This step-by-step guide will walk you through setting up a scheduled file backup job in NovaBACKUP combined with configuring a data retention policy so that you don't run out of space over time.

NovaBACKUP is installed on your Workstation or Server and is able to backup data from the machine it is installed on and store it on your NAS.

NOTE: NovaBACKUP is not designed to backup data located on your NAS. You will want to look into the features included in your NAS Firmware settings for this.

This is an example of a four week retention policy. One Full backup every Saturday with daily Differentials. This guide also details setting up a backup "Device" pointing to your network share/NAS or SAN for your target destination device.

Buffalo Customers: 

• Creating a new Shared Folder on a Buffalo TeraStation
• Creating a Shared Folder on a Buffalo LinkStation
• Obtain NovaBACKUP for Buffalo using your serial number at https://novabackup.com/buffalo 

NOTE for ALL NAS Devices: You Must disable the Recycle Bin for the Network Share you will be using to store your backups.

This guide will cover the following processes: 

• 1. Configure a Network Device
  
  • Change Default Settings (Part 1 Steps 2-3)
• 2. Create and Schedule your Full File Backup job (weekly)
• 3. Create and Schedule your (Diff)erential File Backup (Daily)
• 4. Configure Retention for File Backups
• 5. Create and Schedule the System Image Backup (monthly)
• 6. Review Scheduled Jobs

A brief overview: 

1. Install NovaBACKUP on your Windows-based system that is going to be backed up
2. Add a Network Device (as needed)
3. Adjust your desired default settings
4. Create a Backup Job, configure the settings for the job, 
5. Save and Schedule the Backup Job
6. Repeat steps 3 & 4 as needed
7. Create a Retention Job, configure the settings for the job,
8. Save and Schedule the Retention Job
9. If adjusting Advanced settings, repeat steps 6 & 7 as needed

1. Configure a Network Device

If your storage device will be a locally attached device e.g. internal hard drive/USB drive proceed to 2. Create and Schedule your Full File Backup job (weekly), no need to configure anything here.

1. Setup your Network Device: In NovaBACKUP on the Home tab click on [Add Network Device] or open the Device tab and click on “Add”.
   In the drop down menu select “Network Device”, click "OK".
   
   
   Under “Device Name” give it a simple name, my example is NasBackup. Under “Network Path” type in the UNC path or browse for it. “Domain Name”, “User name”, and “User Password” are all optional depending on how your network device is configured on the network.
   NOTE: These credentials are those utilized to connect to the Network Share, for most devices you will use "admin" or "root" as the username.
   Click on "OK", if any of the above fields are incorrect, an error message will appear. If correct you will be taken to the Home tab, and see your device listed on the device tab.
   
2. Configure your Default Setting to run as an administrator, change the default backup location, and configure default backup notification emails.  Click on the NovaBackup logo on the top left corner and choose "Default Settings".
   
   
   Click on “Default settings”, Click on the “Run as Tab”, put a dot on “Run as specific user”. Fill in your Domain Name, User Name, and User Password. (Most home users will not be in a domain.) Click “Check Credentials” to confirm you have entered all the correct information.
   
3. Change the default backup location to the previously added network device to ensure the network credentials are saved for Retention jobs.
   

E-mail Notifications

OPTIONAL If you would like to receive notifications click on the “Notification” tab.  Put a checkmark next to “E-mail’. Put a dot next to always, if you want to be notified when NovaBACKUP completes any jobs. (You can select any option here depending on your needs for notification) Click on E-mail Settings, Fill out all the necessary settings here (the SMTP settings are optional, depending on your environment) and click “Test E-mail Settings”. A pop-up with will appear on your screen stating,  “Test email sent successfully”.  Click on “Save”, click on “OK”. Now  close NovaBACKUP for the universal settings to take effect.

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2. Create and Schedule your Full File Backup job (weekly)

See also [Guide] Standard Backup Schedule with Retention (provided below)

 Open the Backup Tab by clicking on it.

1. Select your Files you wish to backup.

2. Assign a Backup Name "Full"

3. Click [Backup to...]

   
   
   1. Assign a Media name (output filename) "Full" to match the Backup Name above
   2. Select the Output Storage Device
   3. Click [OK]

4. Adjust Backup Job [Settings]

   
   1. Change the Write Mode to "Append to media"
   2. Click [OK]

5. Schedule the Full backup
   
   Click [Schedule...]
   

   1. Save the Full job when prompted, click [Yes]
      
      1. Confirm the Script File name "Full"
      2. Click [Save]

   2. Adjust Schedule Options:

      
   3. Type of Schedule "Daily"
   4. First Run Date
      
      
   5. Time this backup will run
   6. Run only on Friday
   7. Enter your Windows Log On Credentials, (User Name & Password)
   8. Check Credentials to confirm they are valid
   9. Click [OK] to schedule the job

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3. Create and Schedule your (Diff)erential File Backup (Daily)

This backup will contain the files that have changed since the last Full ran.

• Adjust settings from your Full job:

  
  

  1. Change the Backup Name to "Diff"

  2. Change the Output Filename to [Backup to...]

     
     1. Change the Output Filename (Media name) to Diff
     2. Select the Output Storage Device (it can sometimes change back to "C:")
     3. Click [OK]

  3. Change the job [Settings]

     
     1. Change the Backup Mode to "Differential"
     2. Click [OK]

  4. Open the Main Menu to Save As

     
     
     1. Choose "Save Full As..."
        
        1. Confirm the File name matches your Backup Name to save the Script as
        2. Click [Save]

  5. Schedule the Diff File Backup
     
     
     Click [Schedule...]

     
     1. Select Type of Schedule "Daily"
     2. Adjust the First Run Date
     3. Pick the Time you wish the backup to run
     4. Select the days of the week you wish the Diff File Backup to run (Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs)
     5. Enter your Windows Log On Credentials, (User Name & Password)
     6. Check Credentials to confirm they are valid
     7. Click [OK] to schedule the job

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4. Configure Retention for File Backups

NOTE: This guide will set your Retention job to maintain the most recent two weeks of backups, adjust as needed. This means the most recent Image Backup (monthly), Full file backups within the last two weeks, and any partial (Differential) file backups after the first Full file backup, and up to the latest Full file backup will be kept when retention runs.

1. Open the Schedule Tab
2. Select [Backup Retention...]
   
   1. Choose "Age"
   2. To keep the last (2) weeks worth of File backups
   3. Choose "Weeks"
   4. Only allow Normal (File) Backups to be processed
   5. Save...] the Retention Job
      
      
      1. Give the job a script name (the default is fine)
      2. Click [Save]
3. You will be returned to the Schedule Tab
   
   
   1. NOTE: If your Network Device utilizes a protected share, meaning your network share requires a specific username and password to have Read/Write (Full Control) access to the share, then you will 100% need to also use the "Network device:" option in the Advanced tab in the "Configure Backup Retention" dialog to select your existing Network Device from the pulldown menu, otherwise the retention won't be able to delete backups due to no write/delete permissions to delete backups on the protected network share (the "Network device:" pulldown option was a function first added in NovaBACKUP 19.8 but does not exist as a function in prior versions, for prior versions that do not have this feature you must follow the instructions on how to accomplish the same thing, otherwise your retention job won't be able to delete backups due to no write/delete permissions on the protected network share, in the KB article here): If your NAS device contains a protected share (which in that case when you created the Network Device in the "Device" tab of NovaBACKUP you had to specify the Username and Password in order for it to allow being able to backup to it with Read/Write (Full Control) access, then you will need to when creating a new Retention job (and fill out the details in the "Basic" tab first, detailed in the screenshot two above this note, and then switch to the "Advanced tab" after that, which is numbered item # 1 in the screenshot below), or you can do it by editing a Retention job which you do with the "Open" button after clicking on the "Backup Retention" button in the Schedule Tab dialog, and then after you open the Retention job in question you click on the "Advanced" tab and select the correct existing Network Device from the "Network device:" pulldown menu in that dialog, as seen below where there are a few NAS devices added to select from (note if you ever change the username or password that is applied to the share permissions on the Network device in question you would need to first edit the existing Network Device in the "Device" tab of NovaBACKUP first, and save the device which will confirm the changed credentials, and will take  you back to the Home tab if correct otherwise it will show that the credentials were wrong as entered, and after that you will go back to the Schedule Tab dialog, and click on "Backup Retention" button and then click the "Open" button, and navigate to the Utility folder where Retention jobs always are stored to by default (which will be the default folder opened to) and then open the correct and matching Retention job from that list, which will load the "Configure Backup Retention" dialog for that Retention job, and that dialog will contain two tabs, the first is "Basic" tab which was already covered two screenshots ago, and the second is the "Advanced" tab, seen below, which is where you will select that just edited Network Device (in the "Device" tab in NovaBACKUP) to select it in the "Network device:" pulldown list, (which is numbered item # 2) in this screenshot:
      
   2. While still in the above detailed "Advanced tab" in the "Configure Backup Retention" dialog (which we can refer to as the edit Retention dialog) after you select the correct existing Network Device from the "Network device:" pulldown menu listing, you will see there are some other options, the other options are optional for you to make use of and not necessary for retention to work to a NAS/network share. The two options that can be useful here, especially if you have MULTIPLE retention jobs, to cover different forms of backups or to cover each backup job granularly so that each backup job that you have utilizes its own independent retention parameters for how many backups to keep, etc, are the "Process only backups containing the media name:" option (which is numbered item # 3), and the "Delete only incremental and differential backups" option (which is numbered item # 4). So, for instance you could have, or have the need for, multiple retention jobs, one for your File backup (Full) job and one for your File backup (Differential), so that the retention parameters can adhere to exactly how many Full backups to keep versus how many Differential backups to keep, so that there is unique and specific control over the exact number or age (or a combination of numer AND age even is possible) of backups to keep before the oldest backups are deleted, in that case a customer would be required to setup at least two separate Retention jobs in order to do that, because otherwise the software may either delete too many full or differential backups, or keep too many full or differential backups, if those are separate backup jobs, the "Process only backups containing the media name:" option in the Advanced tab allows you to define the media name utilized by the backup job as a value to specify there, without the .nbd/.ndf/.ndd/.ndi file extension at the end of the value entered, and without also you specifying the date of the backup if using append write (non-overwrite) mode. So if your backup job utilizes a media name of "File backup (Full)" without the quotes, then you would specify the value there as "File backup (Full)" without quotes, and once you do that then this single Retention job will only ever delete backups with that specific media name specified in the "Process only backups containing the media name:" option. If you do not specify a value there then this single retention job will affect / process all backups to do retention on them. The other useful option in the Advanced dialog that was mentioned prior is the "Delete only incremental and differential backups" option, which tells this one retention job to never retent (delete) any Full backups, only incr and diff backups; and you could use that option in combination with the "Process only backups containing the media name:" option to have seperate retention jobs to cover having retention applied to different backup jobs where you need granular control over the specific number or age (or a combination of both number and age) of backups to keep, and you want to be 100% sure that it will only ever apply the retention values in those retention jobs to a very specific range of your backup jobs, so that it doesn't have the chance to or attempt to delete any other backups from other backup jobs that you may have in place that obviously utilize different media names, including image backups and file backups, and for Business Essentials customers also Hyper-V and SQL Server backups (plugin method).
   3. Click [Add...] to schedule the retention job
      
      
      1. Select the job to schedule (click in the bar or the down arrow)
         
         1. Open the "Utility" folder
            
            
            1. Select the Retention Job you just created "My Backup Retention.nbk"
            2. Click [Open]
   4. Select Type of Schedule "Daily"
   5. Adjust the First Run Date
   6. Pick the Time you wish for the Retention to run (10 min before the Full is good!)
   7. Run only on Friday
   8. Enter your Windows Log On Credentials, (User Name & Password)
   9. Check Credentials to confirm they are valid
   10. Click [OK] to schedule the job

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5. Create and Schedule the System Image Backup (monthly)

1. Open the Home Tab
2. Select Image Backup to Start the Image Backup Wizard
   
   
   1. Select Image Backup Schedule
   2. Click [Next]
      
      
      1. Confirm the Backup Type is "Full", click [Next]
         
         
         1. Select your "C:" Partition (or in this case you could choose "Disk 0")
         2. Click [Next]
            
            1. Specify a Backup Name "System Image"
            2. Click [Backup to...]
               
               
               1. Select the destination storage device
               2. Click [OK]
            3. Click [Next]
               
               
               1. Select Type of Schedule "Daily"
               2. Adjust the First Run Date & Time you wish the backup to run
               3. Repeat every 4 occurrences of the Day (chosen next)
               4. Select the day of the week you wish the Image Backup to run (Fri)
               5. Enter your Windows Log On Credentials, (User Name & Password)
               6. Check Credentials to confirm they are valid
               7. Click [Finish] to schedule the job

6. Review Scheduled Jobs

Your Schedule Tab should now look similar (if not identical) to this: