Incremental backup sizes don't make sense (way too large)
Hi,
I recently upgraded from Acronis Backup 2015 to 2016. After the upgrade I loaded a new external disk, and re-created my backkup configurations from scratch as follows:
Configuration:
Backup Source: System Reserve, C:, D, E:
Destination: H:\Acronis Backups\
Schedule: Weekly (Sunday 3:00 pm)
Backup Scheme: Custom
Backup method: Incremental
Crete a full version every 10 incrementals
Exclusions: (Acronis defaults - I hit Initial settings)
Pre/Post Command:
Pre - CMD file that copies 50 MB from one directory to another.
Here are the backups (names, sizes, dates)
Name Date modifier Size
My disk_full_b1_s1_v1.tib 3/10/16 11:51 PM 305,235,201 KB
My disk_inc_b1_s2_v1.tib 3/13/16 5:29 PM 669,429 KB
My disk_inc_b1_s3_v1.tib 3/14/16 9:23 PM 1,665,565 KB
My disk_inc_b1_s4_v1.tib 3/14/16 9:44 PM 113,540 KB
The size of the last two backups seem way out of line size wise with the amount of activity I've done on the machine between backups. This is expecially true for the S2 -> S3 transition.
Is there some way to peek inside the TIB file to find out what files were backed up in each file? I suspect that there is either something wrong with the software (or more likely) the backup is somehow grabbing large files that should be excluded (something like a page file).
Any help you can provide me tracking down this problem would be appreciated. I am a software engineer, so I am familar with running tools at the command line, etc.
Steve
Steve, you can double click the backup .tib files and they should open in Windows Explorer so you can navigate them to see what files exist in the backup. Your file sizes seem fine, but I have no idea what you've actually changed between each day. Keep in mind that there are default exclusions which will not backup things like pagefiles, hiberfile, etc. You should check the exclusions to make sure they are not keeping something else you want from backing up (Chome, Opera, Firefox, are excluded by default, so remove those if you want to keep your favorites). Also, the backups are compressed by default, so a 1GB incremental backup could include larger files once extracted.
Chirs,could you post a screen shot of your settings as well as where it says it will be 7.8TB ... are you sure it's not 7.8Gb or 78Gb? If you selected "entire pc" it could be including all attached drives - to include your backup destination drive and anything else attached that shows as a disk. Insteaf of entire pc, try "disks and partitions" via a new backup job and select just the disks you intend to backup. Screenshots would hlep to identify what the issue may be though if it really is saying it needs 7.8TB.
Thanks for your response. I'll take a peek into the TIB file to see what I can find. I suspect that some large file is somehow getting archived by mistake.
It's funny you mention the Chrome, Opera, and Firefox directories being excluded. The reason I did the two back to back backups was to test a batch script I wrote to automatically archive just the favorites, bookmarks, etc (but no caches, etc) into a separate directory on my C drive.
My script is writen for IE 11, Chrome, and Firefox.
Steve
I just tried double clicking on the By disks_inc_b1_[s1-4]_v1.tib files. All of the drives appear empty in every TIB file. Obviously I've got something misconfigured somewhere. I just checked my Explorer properties and have the following options:
- Show hidden files, folders, and drives [Selected]
- Hide protected operating system files (Recommend) [unselected]
I also tried running Explorer as Administrtor. No differences.
If on the other hand I run Acronis True Image 2016 directly, select my Backup, click Recover Files; I can navigate through the tree and see the files I added in my last incremental backup are there.
I would really be interested to know what is inside each of the last two TIB files so I can adjust my exclusions.
Any ideas?
Steve
Are you using nonstop backup - only that one requires opening in ATIH directly.
If not, you may have a bad install. Running the installer again (right click and "run as admin")and "repairing" may fix the File Explorer navigation. As it looks like you upgraded from 2015 to 2016 (although it is supported), seem like the upgrades do not always go according to plan. Try the repair first and reboot and see if that helps. If not, I'd recomend a clean uninstall / reinstall using these instructions:
You might also check file associations in Windows Explorer as on some installs for some reason this does not get set. To set this select the .tib file and right click and choose Open with and select File Explorer. If File Explorer does not appear in the list select More Apps.
Thanks for your responses. I'll try a clean de-install of both the 2015 and 2016 product, then re-install the 2016 product. I assume that re-installing will re-activate my existing license (and not consume another).
I will check the product to see if there is some sort of de-activate feature to prevent burning an extra seat. As I said, I am a software engineering manager by day, so I see this kind of stuff all the time.
Steve
If it's the same machine should still use the same seat. Worse case, if it says you've use all your licenses it will take you to your account and ask you to deactivate one of the machines. You would deactivate the old instance and then licensing will continue.
Steve,
Just a comment.
The sizes you list in your initial post is not that unusual for TrueImage. I often run tests of back to back backups wiith no changes and the resulting backups sizes larger than expected. Keep in mind that Acronis is creating backups of disk sectors changed--not changed files, we know that Windows is not static.
Any tuning of file position by any utility (or auto defrag) will result in that sector(s) being included.
Thanks to both of you for your help. I finally had a few minutes to de-instlal/re-install Acronis 2016. Something definately went wrong during the upgrade from 2015 -> 2016. 2016 appears to be running better now.
Strangely after the de-install / re-install Acronis 2016 did not recognize my previous backup and had lost the configuration. Strangely it still listed a rogue backup in my list. When I clicked on it I got very strange results. I deleted all of the backups listed, renamed my existing backup created by the bad version of 2016. I have just re-created the backup configuration, and am doing the full backup.
In about an hour I'll know if everything worked propelry.
Once the backup is done, I'll try the trick of looking at the TIB file directly from Explorer to see if I can view the contents.
One other question: When the pre-command executes, I am prompted for a username/password. Is there some way to have Acronis 2016 cache this information so the backups can run when I'm not here to provide the password?
Steve
One other question: When the pre-command executes, I am prompted for a username/password. Is there some way to have Acronis 2016 cache this information so the backups can run when I'm not here to provide the password?
Hi Steve,
Didn't realize you had pre-commands. In your precommand are you typing out a single string or calling a batch file? I would suggest creating a batch file wiht your existing command sting (if not using one already). Then, before your existing command string, you can add a "net use" command entry to automatically map a share and provide credentials. Once that has completed in the script, the share should be connected automatically and the rest of the batch should continue on after that.
------------------------------------------------------
For Storage Sync (ELC) Share
net use Y: \\server_name OR ipaddress\elc /user:acme\%username%
------------------------------------------------------
As for the note about the existing backup jobs not being there, depending on how ATIH was uninstalled it is normal as it should be clearing out the information in C:\Programdata\Acronis which has the old script names, database info for past backups etc. before reinstalling ***EDIT - see attached screenshot ***
During first run of Acronis after a clean install, it will scan all connected drives for .TIBs (can't be turned off in this version) and automatically add them to the console. Often times, this will look like gibberish because it may use the name of the backup .tib since there is no database reference for it anymore. The MVP program has provided feedback about allowing users to choose whether or not backups are added automatically or not and/or where to look for them. In older versions, this was an option and I'd like to see it returned. Whenever I do a clean install, I end up with 50+ entries that I have to manually remove because I don't want the old ones in the console when I'm starting with fresh backup sets (and I like to start with fresh backups to go with them).
If you do want your old backup job though, you can hit the \/ icon (see screenshot) and navigate to the backup .tib file to import it and then configure the options for the backup job.
Thanks for the trick using "net use". I hadn't seen that one before. Adding back my single backup was a bit surprising, but not annoying.
My next incremental backup will happen tomorrow. I'm looking forward to examing the incremental TIB file so see if I can look at the new contents.
Steve
Thanks for all of your help. My 3 pm back up worked properly. I can also now see what's inside the TIB files so the problem was caused by a problem with the Acronis 2015 --> 2016 upgrade.
I think the large TIB files were caused by the Windows defragmenter running in the background because many of the files being backed up haven't changed in ages. I've turned the defragmenter off. That should solve the problem. The drives being backed up are SSDs so seek time is no longer a factor.
My browser copy script also worked properly. The first time I ran the script I was prompted for a username/password. Acronis ran correctly in the backgroun so I assume that Acronis cached the credentials.
I'm going to pay it forward by donating my script to the Acronis community (nothing fancy but it does the job). I've included a bunch of comments to make it easy to extend for other browsers, etc.
Thanks for your help.
Steve
This reply contains an attachment called Bookmark_and_Cookie_Script.bat. The script backs up bookmarks/favorites, and some cookies. I didn't want them all so I didn't fully implement that feature.
This script works in conjuction with an Acronis pre-command.
To make this script work:
1) Create a directory somehwere on your hard drive that will be backed up by Acronis.
2) Place a copy of the script in the directory. I called mine c:\backup\Bookmark_and_Cookie_Script.bat
3) Acronis Pre-Command:
Command: c:\backup\Bookmark_and_Cookie_Script.bat
Working directory: c:\backup
Do not perform operations until the command's execution is complete [x]
Abort the operation if the user command fails [x]
Note that this script will only work for Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer. It has been tested on Windows 7 with the latest browsers in March 2016.
I have included the batch file inside a ZIP file to avoid causing poblems for anti-virus software.
Enjoy
Steve