TL;DR Summary
- It’s possible to copy your backups of Mailboxes, SharePoint documents and OneDrive for Business from one directory to another. This can be useful, for example, if moving your backups from a hard drive to a NAS.
- The three different scenarios of migration are possible – as shown in this table. After migration, existing backup history is retained, and incremental backups will continue.
| Keep BackupAssist 365 on same machine | Move BackupAssist 365 to a different machine | |
|---|---|---|
| Keep the backups in the same place | Scenario 2 | |
| Move the backups to a different place | Scenario 1 | Scenario 3 |
- Robocopy /mir is your friend for copying backup data. Do not use Windows Explorer, because it does not copy everything properly, such as files and directories with long paths.
Let’s go into the exact procedures now.
Scenario 1 – moving the backups, but keeping the BackupAssist 365 installation in place
Follow these procedures if you are keeping BackupAssist 365 on the same machine but want to move your existing backups from one location to another.
- Edit your existing backup task and change the “Save to…” setting to your new backup directory. Your new backup directory will be blank at this stage.
- Save the backup task, but do not run it.
- Use “robocopy /mir” to copy your files from the old backup directory to the new backup directory.
- You may now run your backup, and it will resume incremental operation.
Scenario 2 – moving the installation of BackupAssist 365 but keeping the existing backup location
This procedure is common if you are backing up to a network share, or if you move the hard drive from an old machine to a new one.
On your new installation:
- Create a new backup task with settings that match the original task on the old machine.
- Your new settings must match the original – for example, the same login, data selections, and for file backups, the same settings for encryption and versioning.
- When you get to the “Save to” setting, create a new directory – this is a temporary directory only.
- Save the backup task, but do not run it.
- Edit the backup task again, and go to the “Save to” tab. Now change it to point to the location of the original backup. Click OK on the popup that says the directory is not empty.
- You may now run your backup, and it will resume incremental operation.
Scenario 3 – moving the backups and moving the BackupAssist 365 installation simultaneously
Follow these procedures if you are moving BackupAssist 365 to a different machine, and moving the existing backups at the same time.
On your new installation
- Create a new backup task with settings that match the original task on the old machine.
- Your new settings must match the original – for example, the same login, data selections, and for file backups, the same settings for encryption and versioning.
- When you get to the “Save to” setting, choose your new backup directory. You may need to create it if it doesn’t already exist.
- Save the backup task, but do not run it.
- Use “robocopy /mir” to copy your backup files from the old backup directory to the new backup directory.
