Can't locate automatic cleanup and full back-up versions continue to be created

Hi Bob,

Acronis does not work with 2 different destinations for the same task (can't rotate drives on one backup).  You need to create a second backup task (one for each drive).  

This will still give you the results you're looking for and will be better in the long run as you can't have partial backups on one drive and partial backups on the other and expect to recover.  This has always been the case, but even more important in 2020 as the incremental chain is all updated and captured in a single .tibx (new extension this year) instead of creating separate files.

Could you also show a screen capture of your "backup scheme" tab too?

Thanks for your reply. I've attached the contents of the backup scheme.

What I had done, was on each drive, saved a back-up. Full and subsequent incremental. If I understand your reply, this is ok, but I can't I can't have the full backup on one and some incremental on another.

Bob

Bob, what you have told it is that you want only one Full backup and everything after that is increments. This is not an ideal situation as for an incremental backup all the files need to be intact.

Select the option to Create a full version after every... This will open up the cleanup options for you.

Bob, that is correct.

Each backup is considered a chain.  A chain consists of the initial first full and all incrementals that come after it.  The next time you start a full, you begin a new chain.

Chains are separate from each other.  You cannot mix and match incrementals between chains (although you can copy all of the original files to a second drive if you want and it would work with rescue media.

Additionally, in an incremental backup, you must have the full and ALL incrementals in order (with the original names) to be able to recover.  If any incremental is manually deleted (in Windows file explorer), renamed to something else, moved outside of the same folder as the other backups, you will likely not be able to recover.

I also agree with Bruno.  Incremental forever is not very good.  Over time, the longer you go without a backup and/or the more incrementals you have in a chain, the more likely you are to have a problem with the backup.  This is not an Acronis issue, but something to take into account for nearly all backup products.  

Creating a new full at set intervals, refreshes the backup by starting a new chain.  You should still be able to use older backups, but this limits the # of incrementals and the age of them in that chain.

Personally, if you are doing daily backups, I would consider no more than 13 incrementals (which gives you two weeks) and then start a new backup chain.  You could probably do a month pretty safely if doing daily backups, but again, the risk increases, the longer you go without a full.  You have to consider whether the risk is worth the possibility of not being able to use an incremental, and having to revert all the way back to a full in a worse case scenario.  So, how critical is your data and how much of it can you lose if you had to revert back to the most recent full?

Thanks Bruno & Bob,

If I select daily incremental back-up, presumably, these will be relatively small files unless there is a lot of activity. Is this a reasonable assumption?

From your advice, if I run a full-back up fortnightly, keep two full back-ups and delete incremental and older full-back-ups, this would be more effective than what I am currently doing and retain free-space on the external drive?

Why I was using two external drives, was that I would keep one at work and rotate them, so I had a back-up in a second location.  If the above fortnightly schedule is reasonable, any suggestions about how to run the second drive - e.g. swap it at two weeks and run as above, or just use it for monthly full back-ups?

Thanks again,

Bob

Bob, you won't necessarily know all the activity that can cause large increments. Since you are doing a full system backup, there is a lot of Windows stuff going on, not to mention what happens with updates. So don't assume small files.

I notice that your backup is an Entire PC type. A lot of people here recommend doing Disk and Partition instead of Entire PC.

Don't think in terms of deleting "incremental and older full-back-ups". In using the automatic cleanup, you are deleting a chain at a time. As an example, let's say you define an incremental task to do 6 increments, and save no more than two recent backup chains. It will write a full, then do 6 increments. Then it will write another full and six increments on that chain. Once the third full is written, it will automatically delete the first chain (one full and six increments). That will leave you with two valid chains.

As for using two drives, a lot depends on how much you want to be automatic and how much manual. As Bobbo said, you can't have one backup task use two drives. So, for example, you could run one backup task on to disk 1 on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and the other on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday (and maybe take Sunday off). Or, run one on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. You just need to be sure that for each backup task the right disk is available.

Bob,

Yes, incrementals are only the changes since the last backup, so the changes are generally small unless something major had changed.

Yup, keep the number of backups you want in one chain. Then it will start over again. So use a cleanup rule of keep no more than say 2 chains. Cleanup won't happen until the next full has completed.

Thanks again Bob & Bruno, it's getting clearer.

One last question. Regarding the Disk and Partition instead of Entire PC option. Where is this option found? It primarily is my data that I am interested in, which is located on a D drive as opposed to the C system drive, though I'm not 100% sure if they are actually physically different drives.

Regards

Bob

When you create a new task, the default type is "Whole PC", clicking on this will bring up further options for the type of backup. Hmmmm, this is interesting on my PC the default is to backup the SSD on which the OS is located.

Whatever the source displayed on left, click on it and it will list all the possible backup types:

If you click on Disks and Partitions a full listing is given:

The listing will tick all the partitions on the disk drive with the OS on it, in the example above it is a Samsung NVMe SSD. For some reason another disk has also been selected (TV 14 …), not sure why this happens but it is something to watch out for.

Ian