Non Stop and Full/Incremental Backup Question
I have used the support Chat two times and have received very different and confusing answers so I will try the forum before paying for telephone support.
I use Acronis TI 2019 on two Windows 10 Professional 64 bit PC's with external backup hard drives. Both machines run 24 hours a day - I don't power them down.
I am currently using a custom backup scheme that runs each day at 11 p.m. The backup scheme runs a full backup then 5 incremental backups then a full backup then 5 incremental backups and so on. This is working very well.
If my daily backup runs at 11 p.m. and if I compose a document in Microsoft Word, work on a spreadsheet or make any changes to my files or folders and the hard drive fails before the next 11 p.m. backup those changes will be lost. Is this correct? Chat says they will not be lost.
The documentation says that a non stop backup first backs up the entire system disk first then runs "continuously" and backs up any folder or file changes shortly after the changes are made. This sounds like the answer I am looking for but the documentation also states "We do not recommend using nonstop backup as a primary way to protect your system. For the safety of your system, use any other schedule."
I should also mention that my PC has two hard drives. Drive C has Windows and all of my software. Drive D has all of my data folders and files.
Last night Acronis Chat told me I could create one backup scheme (run daily at 11pm 1 full and 5 incrementals) and then create a second backup (non-stop) which sounded exactly what I need.
Today Acronis Chat told me I can only have one backup type (not two).
Can someone please tell me how to protect my entire computer against hard drive failure plus at the same time protect individual folders and files that are changed between the times the backup runs as explained above.
Thanks very much,
Bill
lan;
Thank you very much for your great information - I really appreciate it.
To make sure I understand -
I can create a non stop backup in the "top left" of the screen and call it Non-Stop and then on the source drive browse to the drive and directory where my "changing folders and files" are and then browse to select the backup drive.
Then I can also create a custom scheme Full/Incremental back up in the "top left" of the screen and call it Full/Incremental and then browse to the source drive that I want to back up and then browse to select the same backup drive that I selected for the Non-Stop (above)
Is this the correct way to do it?
Thanks again for all of your help!!
Bill
Hi Bill, that is basically it. Non-stop back is usually files and folder but can be disk level (where you have all data files on a separate HDD). Got the following information from the ATI User Guide:
Nonstop Backup limitations
You can create only one nonstop backup.
Acronis Cloud cannot be used as a destination for a disk-level nonstop backup.
Windows libraries (Documents, Music, etc.) can be protected with a disk-level nonstop backup only.
You cannot protect data stored on external hard drives.
Nonstop Backup and Try&Decide cannot work simultaneously.
Before checking I did not realise that Windows Libraries can only be protected with disk-level backups.
Ian
While you cannot backup libraries, you can backup the actual directories - I just check one that I have running at them moment. So you need the full tree - you can select it easily. To be honest I do not know how you would attempt to use the library feature when setting up a backup task. I have a dim recollection that Windows Libraries is a depreciated Windows feature.
Ian
lan - thank you for your comments above - one last question please.
I have attached a screen shot of my computer screen with Acronis TI 2019 open. In the upper left corner of the screen you will see my current backup named Studio Full-Incremental that I created several months ago and has been running each day at 11 p.m.
If I understand you correctly I can create another backup (a non-stop backup) under the Studio Fulll-Incremental backup to back up my data files and folders "non-stop".
Is this correct. This should be my last question!! I really like Acronis but it is sometimes confusing to me even when I read the manual and I don't want to mess anything up.
Thanks again!!
Bill
Bill, you can use the option to '+ Add backup' to add any new backup tasks to the ATI GUI panel, where this can be just one NSB task, or else you can add as many other tasks as you wish.
I have never had a need to use NSB but have used the option to schedule a backup to run every hour which may be a viable alternative option to using NSB for doing a Files & Folders backup of your important files, spreadsheets etc.
You will still need to remember to save Microsoft documents if spending a long time editing these, as otherwise they are being held in memory, not stored on the disk until saved!
Steve Smith wrote:You will still need to remember to save Microsoft documents if spending a long time editing these, as otherwise they are being held in memory, not stored on the disk until saved!
There is an autosave option for these Apps. Not sure where it is but it is still there.
Ian
Bill, pleas e also be aware nonstop backups check for changes every 5 minutes. .. it's not truly nonstop, but pretty close.
That said, Microsoft files like documents or spread sheets are often saved to temp and in memory until you hit the save button or the autosave kicks in. If the file is not actually saved to disk (with current changes), they may not be captured yet. It could take up to five minutes after the Microsoft Office autosave kicks in or 5 minutes after you physically press save to the file menu.
And this is assuming it's all local Microsoft Office files andnot part of Office 365?
Thanks everyone for your great information assistance - I really appreciate it. I now have both a non stop and a full/incremental backup running.
Bill
Excellent!
The only thing I can recommend at this point would be to test some recoveries to verify what you might expect to find in the event a real recovery is needed.
To do this, just restore a couple of files you would expect to have changes in them. Do this to a NEW or DIFFERENT location than the original file (such as a new folder on your desktop, or to an external hard drive). If you do this a couple of times (randomly) then you can be pretty confident in your backup setup and your ability to recover whatever you need to.
The worst thing is thinking your backup has everything and is working as expected, but then not testing... and finding out later (when you really need to recover) that the data you need isn't there. It's happened in the forums a few times where certain applications were not saving to disk (quickbooks, certain PST setups in outlook) and files were not recoverable because they were not committed to disk and therefore could not be restored since they didn't exist in the backup.
Bobbo - thanks!!