XML Files and META Folders

Hello Joe,

Welcome to our Forum, it's nice to have you with us.

You can choose a simplified backup naming, but XML files will get created anyway. It's required for identifying the backups in the GUI of the product, and without it will be impossible to locate the backup for recovery in the GUI.

Should you need anything else or have any further questions - feel free to contact us at your earliest convenience, we will be happy to help you!

Thank you.

Thank you Joe! Couldn't they dumped all the XML's into a .xml folder like they did with .meta in the previous versions. What noob here isn't using simplified backup naming? I have prefered this since I have my own plan and schedule.

How can I make it stop making XML files, I dont even care about viewing them on the GUI, even that is ridiculous, having to make a task to delete? please. I'm sorry but dumb management at Acronis.

Now how can we the consumers turn this useless feature off? and Get no XML files? Say I'm backing up 5 servers twice daily!? That's 70 XML Files Weekly!!!!!!! Some of us just want a TIB, like the way previous Acronis kept it simple, hence why we aren't with Norton Backup Exec.

otherwise why even offer the "simplified backup naming" option [ ! ] the logic is utterly frustrating!
otherwise why even offer the "simplified backup naming" option [ ! ] the logic is utterly frustrating!

and again
otherwise why even off the "simplified backup naming" option [ ! ] the logic is utterly frustrating!

Help :'(

Hello Jermniac,

Thank you for posting your question in our forum.

I want to thank Yana for the good help here.

For the current versions of Acronis Backup & Recovery 11, there is no way to change the way it works. So far, you have to live with the creation of XML files during the backup process.

There is only one way to create tib files without XML files that is the Command-line utility.

I have addressed your input as feature request for future versions of Acronis Backup & Recovery.

If there is anything else, we can do for you, please let me know.

Thank you.

Thank you, Yes; Please address it as a future request. =) or even an update I'm surprised a ton of previous users of Acronis, who upgraded didn't complain. I mean the XML are only for automated backups plans, I prefer mines manually.

Didn't mean to lose my beans but Simplicity bought me over to Acronis. Full Disk backup in a Single File? Genius!

I usually Add "[DATE]" in the archive name to sort the backups first by name then Date.
That way I have:

ServerA - [01-xx-12].tib
ServerA - [02-xx-12].tib
ServerB - [01-xx-12].tib
ServerB - [02-xx-12].tib
etc.

It's ugly to see as well to MANAGE which backups to keep, transfer or delete.

ServerA - [01-xx-12].tib
ServerA - [01-xx-12].xml
ServerA - [02-xx-12].tib
ServerA - [02-xx-12].xml
ServerB - [01-xx-12].tib
ServerB - [01-xx-12].xml
ServerB - [02-xx-12].tib
ServerB - [02-xx-12].xml

Even giving the XML a AUTOmatic hidden attribute would've done the job! ;]

That's All. Enjoy! (^_^')

Hi Jermniac,

Can you please tell a little bit more about your backup scheme? Do I get you correctly, that you have created single backup plan not scheduled at any date and you have used [MachineName] and [Date] templates to generate the names you want? How about incremental and differential backups? Do you create full backups twice a day? What's your policy of backup retention?

Why I am asking these questions is that these are the questions why identification of backup chains comes to help. And I want to learn your use case to find out how did you manage to get the things done easier (:

Thanks!

Hi, Venticello!

My Backup scheme is very simple and automated for my proposes. =)
I have 5 servers that I backup. All five totaling up at about 250GB.
Because I need Daily, Weekly and Monthly backups as well as Yearly Backups; I decided to do the following:
On each separate server I have 3 Automatic Backups scheduled just after midnight at different times. Using Simple Names and the [DATE] tag. This ultimately gives me the name of my servers followed by dates created.

For each machine:
The first backup task is daily and backups the whole server to a Server I call [Server]-BKP in HD DISK#1 [2TB]
The second backup task is weekly and backups the whole server to the [Server]-BKP in HD DISK#2 [2TB]
The third backup task is monthly and backups the whole server to the [Server]-BKP in HD DISK#3 [2TB]
While this looks like I create redundant backups every friday and last day of the month. But in theory It's only once a month. My Daily backups are actually M-Th and Weekly are only Friday's. And of course monthly at the end of the month (Which acronis has an option for! Good feature!)

Every two weeks or weekly if I choose to I empty out the daily backups to make room for more, after all I only really need them in case of an immediate failure I'd have yesterday's backup. These are 'incremental', with the exclusion of the first. But I even remove the first, If I'm not mistaken Acronis makes 'incremental' but still uses the first as part of that incremental, however in actuality I've used an 'incremental' backup to fully restore a server. I see no difference at all if it was able to fully restore a server as if it were a full backup

At the end of every 2 weeks on friday, I'm required to hand in at least that weeks backup mainly last friday and yesterday's thursday. So I simply transfer it to a Rotating disk that get's cycled to store those backup offsite.

Every 6 months I hand in backups of my end of the month backups, which thanks to my monthly backup it's half automated. Backup retention isn't handled by me, if it were I'd only store it for the last three months, but because my Boss is a paranoia, nothing wrong with that, I just hand the disks to him if he'd like to keep that half year or wants me to fill the rest then he simply does and/or buys me a new hard drive to continue to fill up the next one! =)

The reason I chose to organize and handle my scheme manually is because i'm scared to just have it done automatically, I need reassurance to see at least weekly or bi monthly that the backups are sizing up correctly. every once in a while I'll test it into a new server, don't know if anyone can or should trust Acronis verification task. I'm sure it works well. I just rather know more concretely in a real world scenario.

I don't see a need for incremental or differential backups unless it's to save space, I rather do full every time, and because my backups are HUGE I can get away with making full backups. Additionally unless the users files are changing daily, which im my case they are, I rather then have their files on the cloud and let services like dropbox handles the backups and synchronization. which is probably my next project. essentially, files that change daily benefit most from cloud backups. =)

Hi Jermniac,

Thank you so much for such a detailed description of your use case. It really looks like a true GFS with extra staging with "end of the month" support. Additionally, the tricky part here is that you are storing daily, weekly and monthly backups in different locations. Backup validity is another valid point.

Now, since I see you don't need those "hateful" .xml files at all, I can propose you a sneaky work around their presence. You can create a post backup action script that will remove all the .xml files in backup location. Something like del <backup-location>\*.xml. Some difficulties you may encounter will be accessing share from a script (mapped drives do not do the job, because they are only visible within session of the user mapping them). Actually, if your job is running under some domain account or you don't mind inputting password into the script, you can temporarily map a network drive, remove the *.xml files and unmap it. That's it - you will have your vault nice and clean! (:

Venticello,

You are totally correct my friend, a batch is easiest workaround for those darn .XML, hell it's the only workaround i have for backing up old files from an antique Novell 4.11 server we still have access to. =)
This will actually do for now, until Acronis gives us the option for a true self managed simplified backup naming option.

Glad I was able to help in any way possible.

Hello all,

I read somewhere in this Forum that the .tib file is retorable even without the XML file. Is that possible in Acronis 11? Because when I try to restore a TIB file not having the XML file, I can not see it from the GUI, and therefore can not select the file to restore.

Is there an alternative method to do it?

Regards

Like Mr Luis Manuel Lopez, I have the same xml Problem (ABR 11.5).
How can I make a recovery only from a .tib (without an xml) via the Bootable Media (WinPE) GUI?!

You have to browse to the folder and hit refresh. That will recreate all the xml files from ground zero and let you restore via the GUI.