How to set up entire system for incremental backups?

Andy, the frequency of how often you should perform backups really depends on how often your system changes and how important that system is in terms of protecting it and your ability to recover the system in the event of a disaster recovery being needed.

If you are going to rely using incremental backups to protect your system then I would strongly advise on not making the incremental version chains too long as that renders them more at risk of damage or corruption.

Ideally, you should try to make regular backups to several different destination locations, including one which can be stored offline / away from the system.

One of the Advanced Schedule options for backup tasks to external drives is that of running the backup when the drive is connected.

Steve Smith wrote:

"If you are going to rely using incremental backups to protect your system then I would strongly advise on not making the incremental version chains too long as that renders them more at risk of damage or corruption.

Ideally, you should try to make regular backups to several different destination locations, including one which can be stored offline / away from the system.

One of the Advanced Schedule options for backup tasks to external drives is that of running the backup when the drive is connected. "

Thanks Steve, for replying. You brought up a good point about possibly have too many, incremental backups and the chance of them becoming corrupted. I think I remember that after a few... a new full version is made? I will need to look to see if this could be made shorter.

I do know that I can set Acronis to run when I plug my external into my usb port, but it's not exactly what I wanted to do. I will probably set it up for once a month...  I think there's a setting to grab the change and incrementally update, even if I miss the date by not having it connected... but what if I had all 4 hard drives scheduled for the same time to incrementally backup, set to begin 10 minutes after my system starts and on set calendar day and time..., would they automatically begin their backups one at a time, or would some of them not run? The problem is that you could tie the system up for quite a long time if you are running validations and backups for 4 separate drives, plus an entire system backup at once, too.

My external drive, will not be connected but stored on the shelf, basically until I feel the need to capture any differences from the last system or disk backup. For instance... once everything is working great, nothing usually changes here unless I get a new Windows update, so I would do the backup prior to Windows installing.

Thanks again!

Andy

Thanks Steve, for replying. You brought up a good point about possibly have too many, incremental backups and the chance of them becoming corrupted. I think I remember that after 5... a new full version is made? I will need to look to see if this could be made shorter.

Andy, up to 5 incremental backups then a new full one should be fine without the need to make this shorter.

I would recommend having a read of the linked Acronis article about best backup practice.

Steve Smith wrote:

Thanks Steve, for replying. You brought up a good point about possibly have too many, incremental backups and the chance of them becoming corrupted. I think I remember that after 5... a new full version is made? I will need to look to see if this could be made shorter.

Andy, up to 5 incremental backups then a new full one should be fine without the need to make this shorter.

I would recommend having a read of the linked Acronis article about best backup practice."

 

Thanks I will read it. So many options here bull very good ones. What about the question regarding if backups were scheduled at the same time? What would happen?

Thanks, Andy

What about the question regarding if backups were scheduled at the same time? What would happen?

Acronis will only allow one active backup task at any time, so if you have other backups scheduled for the same time or immediately after, then these will be queued and run automatically one after the other until all have completed.

Steve Smith wrote:

What about the question regarding if backups were scheduled at the same time? What would happen?

Acronis will only allow one active backup task at any time, so if you have other backups scheduled for the same time or immediately after, then these will be queued and run automatically one after the other until all have completed."

 

Great! thanks Steve!

Andy