Acronis True Image 2020 backups - are they much more compressed?

Roy, welcome to these public User Forums.

Sorry but too little information to be able to advise on whether your 47GB backup image size is a problem or is good?

If you would like to collect an Acronis System Report zip file and upload it to the forum for review (assuming it is less than 8MB size allowed), we would be willing to see what the logs tell us about your backup operation.

Otherwise, all I can suggest would be to open the backup .tibx by double-clicking on it in Explorer and compare the contents and folder sizes with the source drive you have backed up from?

Unfortunately, .tibx files cannot be mounted at this time unless Acronis release a new update build that brings back that option, which would then allow the use of other comparison tools.

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the  advice.  I'll attach the Acronis System Report you request.  I notice that on the default backup screen, where it shows Source and Target as large icons, it gives the backup I've just created size as 67Gb, which is credible against a 47Gb size post compression, but not against the previous ATI 2013 daily size of 94Gb or Windows reporting 167Gb of the PC's HDD being used.  Unless there was something wrong running under ATI 2013, it seems too small.  I haven't changed any of the default exclusions incidentally, and validated afterwards OK.

Cheers,

Roy

Sorry, didn't seem to take my System Report.  Will Try again.

Roy, are you able to open a backup from the 2013 version and compare the contents of that with the new .tibx contents? I don't know if there have been any changes to the default exclusions between 2013 and 2020.

Roy,

You should have a look at the items in the exclusion list and note that there are some that can be large but are not backed up.  Temp files are a good example of this.  Another think I have noticed is there seems to be a discrepancy in total size of backup in the 2020 product.  I noticed this some time back and posted it here in the Forum.  After accounting for everything in the exclusion list I still had a 20GB variance.  I think this might be attributable to the way in which TI now calculates data numbers.  I believe the app does not count duplicate data as it does not backup duplicate data only one copy.  So this may play a part in what you see.

Another possible is if you run multiple disks as I do and have some of your data actually on a different disk than what Windows thinks (as in a user picture folder moved to another drive) that also may play part in erroneous numbers.

I have tested the backups out for recovery purposes and all have been successful.  So even though the numbers don't jive I have confidence in the product.

Thanks for both replies.  Upload of System Report zip file simply didn't happen for a second time, rather odd.  Will try again once back at work with report file to hand.  Keep getting 'The website encountered an unexpected error. Please try again later.'

BrunoC - sorry I can't try this as I completely uninstalled ATI 2013 and all associated add-ons before loading 2020 to avoid clashes/bugs.

Enchantech - what you say may be right.  There could be duplication of files between different users on the one PC.  I will have a good look tomorrow at this and the issue of exclusions you rightly raise.  I've never changed these, but Acronis may have quietly done so in subsequent upgrades.

I'll have a detailed look at work tomorrow and report back.

Roy Caton wrote:

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the  advice.  I'll attach the Acronis System Report you request.  I notice that on the default backup screen, where it shows Source and Target as large icons, it gives the backup I've just created size as 67Gb, which is credible against a 47Gb size post compression,

 Roy, Voll Backup-Einstellungen-Optionen-Ausschlusskriterien Haken entfernt bei Dateien ausschliessen

-Erweitert-Leistung-Kompromierungsgrad ohne eingestellt.  So sieht es bei mir aus.

Thanks for that.  So far I've found an overlooked old 10Gb .tib backup file which ATI2019 didn't copy, and am starting to think the excessive size reduction is partly about it excluding such unwanted files, but I am still looking.  I've always found ATI reliable, so I'm not quick to doubt the software running on an older PC which may hide files ATI will quietly exclude.

Another large set of files can be found in the System Volume Information folders which are excluded by default by Acronis - these are where Windows stores System Protection restore point information if this is enabled on your computer.  These folders are hidden / system folders so not normally visible in Explorer.

Just to add a late reply for anyone with a similar problem finding this thread in future, I've just stumbled into the recycling bin contents of 65Gb....!  Bigger than all the other HDD contents put together in fact.  No idea how it got quite so huge, it was set to a 49Gb limit for some reason (maybe 5% of 1Tb disk?) but never stopped growing even then.  So I guess the latest ATI version skipped it where previous version backed it up anyway, hence the dramatic archive size reduction.

Thanks again for all the advice received.

Roy.

Roy,

Thanks for posting your findings.  So if you had a limit on the size of the Recycle BIn I suspect that data over that amount might be directed to another folder even though I think that is a remote possibility.  Temp, tmp, recycle bin, etc. are excluded from backup by default and have been that way in the product for a long time so this Windows behavior is strange indeed.