Zip options: setting zip method specific options
Accessing the zip options
To access the Zip options window shown above:
- Click
Jobs in the navigation bar. - Select the job to be edited and click
Edit at the bottom of the window. - Click
Zip options on the left menu.
The compression ratio you set will determine both the size of your ZIP backups and the time a backup takes to complete. More compression results in smaller individual backup sizes but longer backup times.
- Drag the slider to "No compression" for faster backups but larger backup sizes, or drag the slider
to "Most compression" for smaller backup sizes but longer backup times.
- Note: we recommend "Fast compression" if compression is required, as it is faster than "Most compression" and the difference in storage savings (i.e. the amount your data will be compressed) between the two settings is minimal.
You can choose to have your ZIP backups encrypted with a password. This is useful if you need to make sure that your data is secure. The Zip Engine applies 256-bit AES encryption to a password protected tape backup. Once encrypted, a password is required to restore your data, so it is essential that you use a password that you can easily remember.
- Check Encrypt backup file to enable encryption.
- Enter and confirm a password for encryption in the available fields.
- Note: encryption will increase the time a backup takes to run.
- Important: if the password used to encrypt your backup is forgotten, you will not be able to recover your data. Passwords cannot be retrieved by the BackupAssist team or any third-party.
On a multi-core or multi-processor computer, BackupAssist can use multiple threads to compress and encrypt files, which significantly reduces the time required to perform a backup. By default, BackupAssist will use one thread for each processor core on your machine minus one (e.g. 3 threads on a dual processor, dual core machine). Only modify this setting if you experience performance issues when a backup runs.
- To alter the default BackupAssist setting for thread usage check Manually force thread count and enter the number of threads BackupAssist should use when compressing data.
By default BackupAssist will store NTFS security attributes and alternate data streams of directories within your ZIP backup. Doing so means you are able to restore exact copies of your original data, including all security information.
- If you want to back up your data without security information uncheck Copy NTFS security attributes and alternate data streams.
Restoring from a Zip backup using the BackupAssist Restore console