder. Because this was happening at a programatic level, the files on the drive simply disappeared and were not accessible via the trash.
Whilst this occurred because of a misunderstanding on my part of the way that this type of backup works, there was no warning that this was going to clear all data and in spite of there being about 3.5TBs of data the design of this meant that there was no gradual removal process which could be interrupted.
This feels way too easy to do, particularly considering that the software is supposed to help you secure your data - not damage it - and it is going to be very time consuming to rebuild this drive from many different sources. Fortunately, I do still have all the data but it is going to take a long time to re-assemble it.
I was wondering if anyone else has had this issue?
