True Image Cloud Backup File Size is 1/3 the Size of Entire PC

Hello Nora,

the compression is not able to reduce archive size so much.

Can you please check if there are any exclusions specified in the corresponding backup plan? If you open the archive and browse it, are all files/folders present? 

Thank you.

I am using true immage to back up my laptop "C" drive which is currently 327 gig.  I run this every week and ths is a list of the file sizes produced over the last few weeks:

20 feb 84.6 gig

17/ feb 154 gig

27 feb 34.8 gig

5 Mar 53 gig

12 mar 32 gig

19 mar 39 gig

26 Mar 289 gig

1 apr 10 gig

Just before the 26th March I built some VMs and ran a checkpoit firewall lab, this may explain the large file that day, but why is there such an inconsistency on what is quite a stable size of hard drive?

I Hope someone can help with this.

Thanks

Just curios but was that 310Gb actually used space or just the size of the disk but with only some of the space used? Only actual data will get backed up.  As Anna mentioned, their are default exclusions for things like pagefile, hiberfile, and others that won't be backed up either and then the data is compressed - approximately by 25% in most cases (just an estimate though).

If you are updating VM's each time you launch a VM, it could be registered as a file change.  Acronis Cloud does do block level backups so will try to only backup the changed portion of files, but may not be possible with every file type.  

Moving large files can cause them to be backed up again.  Defragmenting can cause large files to be backed up again too. 

I'm not really sure in your case though, something must be registering files as being changed if that data is actually being pushed up each time.  

Thanks Bobbo,

The 327 gig is just the used portion of the disk the actual drive size is 1 terra bit (922gig).  Can I delete some of these files that a taking up space?  If I ever need to restore from my backups I presume I just use the latest file there so I may as well delete the older ones?

The last one of 10 gig failed for some reason.  I ususlly unplug the 3 T usb backup drive until just before the sheduled backup time, then plug it back in, this is so any virus won't affect the backup.  If we work on 25% the the 26th march backup the data used was bigger then the actual disk as 4 x 289= 1156 on a 922 gig disk?  This seems a bit weird.

Would you recomend deleting some of the older files?

Thanks for you help.

Tim

Tim,

Are we talking about deleting them from the source (your computer), or the cloud?  Either is an option, as long as you're comfortable with them being gone. 

As far as deleting "some of these files taking up space" are you talking about unused files on your machine taking up space on the machince and the cloud backup, older Acronis backup files on the machine, or something more specific?  If you delete files from your computer, that don't exist in the cloud or a backup, they are simply gone.  If those files currently exist in the cloud backup, just remember that the cloud will groom out older versions at some point - 20 maximum and up to 6 months.  So, ff you delete files from your computer today, technically, in 6 months, you won't be able to retrieve those files from the cloud either after they get groomed out (of whatever timeframe you currently have setup for your cloud maintenance - 6 months or 20 backups is the maximum option set by default.

Acronis cloud also has an "archive" option.  It will essentially, move/copy/archive large files off of your system and host them in the cloud as an archive.  That way you don't have to keep them on the local system and they are not subjected to the same cleanup tasks as online backups.  Just remember to keep your subscription renewed, or after 30 days of a subscription ending, anything in the cloud will get permanently deleted  -archive or backup.  If you ever stop the subscription, be sure to download everything you need back before that 30 days if you do need to maintain a copy of it.

Me personally, I use the cloud as secondary/offsite disaster recovery only - not a single location for backups (too slow for daily recoveries or emergency ones).  I use a local backup to a USB drive using weekly incrementals.  I have a second backup to a local network share on a drive hosted from my router with differentials every other day for a week.  I then use Acronis Cloud as a third offsite backup location.  That way I have multiple options for recovery in case of corruption, theft, disaster, etc.   

What is data archiving

Data archiving vs online backup

Archiving your data

Thanks again Bobbo,

I back up to a USB 3 tB hard drive so would like to delete some of these files.  I don't use the cloud at all as I know the cloud is just another name for someone else's computer and I want it where I can keep an eye on it.

Ideally I would like to take one main backup and then weekly incremental backups but I couldn't find that option in the settings.  I think that I will delete some of the older backup files as if I ever restore, I will restore from the latest available file.

Thanks again for your help.

Tim

Tim, should be easy to do.  Manually deleting backups outside of Acronis is possible, but not recommended.  Acronis keeps a local database of the files it creates so when you manually delete files in Windows Explorer, it will mess up the Acronis database.  You can attempt a recovery or validation of the existing backup though and choose to ignore all versions it cannot find and that will update the database though.

In your case, I'd create a new backup task and configure it for "inrementals" with 1 full and 6 incrementals and have it run once per day - that technically gives you a week if you don't manually run it more frequently.  Then I would set a cleanup task for the number of version chains (let's say 4 - a months worth).  Once you configure and start backing up, if you dont' mess with the task anymore it will do exactly what you want.  If you mess with the task, it resets the version chain so you may end up with some additional incrementals (for instance, you have 2 inc already, you change the task, so now it needs to do 6 more incrementals again).

At the start of the next version chain - this is the completion of the next full in chain 5, the first version chain (week 1) will then automatically delete itself and keep going in this manner each week... as long as you don't mess with the task after it has been created.

http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ATI2016/#34327.html

Thanks again,

I have set it up exactly as you have suggested with the first backup happening tomorrow at 10:00 am UK time.  After the first backup, can I delete all of the old ones as they have 600 gig worth of disk space.

Thanks again for your help.

Tim

Tim,

As long as your comfortable with the new backup being successful and don't need to recover from anything older, then yes, you can delete the old backups to free up space again.  Before the backup runs, do double check the "exclusions" tab to make sure you are comfortable with teh defaults there.  I would suggest remvoing the exclusions for chrome, firefox, etc as they usually house favorites. The only ones that should be excluded by default (that you haven't set by yourself shoudl be the ones listed in the attachment.

If you have the space on that 3tb drive, I would occassionally take a full backup using the offline bootable recovery media as well - just to have one outside of Windows where any interferecne of third party applications could potentially do something to your backup.  The online Windows backups are pretty reliable, but for peace of mind (and my high success rate of recovery using them), I still take offline full backups as often as I feel necessary - just in case.  It's not necessary, but I don't feel comfortable having just one backup.  If you do decide to do this as well, might even be better to have a dedicated drive for this purpose that only gets used for these backups... that way, malware/ransomware won't have access to the drive and or the backups at any point during the recvoery process. 

Thanks once more Bobbo,  I have done as you suggested but have left the exclusions as defaul as I don't really understand the code, still a bit puzzled about the size of the backup, as you can see I'm only using 320 gig of my C drive, why is the backup 291 gig, I could have just cloned the C drive to my USB  hard drive?

Tim, we can see that you are using 320GB of the space on your C: drive but what is this made up of in terms of the types of files stored on the drive.  I note that you mentioned storing some Virtual Machines in an earlier update, are these VM disk images included in your backup?

I would suggest downloading & installing a copy of TreeSize Free and looking at the actual size break-down of your C: drive folders to see exactly where the largest folders / files are held.  

Once you have determined that, then you can decide if you need to be adding any of those folders or files to the list of Exclusions for your backup task.

Tim, 

Your backup looks normal.  You're using 320GB of actual data on the drive - your first full backup is roughly 291GB.  That's completley normal as the default setting for backup will always us compression.  Compression will vary based upon the files types, etc, but one can expect between 15-30% smaller output for the backup size - depends on what is being excluded as well. 

FYI...

If you change your existing backup script now, it will reset your version chain so you'll end up with more incrementals this time - that is normal.  Any time you change a task after it has already started backing up, the version chain portion gets reset.  In most cases, it's recommended to not even bother updating a backup task because it can lead to problems down the road.  Instead, it's recommended to jus start another backup job fresh and make sure it's configured exactly how you want it.

Thanks very much Bobbo and Steve,  looking at yourExclusions list I see you are not backing up recycle bin (why would you?) and some page stuff.  I might set another one off with those settings and get rid of the default exclusions.

Thanks Guys, you have set my mind at rest.

Oh just one more question (My Columbo impression).  If I every have to restore this drive, I guess I need to use the recovery disk I burned and hope that will allow me to connect with the 3 T drive.  Not the sort of thing I want to practice!!!

Cheers

Tim

Tim, some of the default exclusions are questionable, i.e. System Volume Information where any System Restore Points are stored are excluded by default, as are the folders for your web browsers which store your favourites, extensions etc - I have deleted those exclusions as I want to be able to use that data should I need to do a system recovery.

In terms of considering the 'if ever' about recovering the drive - you really should 'test' that your recovery disk can be used to both boot your system and 'see' your external / internal 3TB drive holding your backup images.  You don't need to go as far as actually performing the restore / recovery operation, but if you fall at the first hurdle and can't either boot or see the backup image drive, then you need to know well before needing to recover your system!