Acronis 2013 leaving duplicate files with tilde character ~
I saw another forum post from 2010 about an old version of Acronis, but no real solution. I have noticed this for several years across multiple Acronis versions and keep hoping it will get resolved, but it never does. In many folders that I am backing up and keeping synchronized with True Image, there are copies of my "real" files where the copy has a random 9 character leading text, plus the file extension ends in a tilde.
Here are some examples of duplicated files that seems useless:
JM7PTDB1~MembershipArchives.zip~
QLKIVBDM~State Membership.mdb~
These files are always exactly the same size as their original version, just with this crazy naming convention. The amount of wasted disk space on my source drive is staggering - easily 100+ Gb. To be clear - I am seeing these on my SOURCE drive that is being backed up. I delete tons of them, and within a week or two of Acronis running, they are back.
What is the deal with these mysterious files? Why are they being created and how can I stop it?
I am doing file based backup, backing up an entire large folder (called F:\SharedData) to an external USB/eSATA drive. I have this backup on a weekly differential with cleanup. In addition to this weekly backup, I have this entire folder set to synchronize to a USB drive too, using stanard Acronis Synchronization. That's what I mean by backing it up AND synchronizing it. Does that seem like a safe approach?
The files themselves are not open during the backup. Many of these files are old archives with date-stamped names (like MemberData_20120115.mdb), so they are almost never opened, I just have these monthly archives that I want to make sure are archived.
The machine does also have SQL Server 2008 R2 running on it. It a Windows 7 Professional OS.
Thanks for any ideas or advice...
I have never set up a sync and a file/folder backup of the same files/folders in Acronis, but I would think that this is what is creating the extra files. During backup, the file/folder backup operation may be "touching/locking" the files/folders and may be creating these temporary files/folders because of the sync portion of the program constantly monitoring for changes to the files/folders. The sync portion of Acronis is "live" at all times.
I would suggest that for troubleshooting purposes, you pause the sync before the backup, and perform some backups to see if this still continues. I'm not sure if there is a way for Acronis to stop the sync process before the backup and restart it afterwards using Pre/Post commands, but will see if I can find out from Acronis.
You may want to consider only using the backup functions in Acronis, and use a separate utility to do the sync. Karen's Replicator is a great free utility that can do this, and can be set to a schedule. It can be set up to sync in both directions if needed. Additionally, Syncback SE (paid product) is another good product for sync needs.
DuplicateFilesDeleter is a simple, but effective tool to locate duplicate files in one or more selected search paths. It scans the files and compares them based on Byte for Byte Comparison, which ensures 100% accuracy. You can then choose to delete the selected duplicate or original files. The program is multi-threaded and performs scans quickly.
Hi there,
I'm just using Acronis True Image 2016, and for the first time, I needed to restore my backed up files. As other people in this forum, I have files with the ~ sign. Even after closing Acronis True Image 2016 and after restarting the computer. Obviously, I got a lot of files with the ~ sign that have the same information as the original files.
How can I avoid to have those files during the next restore? (an spare me hours of searching and deleting those files)
Regards
Alvin Jose, please raise a new post for your question in the Acronis True Image 2016 Forum as you have that version of the product and not one of the much older versions. Just click on the button for "New topic" near the top of the page to start your own new post.
Please provide more details of where you are seeing these files with the tilde character in their name (~)?
Note: ~ in file names indicates that these are temporary files, and they are not necessarily created by Acronis. ATIH will exclude any files matching *.~ by default from backup images.
Hi. Thanks for the information. I just posted a new topic. Regards.
Thanks, Alvin Jose, have replied in the new post.
Steve Smith wrote:Alvin Jose, please raise a new post for your question in the Acronis True Image 2016 Forum as you have that version of the product and not one of the much older versions. Just click on the button for "New topic" near the top of the page to start your own new post.
Please provide more details of where you are seeing these files with the tilde character in their name (~)?
Note: ~ in file names indicates that these are temporary files, and they are not necessarily created by Acronis. ATIH will exclude any files matching *.~ by default from backup images.
Steve, not true. These are DUPLICATE files being created. I now have 3 times the disk space being consumed after running my three incremental restores.
If they existed before, additional duplicates with different 8 digits would not be created, but OVERWRITTEN upon the running of following incremental backups. There would only be the original ~XXXXXXX files, plus the active.
This is CULMATIVE. Every restore adds another set.
It is sad that for 10+ years people have just IGNORED this issue and tried to deflect it off on the CUSTOMER like they are doing it wrong. The PRODUCT is not working correctly!