Bryan Derman (of Derman Enterprises) has developed a set of scripts that will incrementally backup a QRecall archive to optical media or disk images.

You can download these scripts, read the documentation, and get the full history from his blog entry Off-Site and Archival Storage for QRecall Backups.

In a nutshell, these scripts divide a working QRecall archive into smaller segments which are stored on disk images. Each segment / disk image can be burned directly to an optical disk, stored across smaller hard drives, uploaded to a server, or added to a cloud synchronization service. As the archive grows, new segments are automatically burned/created. The result is a set of discs or images that, in the future, can be reassembled to recreate the original archive.

There are a couple of caveats. First, you must turn off periodic merge and compact actions. These scripts depend on a feature of how QRecall adds new data to an archive; newly captured data is always appended to the end of an archive, until the archive is merged and compacted. So by not regularly merging, new segments can be written/burned for just the new data that's been appended to the archive. This can go on indefinitely, or at least until your archive runs out of disk space.

At some point, the archive will need be merged and compacted, at which time you'll have to reburn/recopy a new set of discs/images from the beginning. But with adequate disk space, combined with QRecall's efficient data de-duplication, this might only be necessary once a year, possibly even less.

Bryan has done an amazing job with these shell scripts. They're flexible, can be customized, are very well documented, and handle a variety of DVD and BluRay disc sizes. Bryan has made these scripts freely available and encourages feedback from anyone interested in trying them out. Currently, they have only been tested with QRecall 1.2.

When Bryan approached me, looking for a way to backup an archive using optical media, I dismissed the idea as impractical. Because of the way QRecall archives are normally merged and compacted, it would require that the entire set of backup images/discs to be repeatedly re-burned. But Bryan convinced me that it's perfectly manageable to not merge the archive and let it grow indefinitely. And there are business practices that would make this a necessity, in situations where all data must be kept in perpetuity.

I encourage anyone who is looking for an off-site backup solution for their archive to give these scripts a try.

Bryan and I will be working together to integrate this functionality into a future version of QRecall.

If anyone is using, or interested in, Bryan Derman's scripts for backing up QRecall archives onto optical media, you'll be happy to know that there's a new version available: Off-Site and Archival Storage for QRecall Backups

Bryan is now using QRecall in combination with his scripts to secure the data on several mission critical systems. If you have similar needs, please give these (free!) scripts a try and let Bryan know what you think.

Bryan Derman has just released rev C of his optical media backup scripts for QRecall 1.x.

Rev C adds some important new features, including support for multiple backup sets (for rotating off-site storage) and the ability to reconstruct a set following changes to the archive (e.g. a repair), intelligently rewriting the minimum set of discs required.

You can read more about the changes and download the latest scripts from his website: Off-Site and Archival Storage for QRecall Backups

Bryan Derman has released rev D of his optical media backup script for QRecall 1.x.

Mostly minor bug fixes, but if you're using it you'll want to update.

See the release notes at http://www.derman.com/blogs/QRecall-Backup-Sets.