Acronis 2016 backup to NAS and disk space management questions
Hi, I'm looking to purchase Acronis 2016 to backup two Windows 10 PCs to a Synology DS NAS (undecided on the model yet but apparently they support Acronis Backup). I wish to perform daily complete system block level backups and retain as many versions as the target storage will allow. My questions are:
1). Will Acronis run these full system image block level backups while the PCs are in use?
2). Does the software need to run on each PC or can it be run from the Synology as an app? (If it can run from the Synology does it have the capability to start up or wake the PCs to perform backups?
3). This is perhaps the most important question - Will Acronis manage available backup disk space accordingly, meaning once available disk space is consumed, oldest images will be automatically dropped to create space for the newest?
4). Can Acronis be told to manage that disk usage to a specific size, or must it be constrained by a LUN or partition which it simply uses until full?
5). In the event that the PC with Acronis software is not functioning, is there any other way to manually retrieve files from the backup (assuming I have the encryption key if required) or must I install a new copy of Acronis on a new PC first?
Thanks for your help!

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Hi Paul,
I have to make some corrections/additions to Gio's answers:
3) you can manage backup storage space by using cleanup rules in the backup plan http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ATI2016/#16143.html
4) see above
5) in case when mahcine is not bootable or for some reason you cannot install application, you can always use Acronis bootable media:
http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ATI2016/#25837.html
You can restore the full system backup as well as separate files from the backup.
Gio, thank you for your help!
Thank you,
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Thank you both for your help. The cleanup rules appear to do everything I need, this is great. I especially like the way it takes an extra copy of the original backup so you can set it aside when cleaning up old images, perfect.
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Your welcome Paul. I'm glad Anna shed some info on this as well (Thanks Anna). Paul, on a side note buy the Synology Diskstation. I'm very impressed with their support as well as their products. Since they make 6TB NAS drives now, you can either populate a 5-bay giving you about 25TB of usable storage. You can also put 2-SSD's and 3-6GB NAS SATA and upgrade the memory to 6GB. Get the 15 series (1515+ and 1815+). We run all our VMWare images off the iSCSI LUN's as well as file sharing and performance has never been an issue. I'm trying to get the SDK so I can start developing packages that would work with Acronis or our monitoring solution by LabTech. I don't want to use this forum to talk about Synology, so if you have any questions, PM me and I will correspond with you that way.
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Anna Trifonova wrote:Hi Paul,
I have to make some corrections/additions to Gio's answers:3) you can manage backup storage space by using cleanup rules in the backup plan http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ATI2016/#16143.html
4) see above
5) in case when mahcine is not bootable or for some reason you cannot install application, you can always use Acronis bootable media:
http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/documentation/ATI2016/#25837.html
You can restore the full system backup as well as separate files from the backup.Gio, thank you for your help!
Thank you,
Anna, interesting enough, in reference to item #3, I don't have the option for cleanup rules unless I create a new backup job under ATI 2016. Same with encryption to the NAS device. Although the backup job when I was using ATI 2015 was "Incremental", I don't have options to modify the retention (cleanup rules). Is this normal behavior?
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I several PCs that I have backed up to my Synology NAS. One I do over wireless (HP Edge 8 Slate) and the other via Ethernet connection. I did this under both ATI 2015 and ATI 2016 (beta).
Ian
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Thanks Ian, and do you run any cleanup / version retention rules to ensure disk usage is continually self managed?
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Thanks for the Synology advice Gio, I was already looking closely at them for my first choice. They list Acronis as supported for backup which led me here to learn more about this backup product. If I have any further questions on their hardware / software I'll be sure to drop you a message!
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Paul B wrote:Thanks Ian, and do you run any cleanup / version retention rules to ensure disk usage is continually self managed?
Not for either of those systems. In the past I have been lazy in management of backups - just let the accumulate. I am trying to be more methodical about it now.
Ian
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Paul,
See the attached. This is the retention using "Automatic Cleanup" I'm running for one of my machines (Laptop)
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291033-121675.png | 25.93 KB |
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Thanks Gio and the product you're using is Acronis True Image 2016 yes?
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Paul B wrote:Thanks Gio and the product you're using is Acronis True Image 2016 yes?
Yes, ATI 2016.
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Question about the "block level" incremental backups: This doesn't seem to be working the way I'd expect, or perhaps I misunderstand what ATI means with the term:
I just installed ATI 2017 and started uploading a large file. ATI appeared to restart uploading the file from scratch (rather than from where it had gotten to) both (a) when I restarted my computer, and (b) when I paused and restarted the backup part way through uploading the file. The reason I think it started from scratch was that 1.) the available online space went back to 1 TB in each case after the upload was paused and restarted, 2.) the amount uploaded started from 0 again.
What am I missing? Is there a way I can get ATI 2017 to restart after partially uploading a file?
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This is not an issued that I have encountered before. I suggest you contact Acronis technical support (go to the Acronis www site, log into you account, then go to the support area). The most satisfactory way to sort it out would be to use chat - I have found it to be a very convenient way of working through issues.
Once you find out the answer, please post back on the Forum.
Ian
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Hi
I'm a newbie to Acronis 2017 and to Synology NAS and the questions Paul B asked and the responses were exactly what i needed right now. Thanks.
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