My backup disk is full with differential backups

Although each Diff. is independent of the others in the Restore process, I seem to remember reading that if you do a validate, then True Image needs ALL of the Diffs that were made. With that in mind, delete the early ones and keep the latest - but validate with the Rescue CD before you do.

It needs all the Incremental backups if you use those. However it only needs the original and the latest Differential backup.

To remove extra Differential backups: In Explorer, click on the 'Date Modified' column to see which is the latest. Keep that and the original full backup that it relates to.

I have often pruned mine as described, and restored from the remaining Differential (with TrueImage 11 build 8101)..

When the differentials get close to half as big as the original, its time to make a new original. Make a new task with new name for the complete backup .tlb, run it once only. And edit your Differential task to use the new complete backup name.
Make sure you can mount your new ones, then you can delete the old set if you wish.

Thanks both, cnmoore - Would you elaborate please a little on what do you mean by "Make sure you can mount your new ones"? - appreciated

Acronis 11, I imagine 10 is same, has option in Backup and Restore to 'Mount Image'. This makes the image appear as a drive on your PC. You can navigate around in it with Explorer - copy individual files or folders if you want to. When you are done with it, click 'Unmount Image'.

If you have Differential backups, you can mount any one of them. If there is anything wrong with the image, it won't mount.

Posted by: cnmoore
If there is anything wrong with the image, it won't mount.

That's not quite accurate. There have been many cases where an image that won't Validate successfully or that is otherwise detected as "corrupt" is able to be Mounted successfully. In those cases, usually most of the data can be copied out of an image that won't restore.

Thanks a bunch.
Few text editing tools for this forum will do it some good, don't you think?

Hello Ze'ev Hollander,

Thank you for using [[http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/ | Acronis True Image 10.0 Home]]

Starting from Acronis True Image 10.0 Home you can create so called Backup Locations. Using Backup Locations you can perform creation of a new full backup after the certain number of incremental or differential backups. So you don’t have to manually delete backup archives which exceed the quotas you set.

Here is step-by-step instructions how to set Backup Location:

First of all please make sure you created backup location (Create and Configure Backup Locations -> Create Backup Location -> follow the wizard instructions to complete backup location, e.g. you may use one of your partitions). Then you will see a window with backup rules (you may specify location size quota, maximum number of backups, storage period limits).

When backup location is created you will be eligible for backup policy. Click Operation -> Schedule Task -> Select Backup Type -> In Backup Archive Location completely unfold Backup Location folder and choose previously created backup location (in folder line you will see “No file name is required in this area”), click next and you will see backup policy window.

Dmitry,

I don't think you have completely answered the question. I use the rules/policies all the time but I cannot work out a way for old images to be deleted before you eventually run out of space on you backup drive. All the rules do is if one of the policies is met, Acronis starts consolidation the backups into one image until the policies are "not met" again. I cannot see any way of actually having a policy that will DELETE old images before you run out of space. For me at least, this has always been a manual intervention when the backups eventually fail due to lack of space. By comparison, Storagecraft have similar policies but they go to the extra step of deleting old images when the "maximum available space" policy is reached. I am very interested to hear how you would solve this problem.

Regards....

I have the same problem with the latest 9796 build of True Image 2009.

I have configured my backup method to 'create a full backup after' 5 incremental backups and set the 'Remove old archives' option. This doesn't appear to work as running the same job results in a new .tib file being created.

I eventually run out of disk space and have to sort the disk management problems out manually.

As far as I'm concerned this renders the product virtually unusable. Such an obvious bug doesn't give me the greatest trust in the product so I'm seriously considering applying for a refund.

I have tried other options such as the 'Automatic consolidation' options but the same issue is apparent.

Sean

I am using True Image 10.0 build 4942. I set the backup rules for a maximum of 3 backups. After doing a full backup and 4 differential backups, the first 3 differential backups have not been deleted. The Help section says that the older backups will be deleted when a backup rule is exceeded but this is not happening.

I don't have ATI 10 but do have ATI 11 Home. While Backup locations are fine in theory, their implementation in ATI 11 is poor WRT archive validation and space management.

1. After a archive file has been created and the validate file option has been chosen, ATI 11 will validate every file in the backup location, instead of just the new file. This results in excessive run times.

2. The method for freeing up space in the backup location seems to be poor. ATI 11 will correctly detect that a space quota limit has been reached (assuming you've set it correctly in the first place) but will try to make duplicate copies of files within the backup location before it deletes anything. Clearly, if you've already run out of space, this is not a good tactic. The copying process is also very slow and seems to modify your files on the fly, which is also worrying. http://forum.acronis.com/forum/3615 If using a space quota, I'd suggest it be set to a figure well below the actual available space.

Until Acronis sort out these issues, users of backup locations should proceed with caution.

Martin

Iirc, when a user limmit is violated, then first ATI tries to consolidate, then it, if the user rules are still violated, it deletes the full. But it leaves any incs/diffs and just overwrites those when it creates new ones -- or maybe it's more complicated than that. Incs/diffs have always been a messy matter with ATI and even more so with the latest version (12/2009) where file operations are supposed to be done within ATI rather than another file manager like Explorer. Some of us just avoid incs/diffs altogether and only do Fulls, although that option is not as practical for all users.

@Christopher Hende and Scott Hieber - You're right about the file consolidation bit. I found this in the ATI 11 Home user guide

After creating a backup in a backup location, the program checks the location for quota 
violations, such as exceeding a pre-set maximum number of gigabytes set aside for backups
and, if any limitation is exceeded, consolidates the oldest backups. For example, if you’ve
pre-set your backup location to store 50GB of backup files and your backups reach 55GB,
you have exceeded a quota and the system will respond automatically based on rules and
policies that you’ve already set.
This operation creates a temporary file and thus requires disk space. Consider also that the
quota must be violated so that the program could detect the fact of violation. Therefore, to
be able to consolidate the files, the program needs some space on the disk in excess of the
location quota. The extra space amount can be estimated as the size of the largest backup in
the location.

So my observations were essentially correct. 

@Gary Johnson - Perhaps it depends on their definition of backups. The same documentation says that it is:

...the total number of backups allowed for a location

which doesn't help us very much. Perhaps it's actually the maximum number of full backups.

Yes, you end up needing as much as like three times the space. Space for the new file that viloates the rules, space for the temporary file made for consooidation, and the original file(s) which was(were) already there. So the space sav ings from doing incs/diffs can be in effect lost to reserve capacity necessary to allow for handling conolsidation. Also note that consolidation can take as long as making a full backup and then some, so unless you make a long string of incs/diffs, you aren't going to save a lot of time doing incs/difs rather than jsut doing fulls.

Yes, you end up needing as much as like three times the space. Space for the new file that viloates the rules, space for the temporary file made for consooidation, and the original file(s) which was(were) already there. So the space sav ings from doing incs/diffs can be in effect lost to reserve capacity necessary to allow for handling conolsidation. Also note that consolidation can take as long as making a full backup and then some, so unless you make a long string of incs/diffs, you aren't going to save a lot of time doing incs/difs rather than jsut doing fulls.

Man, this is some kind of BS. The product has gotten worse, not better. I used to be able to control my TI backups pretty well with .bat files. No more ;-( But that's not unusual in the software world, is it? So no solution for the fact that 'Remove old archives' just does not work in TI 2009? Does it work in TI 2010? If I had to pay for an upgrade to get a basic feature to work that would be annoying.

Try to use this disk space reporting utility. It will do disk space monitoring.

http://directorysize.moleskinsoft.com/

Or try Xinorbis.

http://www.freshney.org/xinorbis/

It's free and comes with good documentation.

Unfortunately, it won't make ATI run any better. :(

Hello all,

Please accept our apologies for the difficulties you have experienced with Acronis software.

I may recommend you to have a look at Grover's Guides thread. You will find many solutions to the issues with Backup Locations there. For example, please have a look at these chapters: 13. Use Batch files to control backup archives retention and 15. Use of Version 11 Backup Locations

Thank you.