Differential backup size
I see that every differential backup is about 1GB. I'm sure I don't produce that much of data every day. Can I see what actual files are in the particular backup?
No, I don't run any defrag software (I used to run it but disabled lately).
What do you mean by "Are you also tracking changes via Windows System Restore changes"?
I changed differential to incremental and it is still 1G daily. How I can see what's inside that incremental backup?
You cannot see what is in a specific incremental slice, unfortunately. The Windows operating system creates and modifies a bunch of data (shadow copies of system protection, hibernation file, page file, search index, temp files, NTFS volume information, Outlook PST files, , scratch files of specific applications, etc.) and several of these files (like the page file and the volume information) are actually excluded by default in the backup, but others are not.
I'd like to reduce size of the incremental backup but at the moment I don't see how.
If you are creating incremental or differential backups of you system installation then those backups are going to be large in size due to the points made by the MVP's above. To reduce backup size it is best to run incremental or differential backups on individual folders/files or groups of folder/files that you wish to have regular or current images.
Typical daily incremental files should (if mine are anything to go by) be around 0.3 to 0.6gb in size on a W8.1 system with system restore (restore points) turned off and Windows auto defrag also turned off. Like the OP, my user data changes little day to day. I also have IE delete temp files on each browser close down.
As you can see, they are very consistent. The differential approach will always yield ever growing backup sizes, and once a large change is made, that reflects in every subsequent backup made. With an incremental a large change affects only one of the incrementals which is the one made following whatever changed on the system.
Where many users get into trouble is that they allow the number of incremental to become too large before the next new FULL is created, or rely on manual deletion of the older incremental--which cause all incremental to become useless. If scheme configured for automatic cleanup, this is mostly troublefree.
GH25. Understanding differences between Incremental and Differential scheme for Safety
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