A (very customized) custom backup scheme question

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking here. Yes, you can do, full backups every month, differential backups every week, and incremental backups every day. You can't really mix them however. You'd need three schemes, as you seem to have figured out.

I'm not sure what you mean by keep "Every last 1+6 Full Backups." Do you mean 7? ;) Yes, you can do that.

As far as "Every last 3 Differential Backups" and "Every last 6 Incremental Backups" I'm guessing you mean you want 3 differentials before starting a new chain, and 6 incrementals before starting a new chain?

So, your question "will it work if i set it to that...or will it try to get 3 different full backups" is getting to the heart of the matter, each scheme starts with a full. Each time the chain starts over it creates a new full. My understanding of it is that you cannot have one full that is then the basis for some differentials and some other incrementals. It just doesn't work that way, and if you force it to do that, you should be prepared for heartache.

I think what you would do is something like this:

Scheme 1: Custom Scheme, Backup Method Full, scheduled monthly. Keep no more than 7 versions.
Scheme 2: Custom Scheme, Backup Method Differential, scheduled weekly. Create a full version after every 3 differential versions. Store no more than 1 chain.
Scheme 3: Custom Scheme, Backup Method Incremental, scheduled daily. Create a full version after every 6 incremental versions. Store no more than 1 chain.

There is no way of getting around having a full backup in each chain, and some weeks there will be three new fulls created, and depending on how you schedule them, you may end up with three in one day!

What I would do to accomplish something similar would be to do something like schedule full backup on First Sunday of the month. Keep them for six or seven months. Then, schedule a differential on each of the other Sundays of the month. Then schedule daily incrementals on Monday through Saturday. You accomplish the coverage you're looking for, but will be creating a full on two Sundays of the month and every Monday, if you set things up as above.

I have no idea regarding SSD, but I'm not sure that their backup routines should be any different from other drives.

Also remember that each backup is actually a task that is set up as full, incremental or differential, For the latter 2, the first backup is a full. If you backup in the same directory, there is a high chance that ATI will get confused between the tasks, and that will create issues at restore time. You should create the backup tasks in 3 different directories, but then you will have 3 fulls, one for the full task, one for the incremental task, and one for the differential task.
Sophisticated backup schemes are supported in the Backup and REcovery pro product, not in ATI.
My advice is to keep it simple. One single task. The rule of thumb is that your last full backup should never get so old that you would not feel comfortable going back it (because of updates, or other changes you made since). That will naturally dictate the frequency of your backups and the number of partial backups on top a single full backup.

Thank you for your reply, you have answered all my questions. I though that since all three setups are backing the same ssd up, they would count the very first "full" as "first full" for all three.

What I meant by 1+6 is (as it is shown on the chain scheme) the very first one which will be kept forever, and 6 others which the oldest one will be deleted when 7th is created.

And as you suggested i may (and probably will) get multiple full backups if i setup multiple schemes which is not practical i think.

I have set up a chain for now, which is a full backup (kept forever) then a full and five differentials for 8 chains, then the oldest one gets deleted. But what i reallt want is the ability to have

1 initial full (for plain windows with necessary drivers only)
6 full backups for last 6 months, 1 month intervals,
3 differentials for last 3 weeks, 1 week intervals, so i can go back to 1-2-3-4 weeks earlier
6 incrementals for last 6 days, 1 day intervals, so i can go back to 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 days earlier,

In total I want the ability to go back up to 1d-2d-3d-4d-5d-6d-1w-2w-3w-1m-2m-3m-4m-5m-6m and to initial setup. (Total of 16 backups at any time)

Do you think it is impossible? Help and KB is not answering some of the questions and i dont have time to try and see (because it takes 1 month minimum)

Edit: can i achieve this with;
3 different tasks;
1- full backups, monthly, no more than 6 backups
2- 1 full then differentials only, no more fulls, no more than 4 backups, weekly,
3- 1 full then incrementals only, no more fulls, no more than 7 backups, daily.

This way i will get 3 fulls, 4 differentials, 7 incrementals and ability to go back to 1-2-3-4-5-6 days, 1-2-3 weeks and 1-2-3-4-5-6 months back.

Only downside is that i will get 3 initial full back ups, and my computer will have 3 different backups at the same day every month, 2 different backups at the same day every week. But i think it can be eliminated with the playing with scheduler?

Edit2: I have found that what i am asking is a "Grandfather-Father-Son" scheme which is available on Acronis Backup & Restore 11.5 and i think i will go for the cheapest version of that

Yes, I see what you're trying to do, and while I think you can get similar coverage by sort of mimicking it, you won't exactly be able to do that without a little duplication. That is, you'll have to keep 2 chains of dailies because you can't delete the previous chain until you have a week's worth of new dailies. In True Image, chains are deleted in full, so until the next full is made, you can't start deleting the oldest daily. Backup and Restore 11.5 might be best for you if you must have this exact pattern.

In previous versions of ATIH, others have created external methods of achieving this. See Chain2gen and this thread: http://forum.acronis.com/forum/5940 I'm not sure people are still doing this, and I've found that any time I fiddle with files too much outside of ATI it can get confused.

thanks again, i have found some stuff about Chain2gen but as you said it is either too complicated or too risky for me, and the price difference between ATI and AB&R (cheapest ofc) is not that much, so i am going to go for it (set the trial version up already) :)

Baran,

I would encourage you to review this posting in this next link as well as signature link 2 below.

http://forum.acronis.com/forum/51005#comment-158545

Chain2Gen(C2G) is not difficult or time consuming to set up. It is a helper program for TrueImage. The main thing it adds to TrueImage is that it will manipulate the number of storage folders (each chain has its own folder) so that if the users wants a full backup to always occur on a particular weekday or date (lots of choices available for when a full occurs), it will move the files upward into a new storage folder so the current folder is empty, thus TrueImage will create a new full when it encouters an empty storage folder where backups are supposed to be. User uses C2G to control number of backups retained. Scheduling is still done by either TrueImage or the Windows Scheduler.

http://forum.acronis.com/forum/38799#comment-122496

If new to TrueImage, you mgiht find these links helpful.
http://forum.acronis.com/forums/other-home-home-office-products-discuss…