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Deletion of version chain does not work

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I have set following options for my backup:

Incremental - one full after 4 inr. - delete versionchains older than 7 days - dont delete first backup.

The option "delete older than 7 days" does not work. In the meantime I have 9 incr. versions and two full.

This needs lot of space and I would like to change this.

Any help how to do so?

Thanks!

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Origando, you are the second user today to post about issues about version chains not being deleted using the 'older than 7 days' option.  I do not remember seeing other users reporting this issue recently!

I would recommend manually deleting your older complete version chains by using Windows Explorer but then running a Validation of your backup task to reconcile the Acronis Database for the remaining backup files.  You will see lots of pop-up messages for each of the deleted files that you will need to tell Acronis to ignore.

I don't personally use the age option for controlling backup version chains, my preference is to Store no more than x recent version chains.  The main caveat here is that Acronis will only delete the oldest version chain once the next full backup file for a new version chain has been successfully created, thus you need sufficient space to store x+1 version chains.

Keep in mind that if at anypoint in time after a backup has run, IF you go back in and modify the backup task and save (run the backup), the version chain gets reset as well.  

For example.  You  have 1 full + 6 incrementals  with daily backups (1 week) and a cleanup task set to run after two version chains.  

Your first full version chains is complete and you have completed incremental #5 of the second version chains.  However, then  you go in and make a setting change (let's say you want to adjust the schedueld time).  Well, now you have to wait for 6 new incrementals to complete again before the version chain is complete since the version chain was reset when the task was modified.  If you do this yet again, before the version chain completes, this can go on and on and on without ever meeting the requirements for completing the version chain.  

This is why most of the MVP's advise to not change a backup chain once it has been set and run.  It's not that you can't do this, especially if you have the room for the additional backups, but it prevents the cleanup tasks from working as one would normally expect. 

 

Thank you, Steve and Bobbo!