Shrinking Incremental Backup Size?
My incremental backups, that rund every 4 hours, are 1000 Megabytes in size! I need to know how I can reduce the file size. But where can I check, what files were put in the incremental archive? If I open the archive, I see the whole backup. And if I cannot figure out, what files are backed up, how can I reduce the file size of the incremental backup?
Peter,
If each archive slice is 1GB in size, there must be something writing and changing disk contents on a regular basis. The only other part of TI that will make 1GB slices is Non stop Backup, but by default those slices are hidden.
If you simulate editing the task and look at the Disk Backup Opitons and then under the Advanced Tab,
check that "Archive Splitting" is set to automatic.
Confirm that the file extension of the backup file is ".TIB"
What & where is the backup storage disk located? Is this a network, or NAS or FTP, etc
I need to see what files change, because I don't believe that I edit 1 GB of data every four hours. It must be some files that are edited by the system. If I don't manage to find out what makes the incremental backup so big, I can't optimize the settings.
Do you have an automatic defrag program enabled? or a disk utility which promises performance improvements?
Do you have a program which can be moving your data from one part of the disk to another part of the disk? TI would pick up this a change even if the data content was not changed,
I need to see what files change. Is there a possibility to see what has been backed up in a particular incremental nackup, or not?
I have the same question, and I see others posting the same issue on these forums. As a new user of True Image, I'm quite discouraged to see that we're not getting any serious help from Acronis reps. Instead we get idiotic questions about disk defrag programs or other background tasks that may be writing to the disk. That's just not a plausible explanation to explain that virtually every increment is huge, even if the increments are spaced very closely in time. Also, I have been a long-time user of Norton Ghost for backing up my PC. It typically created very small increment files unless I actually added significant content to the disk. So it seems to me that this is actually a serious flaw in the software. Perhaps can we get an educated response from a product manager or software support person at Acronis?
Daniel,
As you are aware, the forum is a group of fellow users. If you want offical help from Acronis, the forum is not the place to post your question. You need to fill out a support request or live chat, etc. The procedure is outlined along the left margin in the "How to get support."
Quite often, the large files ARE caused by automatic defrag progams as users are not aware that Acronis tracks disk changes--not file changes.
My apologies. I have submitted an official support request as well.
I am most definitely not running any sort of automatic defrag program. And I know for a fact there isn't one built into Windows XP home edition. One of my drives is an SSD, so I never run defrag on it.
Unfortunately I think I'll be out shopping for a different backup solution, but this is unacceptable to me. It just makes no sense that I can run 2 incremental backups one after another and the file size of the second increment is on the order of 15 MB. There's no way my (non-system) disk partition could have changed that much in 10 seconds. Unless I'm doing something wrong, I'm afraid this is just another example of highly inefficient software.
Don't forget that some programs will be writing temporary information to the disk when open and others will be producing 'lock' files, when these are removed True Image will see these as changed sectors, also if a file straddles sectors and it has been used as above, this will require more than one sector of what appears to be a small file to be reimaged.
I wouldn't say that 15MB is that much of an increase - what size are your sectors, smaller sectors will possibly result in larger incremental files.
Exclude the swap file.
Larry,
The swap file and hyperfil.sys should be auto excluded by True Image, whilst they can be seen in an image they in fact empty, they are just placeholders entries, not the real folders.