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Old backups not deleted, disk fills

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Hi,

 

My backup disk always fills up even though my Backup Method is set to Incremental, storing no more than 2 recent version chains. I have it setr to create a new full version after 20 increments and have Automatic Cleanup set to ON.

Two things;

 

1) how do I safely delete old data that won't be nescessary in the case I need to back up?

2) how do I configure true Image to actually autoatically clean up?

( I just updated to the newest ver of True Image, I'll attach the System Report. )

thanks,

 

Jon A

Attachment Size
acronissystemreport.zip 4.17 MB
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HI Jonathan,

I suspect you are modifying the backup task at some point after it has been created.  Any time you make a change to the backup task and save, it resets the version count.  I'm not sure how often your 20 incrementals occur, but assuming they are daily... even if you got to #19, made a change to the task and save it, then the version chain count goes back to 0 and it will need 20 more incrementals (plus the next full) before that one version chain closes out.  Keep doing this and it could be quite a while or never get to a point where cleanup can take place.  Long story short, set your backup task exactly as you want it and don't go back in and make changes unless you really need to.  

How often are your incrementals taking place - daily?  If so, you might want to cut that back from 10 as well.  This is just my personal preference, but the longer you let incrementals go for, the more risk there is that one could get corrupted and the ones preceding it will not be usable either.  More frequent full backups will give you a sooner recovery point, in case of an issue with an incremental.  Instead of only being able to recover from 20 days ago, you can at least limit things to say, one week should a situation like this occur.  For me, my backup plans consist of  1 full + 6 incrementals with a single daily backup = 7 backups per week in 1 version chain.  I keep 4 version chains so that gives me pproximately 1 month of backups I can go back in time to at any particular day.  After 4 version chains complete and the next successful full is run, that's when the cleanup will occur, which will remove the 1st weekly version chain to free up space automatically.  Rememer though, if you modify the task during this time frame, it will reset the version chain count. 

Peronally, I recommend using # of version chains (looks like you are as well since you have 2 set) instead of x # of days.  Many people set this to say 7 days, thinking a backup will delete after 7 days, but that's not the case. It is 7 days afer the full version chain has completed so it could be quite awhile.  

Additionally, please consider the industry standard (tried and true) 3-2-1 backup rule which recommends that you have 3 copies of your data (original and at least 2 backups), stored in 2 different formats and at least one of those offsite.  If you can't do offisite, perhaps take another backup to another drive, or perhaps a network share.  I have 1 local to an external USB drive as mentioned in the example above.  I have another one where the full starts 4 days later and does differentials (instead of incrementals) every other day to a network attached storage device.  I also use Acronis Cloud to backup my system weekly to the Acronis Cloud in case my two other backps fail or are destroyed do to a catastrophic event such as a failed disk, fire or theft.