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Why is incremental backup using so much space?

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I can understand the 3GB files after the initial backup, but 48GB and then 48GB or more again less than an hour later?  I haven't changed my system THAT much since the last incremental backup.

 

 

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Daddyjaxx, welcome to these user forums.

Sorry but too little information to be able to do anything other than speculate or guess as to why your incremental backups have suddenly gone from being only 3GB to being 48GB in size?

What type of data are you backing up here, is this an'Entire PC', Disks & Partitions or Files & Folders type backup?

How many disk drives are included in the source data selection?

Please use the MVP Log Viewer to check the backup task logs for these incremental backups, looking at the last 3GB size backup and the two 48GB backups to see if there are any significant messages or indicators for why you are seeing the increase in size?

You would be welcome to attach an Acronis System Report zip file to this forum topic for us to look at to see if we can see any obvious issues?

Is it possible that this is Windows 10 and it has downloaded the install files for the latest Creator's Update to your C: OS drive?

Have you been doing any disk defragmentation for any of the source drive(s)?

Changing a partition (shrinking/expanding) can change the disk signature which will change the bits as well.  If you recover/restore, that would have a similar effect.  

Steve's notes about defragging or receiving the latest creator's update would cause a significant increase.  "entire pc" backups can include other drives as well, and not just the main one.

Basically, it sounds like something changed on the disk that essentially changed the "bit-level" data on the disk so each incremental is backing that up again.  I'd leave it alone (don't modify or edit the backup task either) and see if the next incremental and the one after that are just as large. 

without more information from the backup logs (possibly even the Windows logs), we can really only help you guess. 

I have had the Creator's Update installed since the original backup.  The first thing I do is get rid of Windows.old, hiber.sys, and disable fast boot.  When your Os/Programs drive is a 1 TB M2 PCIE, 25 GB is a chunk just for the hibernate file.  I have a RAID setup with two older 1 TB SSD's for games.  I only Raided them to have one larger drive.

I think I figured it out.  Yesterday I was using Disk Director to repartition a bunch of drives that used to be in RAID.  I stopped using it because it had to restart to commit the jobs on dynamic drives which makes no sense to me.  It was faster for me to just use Diskpart.  It must have messed up my OS drive a little.  The last thing I did last night was let the backup finish and have it turn off the PC.  When I started up today, I had an error that said my C drive had errors and needed to be fixed.  I think the backup program was backing up my entire C drive during the incrementals because of the drive error. 

I think I'll stay away from Disk Director.  The only drive I occasionally change partition sizes on is a USB drive that is too large to format as FAT32, so sometimes I'll create a 4 GB partition just for that so I can boot from it.

Thanks for the update, changing partitions can contribue to these larger incrementals (as noted by Bobbo) due to the drive signature changing, so this may well have been the case here.  Also, if you are using the 'Entire PC' option then this would automatically include any other drives in your system too.