Acronis stops after four backups

Daniel, the answer has to be 'it depends' as compression is normally applied by default but can be changed when a new backup task is created but not yet run to create the first file.

Typically compression is expected to achieve around 20% saving in size depending on the types of data involved.  It cannot compress files that already are in a highly compressed state such as music, videos, pictures etc.

In both versions you can select the backup compression level. However, after running the first backup you cannot change the compression level.

Ian

Is there an explanation for the following fact:

Version 2020, hard drive 170 GB, Acronis copy 170 GB.

New version 2021, hard drive 170 GB, Acronis copy 90 GB

Thanks,

Daniel

Daniel, sorry but no explanation based just on the numbers.  You would need to compare the 2 backup files to see where any differences in size is accounted for?

If you have 2 .tibx files and can mount these each to a new drive letter, then you could use any sync tool to compare differences, or use a tool like TreeSizeFree to check folder sizes between the two mounted backup drive letters.

Unfortunately, the Acronis 2020 backup has been deleted and therefore is no more available.

Let me ask the question differently.

Statistically, what fraction of the hard drive is copied with Acronis 2021?

Is it always 100%?

Not taking into account the 20% compression factor.

Thanks,

Daniel

Daniel, it should never be 100% of a disk drive unless sector-by-sector is used and all sectors, including unused ones are included.

An example from my own laptop with a 500GB Samsung EVO 970 SSD is best to try to illustrate how this works in my case.

First an image showing the Recovery page for the backup task for this drive:

As seen above, 500GB is the size given by the marketing people! 465.8GB is the size after the drive is formatted by Windows.  The image shows the 4 partitions on this drive with the full and used sizes of each.  The used data size of the disk is approximately 98GB.

Next from the backup task Activity page - the size of data backed up by ATI 2021 showing a Full backup followed by an Incremental backup image.

So the full backup is only 75.2GB versus 98GB or 103GB (size of data to recover shown).  With the incremental file included, this gives a size of 80.5GB which is shown in the next image of the actual .tibx file on disk in Explorer.

As above, the actual file on disk is 80.7GB including the full plus one incremental file.

I can see a big difference between you and I.

In my case:

Backed up : 64.3 GB

Speed : 517.6 MB ps

Time spent : 16 min 57 sec

Data to recover : 159.5 GB

Method : Full

Sector by sector.

In your case 75% of hard drive is backed up, while in my case,

only 40% of the hard drive is backed up.

Further more Sector by sector implies everything on the hard drive should be backed up

if I am not wrong?

So my question is: could we find an explanation ?

Thanks for your help,

Daniel

?

Daniel, I do not think we are making the same comparisons here.

Please post a screen shot of your Recovery panel for this backup task like the first one I posted above showing the headings Backup and Used with the drive partitions shown below this.

Sector by sector does not automatically that everything on the drive is backed up as documented in the ATI 2021 User Guide:

Image creation mode

Location: Options > Advanced > Image creation mode

This option is not available for the backups that use Acronis Cloud as a backup destination.

You can use these parameters to create an exact copy of your whole partitions or hard disks, and not only the sectors that contain data. For example, this can be useful when you want to back up a partition or disk containing an operating system that is not supported by Acronis True Image. Please note that this mode increases processing time and usually results in a larger image file.

• To create a sector-by-sector image, select the Back up sector-by-sector check box.
• To include all unallocated disk space into the backup, select the Back up unallocated space check box.

  This check box is available only when the Back up sector-by-sector check box is selected.

I do not use sector by sector mode for my scheduled backup tasks as there is no need for this under all normal circumstances.  The last time I used this option was when trying to backup a failing drive with large numbers of bad sectors where the backup took over 12 hours to run to a completion!

I went to "Activity" and was unable to make any copy of it.

Let me know what to do.

P.S. The info I sent you was an exact copy of what I was seeing in Activity.

Thanks,

Daniel

Daniel, I use a screen image capture tool called Greenshot to capture the images I post to the forum.  Initially, it is the Recovery panel that I am interested in to see what the actual disk / partition sizes are, so click on Recovery to the right of the Activity page tab.

When I click on "Recovery", I get the frightful message:

"This action is irreversible. All current data, including documents and applications, will be removed and changed by

data of chosen backup."

I do not understand what that means.

I do not know what to do.

Thanks for your help,

Daniel

Daniel, just clicking on the Recovery page as shown in my latest image does not give any such warning as simply just shows what data is contained in the current backup image file.  You would need to make some selections then click on the 'Recover now' button in the bottom right corner of the application, but that is not necessary to just show the information from the panel.

Are you using version 2020 or version 2021 of Acronis?

In version 2021, I can see all the Activity as the model you sent me but NO way to make a copy.

Daniel, I am using ATI 2021 and as mentioned previously, I use a free program called Greenshot to capture screen images to post here in the forums.  Greenshot needs to be installed to be used but otherwise you could use the Windows 10 Snip & Sketch app which comes with the OS to do the same.  You can press the Windows logo key + Shift + S to snip what is on your screen then crop the image if needed and save it before using File upload option (as I have done below).

Here it is. I hope this time it is OK.

Thanks,

Daniel

Daniel, your image shows your Activity page entries for your backup task but it is the Recovery page detail that I was asking for an image of.  The activity page does not show the total and used data sizes of your partitions which is what I am interested in seeing.

I am sending you what I found in Recovery.

Daniel, thanks for the new images.  These show that you have a total of about 160GB of used data on your Liteon SSD, which should give a maximum backup image size of around 128GB if all data is included and ATI achieves a 20% compression rate.

This should be less than this when the regular default exclusions are applied, depending on the total size of excluded files & folders, as well as the mix of data on your drive.

To see the size of the excluded files I use a tool like TreeSize Free which gives an overview of the sizes of files & folders on my C: drive (as shown in the image below).

You can see the size of my pagefile.sys & swapfile.sys which add up just under 5GB of data that is excluded, and System Volume Information adds another 60MB (but can be very much larger if System Protection & restore points are enabled).

What are the regular default exclusions?

No idea. 

Daniel, click on the Options button for your backup task, then on the Exclusions page and it will show you what ATI will exclude by default unless you make changes to the list shown.

If I have to check the size of each directory or file it will take for ever.

I could not find windows/CSC on my hard drive. Is it hidden?

If yes, how to locate it in order to find its size?

Thanks,

Daniel

In your Recovery Disk, I can see: Windows(C:). I do not see it in my case.

Is it because it is not baked up?

Or an other reason?

Thanks,

Daniel

Daniel Bessis wrote:

If I have to check the size of each directory or file it will take for ever.

I could not find windows/CSC on my hard drive. Is it hidden?

If yes, how to locate it in order to find its size?

In your Recovery Disk, I can see: Windows(C:). I do not see it in my case.

Is it because it is not baked up?

Daniel, download a copy of TreeSize Free and this will show you all the directory sizes in an easy to view window as per my image above.  Yes, some folders are hidden or system folders and won't show unless you change the Explorer view options to 'show hidden/system files'.

Your Recovery panel does show your Windows C: drive but it is just named differently as Local Disk (C:) whereas I have changed the label for my partition to show it is Windows.

Thanks.

The mystery for me is still present.

1. Why in the version 2020 of Acronis ALL my drive C: (160 GB) was backed up.

while in the version 2021 only 90 Gb of my drive C: (still 160 GB) are backed up?

2. How can I know in a simple way what has happened to the 70 GB missing?

Daniel, sorry but I doubt that anyone can tell you what made such a difference in your backup sizes in ATI 2020 versus 2021 without being able to see the contents of both backup image files along with comparing the configuration settings used in both versions.

I believe that we have reached the end of the road with this topic and if you want to take it any further then you need to open a Support Case direct with Acronis and discuss this with them.

OK. I agree.

Thank you for your patience,

Daniel