Also Full backup it will start another count number in name

All backups made using a particular task will be placed in the same directory. I suggest you look at section 4.4.2.2 Version chain scheme of the ATI 2017 user guide. You can create automatic cleanup rules that remove old backup files using different criteria, one of which is likely to meet your needs.

You can also delete old backup manually, however you will need to validate the backup for it to work after having done so. You will be informed that files are missing and just click on 'ignore'. You need to make sure that you do not delete the most recent full backup (and should keep any subsequent incremental backups).

Ian

Lse, your backup files will all be stored in the same backup folder as you have configured in the task settings for the destination.

When a new Full backup is created then you will see _full_b2_ in the file name, where the b2 number increases to b3, b4 etc as you make new full backups.

To have Acronis delete the old unwanted backups, you need to enable Automatic Cleanup and set a rule for this, my preference is to use the rule:

Store no more than 2 recent version chains

This means that when my backup gets to create _full_b3_ backup file, it will then delete the _b1_ version chain files, leaving just b2 and b3 files.  This will then do the same as further new full backups are created, just keeping the latest 2 version chains.

A version chain = a Full backup and the 5 Incremental backup files with the same b? sequence number in the file name, i.e. b1, b2, b3 etc.

Ever since I upgraded to 2017, the restriction to X number of copies has not worked.  In the 2016 operation, I kept 2 copies and everything worked.  In 2017, I started with keep 2 copies and that didn't work.  I then reset to 1 copy and still nothing gets deleted.  I am backing up to an NAS device (Netgear) and have to really remember to go and manually delete files before the NAS is packed up.  These are always full backups; may have to change that.

Tom, welcome to these forums.

I would recommend downloading the MVP Log Viewer tool (link in my signature) and using this to see what messages are being shown in your backup task to see if this helps understand why the automatic cleanup rules are not working for you?

We would need more information on the actual backup task settings that you have configured to help further.

In my own experience, automatic cleanup is working fine to keep X number of version chains and also create incremental / differential backups etc, so am not seeing the issues you are reporting here in this area.

One point to note: if you are editing your task configuration settings, this can have a side effect in resetting version chain counters, such that you can see more incremental or differential backups than the number set in the task configuration, i.e. create a new full backup after X incr or diff backups.

I would suggest creating a completely new backup task and testing that this does work correctly according to the configured settings you set - if this is the case, then replace any other backup tasks with new tasks using the desired configuration settings.

I downloaded the log viewer.  After the actual backup procedure there is a section describing consolidation.  The log then begins referring to an older NAS gone for 6-7 months and eventually quits without deleting anything.

I erased all back-up sets except one and put in 4 new sets and started the system going again.  Looking at the new logs shows the same bogus NAS being referenced in exactly the same way and doing the same thing.  Is there any way to view the scripts running the backups to nry and see where the bad info is comming from?

Tom, if you are seeing messages in the logs referring to an older NAS which no longer exists, then this suggests that you have modified the backup tasks that used that NAS when you switched to a different backup device, and that the Acronis Database bases still have that information about the old NAS in the files.

The key action that you can take now is either to remove all of your backup tasks and start a complete new set of tasks, using unique task names and storing to new unique folders on the backup drive, so that there is no cross reference between the new tasks and any names / folders etc used for the old tasks.

Alternatively, you can force a rebuild of the Acronis Database files to clean out all references to the old tasks, NAS etc.

To do this, you first need to Stop all Acronis Services and then End all Acronis Programs (in this order!).  Once all Acronis services & programs are inactive, then open C:\ProgramData\Acronis\TrueImageHome\ and either rename or delete the Database folder you find there, i.e. rename to Database.OLD.  Note: this is only possible when Acronis holds no locks on the files in this folder.

Finally, restart the main ATIH 2017 application which will restart all the stopped / ended services & programs.

I downloaded the stop everything script.  Don't se a reference to End-all script.

I just inspected the script files for info on the replaced volumes and there is no reference in any of them.  I assume some part of the basic script/app is looking for drives and that is why renaming the database will get rid of that.  Would I be better off to delete all existing scripts, put in new folders to back-up to, and just start over?

Tom, the scripts (in the MVP Tools folder on Google drive) are just a means of stopping all the Acronis Services, they do not deal with the Acronis Programs which need to be ended via the Windows Task Manager (after the services are stopped).

Ditto to Steve.  YOu should close down the main GUI/app first and then run the services.

For the purpose of just stopping services use the STOP_ALL_AcronisServices.bat

For the purpose of starting the services use the START_ALL_AcronisServices.bat

If there are any services you don't want to start up again, you can comment them out by adding :: to the front of them.  If you want to permanently disable some of these services, use the ones with auto_disable and/or auto_enable in them instead.  These are generic for all services.  Again, comment out any you don't want to stop or start (or stop_auto_disable / start_auto_enable).  Alternatively, you can go to control panel >>> administrative tools >>> services and look for Acronis services and manually start/stop or enable/disable from there for each Acronis Service. 

Thanks everyone for your help.  Stopping everything and commenting out the DM file solved the problem.  Somewhere in restarting the program made a new file and  away we go.  Thanks again.

Glad to hear it!  Thanks for the update.