ATI to Cloud - Cloud Cleanup - Recent File Versions Limit
Hi, I am new to ATI and just trialing out at the moment on a 30-day trial. I am coming from ABR/ABR Cloud which I have used for many years but pricing is getting too high for little storage space (1TB) and ATI seems like a good alternative as it's very cheap and cloud is unlimited (FUP 15TB/PC)
However I am just doing a test backup to cloud right now and I notice there is a limit within the 'Acronis Cloud Cleanup' options of 20 recent file versions.
I am a little confused as to the implications of this....It sounds like ATI to Cloud will only allow me to ever store 20 different versions of a particular file?!
So if I run a daily backup on files that change daily I can only ever store 20 backups or 20 versions of a particular file?
I'm hoping it's just a limit of a the trial or maybe I am getting confused and it means something else!
Thanks.
Thanks Bobbo_3C0X1 for replying.
It is very strange indeed, what kind of backup program limits you to how many backups you can have of something?
We're not even talking about some incredibly large number either which most people wouldn't reach but the limit is 20. Surely everyone would hit that before the default 6 months is due.
If you're backing up your system drive, a lot of files would change on a daily basis so that means you can never have backups older than 20 days. As an example, If I backup my windows system drive today and then run incrementals/fulls daily, I wouldn't be able to restore todays backup at the end of june becuase that would be 25 days that has passed and there would be a mismatch of old and current windows files, depending on how often those system files changed. Simply ridiculous!
Also the suggestion of creating additional backups just seems nonsense to me, I'd have to create 3 plans, 1 daily, 1 weekly and 1 monthly just so I can get normal amounts of retention. That means there's more to monitor, more to go wrong, more time actually running the backup is needed, just to get more retention. Why not just allow me to keep it simple within the one backup plan? I thought ATI was meant to be the simpler, easier to use, not for IT admins version of ABR.
It makes me wonder how many people using ATI are actually aware of this hidden setting/restriction. I'm sure a lot of people would just setup a single backup of their machine and let it run with the defaults thinking they are safe and have 6 months worth of backups.
I was looking at buying the 5 computer license and so that means right out of the box there are 15 backups to setup and monitor... which just seems a nonsense!
For me personally, this 20 version limit makes ATI not fit for purpose and ABR pricing has doubled in the last 2 years and ABC is even more over priced for way less storage again.
Granted ATI is cheap, very cheap and so I might have to live with these strange design choices but I'll see what Acronis competitors are offering first.
David, in the Cloud settings, as far as I can see the 20 versions limit is optional, i.e. it can be deselected, and in the same way the 6 month retention period is also adjustable, i.e. you could change this to 12 or 18 months or more.
I would guess that all of this will depend on what you are storing in the Cloud, but you could have multiple different backups going to the Cloud, such as one for a full system backup where you would apply a lower version limit to keep perhaps less than 20 versions.
Next you could have a Data (files & folders) backup where you have no versions limit but retain these over a 12 or 24 month period, depending on how often you are backing up and how many versions are likely to be stored and the size of those versions.
Cloud backup is currently offered as Unlimited, but Acronis have stated that they may impose a 15TB per PC limit in the future as part of their Fair Usage Policy.
The option to deselect version limit is greyed out
Hi David, I was able to create a new backup of Files & Folders to the Cloud and deselect the version limit while setting the retention to 24 months. Perhaps the version limit is enforced if you are doing a Disks / Partitions backup?
"The option to deselect version limit is greyed out" - same for me, I can select a number of 20 or less, but must have something selected - I've tried file/folder and disks/partitions and it is the same for either on my system (from within the application).
If these are daily backups, with this enforced, you'd still only get 20 maximum with that backup schemed (as I understand it currently). I don't see anyway to make that more.
I'm not sure why the limitatoin to 20 either. I can understand a time period limitation of no more than 1 year since that's the length of of a subscription (which may or may not get renewed), so I find it more odd that you can keep the retention time well beyond a year, but still only have 20 versions per backup job.
David, while you have Acornis Cloud subscription, you have full access to technical support, I'd suggest opening a support case and see what the response is and post back.
OK so contacted techincal support yesterday and asked the question, I was told on live chat that the 20 File Version Limit is just the limit on the number of incrementals that can be performed before a full backup has to happen, then after a full you can have another 20 incrementals/file versions.
However my testing has proven this to be wrong... sort of.
So I did some testing by scheduling Disk level backup of my System (C:) drive to run every hour. I also created a batch file to append some data to a text file every 15mins just so I had something I could restore and prove what version was being restored.
When using the ati software and chosing disk level recovery, there are indeed only 20 versions I can go back to and becuase I was backing up every hour I am only allowed to restore my PC back to the state it was at 1am! I can restore no further back that this! There is no such thing as performing a full backup, it's to the cloud they are all "incrementals" as far as the software tells you and you don't have the option to select any other kind of backup.
However, If I choose File Recovery, it takes me off to the website where I can browse the file structure of my C: drive and choose which files to restore. I select my test.txt file and I have 27 versions I can recover, which is as far back as I started the test backup yesterday.
So not sure what to make of that testing... If i do disk level backup I will only ever have 20 backups I can go back to and as I run them daily I will only ever have 20 days worth of backups unless I start creating 2nd or 3rd jobs and schedule them to run weekly and/or monthly.
Strange there have not been more replies to my post. I would've thought people would've been more bothered by their cloud disk backups being limited to only 20 most recent versions. Maybe, generally speaking people don't tend to do disk backups, either create multiple plans, simply just aren't bothered or are unaware having not read this.
Anyway I've been using ATI for a week now and now I have an issue where the scheduler doesn't work. On top of that I've had issues with symbolic links that I didnt have with ABR, which aren't able to be resolved by tech support either, I thought I would also be able to manage my backups through cloud.acronis.com but that is just a place where you're able to run backups and monitor them, so that forces you to use the horrible 2016 interface which kinda looks thrown together in someones lunch break as demo. ATI is cheap though, very cheap!
I know it's pricey but think I'll go back to Acronis B&R. I have confidence in that, I know it will do whatever I want and also it will backup whatever I want as many times as I want, albeit within the 1TB storage limit but I can live with that.
Thanks all