Problem w/ incremental backups in 2012
I have set up two identical backup tasks on Win7, one to a local drive on the same machine and one to a network drive. My intention is to have a full backup (in zip format) on a weekly basis with incremental backups during the intervening days, and only keep 4 weeks worth of backup sets on the backup drive. This plan should allow me to have a current set of backups available to any machine on my network and not have to intervene to make sure that the backup drive doesn't fill up.
The backup set was set to save as *.zip on a daily basis. Incremental backup selected. Full backup after 7 incrementals. Only save 4 backup sets.
The problem (identical for both the local and remote backup tasks):
The initial (full) backup went as expected, creating an appropriate zip file in the appropriate location. The daily incremental backups also got created in the same place and their contents seemed to be generally in line with the files I expected was changed that day (I didn't do a full verification). On the second week the next full backup was created correctly, but thereafter the application is only creating full backups on a daily basis; no more incrementals, and is not deleting the older versions, so the disk is filling up to capacity
What am I missing here? How can I get the app to create the regular incrementals? How do I get the app to delete the older versions?
Thanks,
Paul
I considered network issues as a possible source of the problem for the backup task that points to the network drive (which, incidentally, is mapped to L:\). However the other backup task (same configuration) points to D:\, which is a second physical hdd on the same machine and I'm having the identical problem with both tasks.
In both cases however, I never deleted any fulls or incrementals related to this particular backup task so if ATI is losing track, it is either a messed up configuration (which one?) or a bug.
While reexamining my config I noted that I had set the task to create 7 incrementals before the next full and then delete chains older than 7 days, which wasn't quite what I originally described. I modified this to create 6 incrementals (1 full + 6 incrementals = 7 days = 1 week) and delete chains older than 14 days. Today's backup was an incremental for the first time in more than a week, but nothing old was deleted...as of this morning. Perhaps ATI needs to see a full + set of incrementals to recognize a chain so as to delete.
Paul
I modified this to create 6 incrementals (1 full + 6 incrementals = 7 days = 1 week) and delete chains older than 14 days.
MVP GroverH recommends that users not edit/modify existing tasks, as sometimes the database becomes confused and results can be unpredictable. He recommends creating new tasks according to your preferences.
Paul,
In version 2012, TI seemed to have occasional problems with the option to keep backups based on n days or based on storage space.
Review figure 11-Inc illustration at this link.
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/28705
Based on my usage and testing, I believe your chances of successful cleanups would be improved by switching your backup scheme from 14 days to the option "Store No More than 2 recent version chains. " The illustration shows "4" but it is just an illustration. Change the 4 to 2 which would provide for your 2 chains (14 days) of backups".
"Storing No More than x recent version chains" is much quicker(& less problematic) as it is a pure delete; whereas the "older than n days" will involve consolidation which could be troublesome and time consuming.
My recommendation would also be to start a new task pointing to a new empty sub-folder and set up your custom backup scheme as illustrated with a setting of 6 inc and store 2 chains..
My rules for my own use is never to edit a backup task. If corrections needed, I create a new task pointing to a new empty sub-folder. If a task is edited, the results are often not what is expected and I believe an edited task confuses the program it cannot correctly recover or implement the changes requested by the edit so I avoid task edits. The program will allow task editing but my personal recommendation is "do not edit."
TrueImage will not perform the scheduled backup deletion/cleanup until after its replacement has been successfully created. Therefore, you will need to allow extra space (temporarily) while the replacement is being created before the deletion actually occurs.
If you are not using the last published build of 2012, I would suggest that you update to that version.