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Single Full Backup on Alternating Drives

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Hi everyone;

Hoping to get some help setting up a backup scheme in Acronis True Image 2018.  We have 2 backup schemes: One set to the Acronis cloud and the other using an USB external hard drive.  The cloud backup is working as expected.

For the external backup, we want to have a single full backup and it will be manually run once weekly.  We are using two external drives so one can be kept offsite and alternate each week.  I have the cleanup rules set to only keep one version because there is only enough space on the disk for one backup version.

Acronis doesn't seem to like this set up for two reasons:
1 - When the drives are alternated the software is expecting to see the last backup file present but it won't because the drives are alternating

2 - The software wants to create a new full backup on the drive and then delete the older version.  It can't do this because there is not enough space for 2 backups.

Any tips how to set this up?  I basically want Acronis to empty the backup drive and then make a full backup on it, no matter what drive is attached.

Any help is appreciated.  Thank you!

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First, I would create two separate backup tasks, one for each of the USB HDD. You could clone the first task, and then edit the settings as necessary. I would suggest assigning different drive letters to the two USB HDD to avoid potential problems. You could also include a pre-command which checks for a uniquely named text file on the target HDD - there is a discussion of how to do this on a Forum post (cannot remember where at the moment).

Alternatively, you could use the rescue media to do the backup as it does not (as I understand it) use the data base to check the last back-up is there.

I think this will avoid problem 2, but I am not sure. It will avoid 2 if the only reason for the new full backup is the missing incremental backup.

Ian

 

Scott, as advised by Ian, ATI does not support the use of alternating drives for a single backup task - this is a design limitation due to the way ATI records the drive unique identifier in its internal database along with the drive letter, plus tracks all backup activities.

On the second part of your issue, the backup drive would need to be large enough to hold a minimum of 2 full backup image files as ATI is again designed to not delete the existing backup until the next one has been created successfully, this to avoid having no backup to fall back on should the worse case scenario happen.

I would recommend investing in two larger backup drives and then doing as advised by Ian and having two separate tasks that only run when the associated drive is available.  

Take a read through the following forum topics where this issue has been raised previously:

External USB drive not detected after nightly rotation   

Using 2 different target disks for TrueImage backup--Revised January 2015

Because you are doing a single full backup and it's all manually started, I think you can handle this by simply deleting the existing .tib file on the backup drive before starting a new backup. You could do a pre-command to empty the destination or just do it manually. Of course you need to turn off Active Protection first.

I have an experimental task that backs up the C: drive to a folder on D:. The activity for the tasks shows a couple backups. I deleted them on the D: drive. I started the backup and it did not complain.