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TI Home 2010 Multiple USB Drives

Thread needs solution

I am trying to setup a backup plan on multiple USB drives for a customer

The plan I want is
Week 1 (Drive 1) - Monday, FULL Backup Tues - Sun Differential backups
Week 2 (Drive 2) - Monday, FULL Backup Tues - Sun Differential backups
I then swap back to Drive 1 and start again, erasing the existing backups, This allows me to keep one drive off site

When the drives had nothing on them this worked fine but the first time I swapped back to drive 1 I started to get an error, sent by email

Task is waiting for user interaction.
Description: My Disk Drives Backup
Information: Specify location of the volume 1.
Details: Click Browse to specify volume location, Retry to try again, or click Cancel.

Both drives are identical, directory structure is the same and the drive letter has not changed.

I believe this may be because it is looking for a different "full backup" file.

Is there a way at the beginning of the schedule period i.e. Monday, to erase the previos full and differential backups and hence start again.

I have thoought of using the option "Create a new full backup after" option Would this work, and if so should it be 6 OR 7 differential backups

All help appreciated

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I don't see your idea working as it stands because TI uses the drive ID (the one Windows decides for each drive) as one of the items to search for to ensure it is storing the image on the correct drive. Obviously each USB drive has a separate disk ID.

I think the workaround is;

1. Duplicate the tasks using a 2 week cycle, so week 1 will be using drive_a and week 2 uses drive_b. Set the tasks up manually as copying a task has pitfalls - don't bother asking how I know! :) .

If you are wanting to alternate the drives as in drive_a for odd days and drive_b for even, that ought to be possible using a similar scheme.

If you can fit removable drive racks into the PC then another possible option becomes available. Use the alternate backup place option, which would then allow a second drive to be kept off site.

Thanks for the reply Colin

This seems a real shortcoming of the software.

Storagecraft ShadowProtect handles this perfectly.

The problem I see with your approach is that when there is a public holiday on a Monday. It will require manual intervention to sort out.

I see you use TI Echo Workstation, does handle this in the same way?

Thanks again

Brian,

As far as I know all Acronis imaging software uses the disk_ID to know where it's archives are, however what might be different is if you used networked drives as these would use IP or mapped shares.

I think the bank/public holiday problem could be got around by not having the 'if missed run as soon as possible' item unticked.

Another possibility would be to use Windows scheduler and once a year enter all the holiday dates, and then have the scheduler call the TI scheduler - though that seems a bit messy to me.