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Differential/Incremental backups - how does ATIH know what files have changed?

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Differential/Incremental backups - how does ATIH know what files have changed? Is there "official description"?

To clarify: I only use bootable media and only to create partition level backups.

I know that possible options are timestamp, Archived attribute or MD5 check (or something else) but what does it use exactly? I doubt it is MD5 because I just did full backup a couple days ago (took about 40 min) and differential today (took about 5 minutes). If it does MD5 check for each file I don't see how differential backup can be that fast.

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None of those. ATi doesn't look at files when imaging. ATI images at the drive sector level, so it looks at what sectors have changed data.

tuttle wrote:

None of those. ATi doesn't look at files when imaging. ATI images at the drive sector level, so it looks at what sectors have changed data.

I appreciate your response. I'd like to clarify (will modify original post too) - I only use bootable media and I only do partition-level backups.

Is there a knowledge base article or some document that describes what ATIH does in greater detail?

It doesn't matter whether you image with the Windows application or the bootable Rescue Media. My answer is correct:
ATI images at the drive sector level, so it looks at what sectors have changed data.

If you want further info., do some searches here and check the documents listed in the left margin. You might also check Acronis.com.