Acronis Secure Zone full
This evening's full partition backup (scheduled as 1 full + 6 incremental) failed because there was insufficient space left in the ASZ.
I have the flag set to delete the oldest backups in this circumstance and I understand that TIH doesn't delete the oldest until its completed the latest backup.
This seems (to me) to create the chicken and egg situation - won't make space until backed up and can't backup until made space!
What does the user do manually? Deletes the oldest backup "willy nilly" and runs the latest backup manually!
It would seem reasonable to me, that so long as there was at least two complete sets of backups in ASZ it would be safe to delete the oldest. So the user has to ensure there is enough disk space allocated to ASZ to hold at least three full backups.
How does TIH determine it has to delete the oldest backup? Perhaps an additional parameter in this area needs to be a "percentage allowable full".
Otherwise how to determine the optimum size for ASZ?
Any advice would be appreciated.
David,
From my experience, mixing automated backups with manual backups messes up the counting of partial backups.
The best solution you have is to have more backup space. I typically recommend 2.5 to 3 times the data to backup as backup space. 1 full, some partials, then another full before the previous chain gets deleted. This is a minimum.
Then make sure you set the auto-cleaning options in the backup options. The best auto-cleaning option is the one where you limit the number of chains to keep. From my experience, limiting by age or size is not reliable.
According to my TI operations log the oldest backup image is deleted before the new backup is written to the secure zone. This automatic management of secure zone space is one of the reasons why I have used a secure zone for my backups for many years, from V 8 to the current V 2011.
The key to this happy state of affairs is to have a secure zone of sufficient size to store at least two full images or full plus incremental sets.
When I set up V2011 some months ago I provided enough space for a least seven days of full HDD images in the secure zone. In the event the actual number of full HDD images varies between 9 and 11 to date.
I did not set any constraints other than its size. It really is a case of fit and forget. I use the "Backup Now" button to create an extra image if I am doing something non-routine such as installing a new build of TI or another program. The only oddity I have found when mixing in a manual backup is that TI sorts the images by time and then date rather that date first and then time. It is a shame that the backup list does not include the date/time stamp automatically as one has to select a backup before these vital details are revealed.
Incidentally I have the secure zone on a second internal hard drive and once a week I swap out the current main drive with one from the previous week and then restore the current image. This proves that all is working as designed.