Purpose of Meta subdirectory?
I have been an Acronis user for years, having over a dozen products registered. I love it for it's simplicty, but, most of all it works.
I am using the latest build of A B&R and only use the boot disk on a system to make backups. I note the meta directory with some cryptic numbers. Is this directory needed for a successful restore? I do plan on testing that, but, only by first backing up with a known successful version of TI. I am not totally confident in B&R 10 yet to only use it.
What is the purpose of the meta directory? I have only found it referenced twice in these forums. I theorize it saves any settings I selected when booting with the linux disk and if the meta directory is not found, then it simple reverts to the default. I thought this because I selected to reboot automatically after backing up and the next time I did NOT select to reboot, but, it did on it's own. Regarding that, is that normal behavior to not do the selected items?
I have had other anomolies (such as the card reader issue) but, overall I love the speed (about twice as fast backing up.)
Thanks for any information regarding the meta directory.
Hi Alexander, I have more questions concerning the .meta folder. What happens if the .meta folder is deleted/lost? Is a new entry created in the folder each time a backup plan is executed, or just created? How large can this folder grow? Does the .meta folder have to go with the .tib file to make it usable?
Thank you.
I'll raise this one from the dead for an answer. It's irresponsible to leave it as is Acronis.
Jason
Hello all,
Thank you for using Acronis Corporate Products
It is not recommended to touch this .meta folder. Every archive file has its own entry inside it. If you accidentally delete this folder, it should reappear, but the proper functionality of the program is not guaranteed (for example, the new archives will have improper names).
Anyway, you shouldn't move or edit it.
Thank you.
Hi
I have Acronis True Image Home 11. I accidentally manually deleted the meta folder in my back up drive. My main drive is partioned into what I will call "C" and "D". I created a new task (system state in this case) for C and it created a new meta folder. Ok, now I go to create same task for D. It creates a newsystem state.tib but NO META FOLDER. I am confused why I could do it for C but not D. I have a recording studio and my information is very valuable. Please, can someone tell me how to resolve this?
Thanks to all!
I can see that I should not delete the meta folder but, I did by accident and cannot get it back. Please help!
Thank you
Hi Darrell
Did anyone ever answer your question about deleting or losing the meta folder? I did that by mistake. I am able to do systemstate back ups and they seem to be ok but there is no meta folder. It is confusing to me. Any comments?
I deleted the META folder and it fixed a host of problems with archive names. Go figure... hahaha..
It also had like over 50,000 entries in there in a matter of weeks. I don't know if it should behave this way. Doesn't make sense to have all these entries.
Hello all,
Thank you for posting your question, I will be happy to help. Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.
Anderson Player,
You are using Acronis True Image 11 Home, and this is an Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 branch. In Acronis True Image 11 Home the .meta folder has another cause. This is an issue in the product, actually, this folder shouldn't appear at all. You can disregard it.
Ken,
We had an issue in the previous builds of Acronis backup &Recovery 10. After deleting the .meta folder, the backup's meta-information was lost. A new backup in the folder could have an unusual name. E.g, RecreatedArchive_D68A57AA-E2A3-4C34-174-C2BC89957D72_2009_08_21_14_47_53_625F.TIB.
This issue has been addressed in the latest build of the program #11345. You can learn more on how to download the latest build in this article.
The information about the archives is located in the .meta folder, which is in the same folder as your archives. The behavior you have described is normal, you are unable to overcome it.
To Oleg
Are you saying that the meta folder should not even exist? Is that a bug in the Acronis 11 program? Should I then delete the meta folder(s) that were created? I am unclear about that you meant here: you said: "The behavior you have described is normal, you are unable to overcome it". Please clarify. Also, you mentioned the latest build. What do I need to know or do regarding that? Thank you again for your help.
Hello Anderson Player,
Thank you for posting.
You shouldn't delete this folder. Since this folder doesn't influence the software functionality, you can leave everything as it is. I am not certain if the issue is addressed in the latest build at this point, however it is generally a good idea to be up to date.
All notes located below the name Ken are related to Acronis Backup & Recovery 10 and they are addressed to Ken.
Please do not hesitate to ask additional questions if the provided information is not clear or you need a further assistance.
Thank you.
I'm still unclear on the .meta folder. We're backing up ~48 servers with ABR10, most current build, to a network share and although we keep only a 7-day rotation, not a GFS or ToH, we had over 75,000 files in the .meta folder. As we're constantly having problems, I wanted to delete all the TIB files, clear out the .meta folder and start from scratch. Today I have 5 TIB files, all the other backups canceled themselves for no apparent reason, and I already have over 7,700 files in the .meta folder. I hate to have to say it, but as bullet-proof as True Image Server 9.1 was, I have little confidence in ABR10.
Hello Network Administrators,
Thank you for bringing up this issue. I will do my best to assist you.
The .meta folder contains meta-information on the backup files in the same folder. If this folder is deleted, you can still recover the backups, but appending incremental/differential backups will no longer be possible. Instead, a new full backup will be created with a similar name: RecreatedArchive.
The latest build of Acronis Backup and Recovery 10 at the moment is 11639.
We have no reports about the .meta folder filling up so quickly with such a large amount of files. It is also unclear why the other backups canceled themselves like this.
I recommend to contact our support directly and ask for the case to be escalated to our Expert team. It will really help us to resolve this issue if you can include an AcronisInfo report from your central management machine together with the .meta folder. If I understood correctly, you decided to delete it after all and started from scratch. This will tell us why this problem occurs.
Please let me know if you have additional questions or have any problems with your support case.
Thank you.
I think we all need specific information about what information is stored in the folder and what that information is used for, so that we can apply it to any circumstances that may arise.
For example, I make daily incremental backups except on one day of the week when I make a full backup. This is all set up to take place automatically. And after the weekly backup, I copy the most recent weekly backup to a spare external hard drive and put that drive in my safe. So I wonder what exactly will be the consequence of updating or not updating the meta folder in the copy on the spare external drive that I keep in the safe, and which will already have a meta folder on it from when I first copied a full backup over to that drive.
I get the impression that the meta folder is updated as backups are made, since it grows in size, and that it is only needed with a copy backup on the spare drive if I intend to make further backups incremental to that copy, bit in case I should wish to make further such backups, should I update the meta folder, so that it may then relate to incremental backups that I have not copied to my spare drive, or should I leave the original meta folder on the spare drive, which may then not relate sufficiently to the most recent full backup on that drive?