Knowledge Center

Task List

In Task List, you can create and manage backup tasks and view the detailed statistics and backup versions of each backup task. Before creating a backup task for your device, you need to connect your device to Synology NAS with Synology Active Backup for Business Agent. For more information on how to add the device, please refer to this article.

To create a backup task:

Once the agent is installed on the PC already connected to Synology NAS, a backup task will be created according to the matched template. You can also create more than one backup task for each device.

  1. Do either of the following to start the backup creation wizard:
    • Go to PC > Devices, select a device you want to back up, and click Create Task.
    • Go to PC > Task List and click Create.
  2. Select Target Device:

    This step only appears if no device is selected before you click Create. A list of PCs already connected to the server will be displayed in this step.

  3. Configure Task Settings::
    • Task name: Configure the name of the task. It is suggested to have a naming pattern for faster filter/search for the task.
    • Source type: The following types of source are supported.
      • Entire device: The entire personal computer including the device settings, applications, and all the files will be backed up in this mode.
        • Backup external hard drive: You can choose to back up the entire device including the external hard drive.
      • System volume: The system volumes including data and Windows system data, such as boot partition, system partition, recovery partition, WinRE Tools (GPT), and system reserved partition (MBR) will be backed up.
      • Customized volume: Click Select then choose the target volume you wish to protect. Floppy drives, thumb drives, or flash card readers are not supported. Only external hard drive is supported.
    • Data transfer settings: The following task settings can be configured in this step.
      • Enable Data Transfer Compression: Compress data during transmission to reduce transferred data size.
      • Enable Data Transfer Encryption: Encrypt data during transmission to enhance data security.
      • Enable bandwidth consumption limit: Limit the data transfer rate from your computer.
    • Computer power settings:
      • Shut down computer after scheduled backup finishes: The computer will shut down after a scheduled backup is done. If the scheduled backup is canceled, the computer will not shut down.
      • Prevent computer from sleeping when backing up: The option will not work if you make your computer sleep from the Start menu or by pressing the power button.
      • Wake computer from sleep to run scheduled backup: Wake the computer from sleep mode before running a scheduled backup.
  4. Backup Destination:

    Select a shared folder in Btrfs file system as the backup destination. During the package installation, the Btrfs shared folder "ActiveBackupforBusiness" will be created automatically.

  5. Backup Destination Settings: When creating the first task in a backup destination, you can configure compression and encryption settings of the backup destination in this step.
    • Enable compression at backup destination: Compress data to save more storage at the backup destination.
    • Enable encryption at backup destination: Encrypt data to enhance data security at the backup destination.

    Note:

    • If you have also configured traffic throttling on the Settings page, the actual data transmission rate will depend on distributed bandwidth.
    • If your device is Modern Standby-capable, Active Backup for Business cannot wake the device from sleep to perform backups due to the operating system's limitations.
    • The compression and encryption settings of a backup destination are not changeable after the first backup task is created. If you wish to use different settings for future tasks, please create a task in a new destination.
  6. Schedule Backup Task:
    • Manual backup: Manual Backup means one-time-only backup. After creating a backup task, you can run the task by choosing to back up immediately in the last step or selecting the task then click Back up in the Task List tab.
    • Scheduled backup: 
      • Backup by time: Define the desired backup schedule to daily or only on specific days. The task can run once a day or once an hour according to the settings. The backup task will be started when it is the set point of time on the defined days. For example, when the schedule is set as Run on: Wednesday and Saturday, Repeat type: Hourly, and Start at: 03:00, the task will start from 03:00 on Wednesday and Saturday each week and repeat running every hour until the end of these two days.
      • Backup by event: Once the defined events, such as Screen locked, Signing out, Startup happens on the protected device, the backup task will be run automatically.
        • Screen locked: The screen of the protected device is locked.
        • Signing out: The user logs out from the protected device.
        • Startup: The protected device is started up.
      • Backup interval: You can define the frequency of backing up the device. Within the configured time, the backup task will only be run once even when the defined events happened more than once. For example, the backup interval is set as 1 hour. Due to the backup by event settings, if the screen of the device had been locked which triggered the backup task, the backup task will not be run again when the device was started up ten minutes later.
       

      Note:

      • When Backup by time and Backup by event are both enabled, the configured backup frequency will be applied to both of them.
    • Only run backup tasks within the allowed backup windows: Click Configure Backup Window to specify the time when the backup task is allowed or forbidden to be run in order to maintain the operational efficiency of the backup source device. Only the restore points scheduled by time will be displayed on the time slot since the restore points of manual backup and backup by events are not predictable.
  7. Select Retention Policy:

    Setting a retention policy helps you manage your storage space more efficiently by keeping the versions you want. There are three options of retention policies to choose from:

    • Number of latest versions to keep: Specify the number of the latest versions to retain
    • Keep all versions for: Retain all versions backed up within certain days
    • Advanced retention policy: Versions can be kept for longer periods but your storage space can be saved at the same time. Click Set Rules to edit the retention rules.
      • You can set multiple rules and customize the retention policy according to your needs.
        • Specify the days in which all versions backed up will be saved.
        • Advanced retention policy also allows you to keep the latest versions of a different time frame for certain periods. You can choose how long the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly versions will be retained in the system. For example, Keep the latest version of the week for 7 weeks means that the system will retain the last version during a week for seven weeks after it is backed up.
        • You will also need to set the Number of the latest versions to keep. If there are fewer versions than the specified number, the retention policy will not take effect. This is a required field.
      • Advanced retention policy employs the GFS, or Grandfather-Father-Son retention mechanism.
      • A version can meet more than one retention rule at a time. For example, a version can be retained by the weekly retention rule and daily retention rule at the same time.

    Example:

    It’s October now and you have a backup schedule that backs up once every day. If you are planning for a retention policy that covers the past nine months and want to keep

    • Daily versions for the first 3 months (September, August, and July)
    • Weekly versions for the 4th to 6th months (June, May, and April)
    • Monthly versions for the 7th to 9th months (March, February, and January)
    • 10 latest versions
    you may refer to the following settings:


    A version can meet more than one retention rule. Therefore, the first weekly version can also be the seventh daily version, and the first monthly version can also be the fourth weekly version.

    Setting the Number of latest versions to keep prevents the retention policy from deleting all versions when the system stops backing up your device, and the 10 latest versions will be the daily versions backed up in the past 10 days.

  8. Backup now:

    The wizard allows an immediate backup regardless of the schedule.

Note:

  • To streamline the backup process, Changed Block Tracking (CBT) technology is adopted for backup of PCs by default. To ensure CBT is functioning properly, make sure Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) on each protected device has been turned on.
  • The CBT technology adopted in Active Backup for Business uses VSS to take snapshots for devices and identify the changed block between snapshots. As a Microsoft's built-in technology, VSS can avoid performance interference while Active Backup for Business is performing the CBT technology. After the first full backup, the CBT technology allows each device to transfer only the changed block to your Synology NAS. In this way, you can save the bandwidth resources and speed up the backup process.
  • The first backup of each backup task will be a full backup, and CBT technology will not be applied to the first backup. From the second backup, Active Backup for Business will only conduct incremental backup unless the VSS service of the device is turned off.

To edit one or more backup tasks:

After creating the backup task, you can edit (or batch edit) the tasks. Except for backup destination, most of the settings can be modified. Please note that, when batch editing the tasks, the task name and the destination cannot be changed.

  1. Go to Task List.
  2. Select a task you wish to edit and click Edit. You can also edit tasks in batch by pressing Ctrl when selecting multiple tasks, and then click Edit.
  3. Click OK after editing the settings.

Note:

  • When batch editing the tasks, please tick the checkbox of the section which you wish to modify to double check the settings. If the checkboxes are not ticked when you click OK, the options will remain unchanged.

To run a backup task:

You can run an immediate backup regardless of the schedule in Task List.

  1. Select the backup task you wish to run.
  2. Click Back up.
  3. The system will start to back up your device according to the task settings.

To cancel a backup task:

You can cancel an ongoing backup task in Task List.

  1. Select the ongoing backup task you wish to cancel.
  2. Click Cancel and the system will cancel the selected backup task.

To delete one or more backup tasks:

Go to Task List to select the task, and then click Delete. After confirming the action, the selected task will be removed and the backed up data will be deleted from the destination.

The device would remain connected to the server even when no task attached to it. This device can always be found on the Device List, and you can create a task for the device at any time.

To check the detailed information of a backup task:

In Task List, select the backup task you wish to view more information on and click Details. The following information will be displayed:

  • Status
    • Status: Complete, failed, or partially complete, suggesting the current status of the backup task.
    • Source: All backed-up virtual machines in the task.
    • Destination: Backup destination of the stored data.
    • Execution time: Last backup time of the task.
    • Transferred size: Volume of data transferred from the source side. The displayed number may be different from the actual used storage space due to deduplication.
    • Duration: Elapsed time of the backup task.
  • Log
    • Type: The category that the log belongs to, information / warning / error, suggesting the severity level of the log.
    • Time: The time of each log.
    • Event: The backup process of each task or encountered issues.

To browse or delete backup versions of a backup task:

  1. In Task List, select the desired backup task.
  2. Click Version to browse the backup versions.
  3. If you wish to delete a backup version, please select the version and click the icon.