Directory Tree Options

Entire Structure This option ensures that DataArmour copies the entire source files directory structure to the destination folder.  This is best demonstrated in an example:

Your source directory is: "c:\my documents\letters" and you have a rule which backs up all files with a ".DOC" extension.  You specify that the Entire structure is to backed up by DataArmour with the destination folder as "A:\backup".  As the example there are two files called resume.doc and readme.doc.

explorer example full structure.gif (25111 bytes)

DataArmour will copy all ".DOC" files from the source folder and replicate the entire structure of the source folder into the destination folder.  As a result the destination will look like this:
"A:\backup\my documents\letters\resume.doc"
"A:\backup\my documents\letters\readme.doc"

Some structure, grouped by drive/unc This option causes DataArmour to reduce the source directory structure down to the lowest common path for all rules.  Once again, this is best demonstrated by an example of a backup item with a single rule.

Example 1:
Your source directory is "c:\my documents\letters" and you have a rule which backs up all files with the ".DOC" extension.  You specify that Some structure, grouped by drive/unc is to be backed up DataArmour with the destination folder as "A:\backup". 

DataArmour will examine the full path of the files being backed up, in this case "c:\my documents\letters". 


explorer example unc example 1.gif (22090 bytes)

DataArmour examines every source file and path and removes what is called the "common prefix" of the path.  Eg: Each file looks like this:
"c:\my documents\letters\resume.doc"
"c:\my documents\letters\readme.doc"


DataArmour looks to remove as much of the path as possible to ensure that the destination file and path remain unique.  In this case, DataArmour would remove "c:\my documents\letters\" and as a result the files would be stored in the root of the destination directory.

This is a simple example, with only one rule. A more complicated example is given below, illustrating a single rule, with subdirectories.

Example 2:
Using the same details above, we will now assume that the "c:\my documents\letters\" directory has two sub-directories, "Projects" and "Business".  Within the "Business" directory is a file called "Resume.doc" and in the "Projects" directory are files called "Helpme.doc" and "Readme.doc"

When DataArmour starts the backup, the files will look like this:
"c:\my documents\letters\resume.doc"
"c:\my documents\letters\readme.doc"
"c:\my documents\letters\projects\readme.doc"
"c:\my documents\letters\projects\helpme.doc"
"c:\my documents\letters\business\resume.doc"


explorer example unc example 2.gif (24641 bytes)

DataArmour examines the files and determines that the common prefix is "c:\my documents\letters\".   It will now copy files to the destination, which will look like this:
"a:\backup\resume.doc"
"a:\backup\readme.doc"
"a:\backup\projects\readme.doc"
"a:\backup\projects\helpme.doc"
"a:\backup\business\resume.doc"

Example 3:
Once again using the same details, we will be backing up from three seperate drives and directory structures.
We are backing up "c:\my documents\", "d:\Office\templates\" and "e:\system\drivers\".  To keep it simple, we are backing up all files in each of these directories and including all sub-directories.

explorer example unc example 3.gif (32636 bytes)

When DataArmour starts the backup, the files look like this:
"c:\my documents\letters\resume.doc"
"c:\my documents\letters\readme.doc"
"d:\office\templates\normal.dot"
"e:\system\drivers\stealth3d.dll"
"e:\system\drivers\mydriver.dll"

As you can see the destinatyion directory structure is not touched in any way, but DataArmour has added the source drive as a primary directory.   This is to prevent two directories named the same, from different drives coming into conflict.  For example:
"c:\my documents\" and
"d:\my documents".