Backup Fails after a few weeks - user error - pls help
Hi all,
I hope someone can help... I have Acronis True Image 2020 - I have been using it for months but just cant get it working.
My setup is that I use a 4Tb USB disk for my backup. I set TI to create a full backup then incremental for a period, then another full backup and so on.
The issue is that my initial backup is about 1.5Tb, so it runs for a few weeks - but then when it gets to the point where it tries to create a 3rd full backup the disk isnt big enough. Obviously I understand this, but cant seem to get the settings right for it to delete the earliest full backup when the time comes to create the 3rd and so on.
The settings I have at the moment (which dont work as I expected) is to take a daily backup at 2am;
Backup Scheme is set as custom;
- Method: incremental
- Create full version after every 6 incremental versions
- Delete Older chains after 7 days
I expected this to create a full backup on day 1, run 6 incremental backups on days 2-7, delete the first full backup (plus dependant incremental backups) and create a new full backup on day.
I have tried several variants including setting the "Keep size of backup no more than" to 3500Gb expecting it to delete the older data to create space for a fresh backup.
I realise that this is user error - but I just cant find any information or help on setting this up. Obviously very frustrating as I have been trying for maybe 1yr+ to get this working.
Is there a guru who might be able to help, and perhaps explain the settings which I am crearly mis-interpretting!
Many thanks in advance


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Hi Steve
Thanks for the quick assistance.
I am backing up data from a NAS box... so it's not a whole PC backup - its directories containing photographs (many years worth of weddings, family portraits, etc) plus general documents... so unfortunatelty there is no easy way to reduce the size of the backup. I do have other backups of the most important data using Areca, an opensource product, as well as filesyncing to a few other USB devices - but this backup is the most complete backup of everything. As you can tell I realise the importance of backups ;-)
What you say about setting the "store no more than one recent version chain" makes sense now - I guess that as there will only ever be a maximum of 1 chain - which will have 2 copies of the full backup (3Tb) total, until the second full backup is complete and then the 1st full backup is deleted, I could increase the number of incremental backups, as they are quite small, to allow the opportunity to recover a version of a file for a longer period than one week?
You mention needing to run the "Clean up versions tool" before I can recommence the backup - but dont see this listed in the Tools section of ATI - is this downloaded from the Acronis website - or is it easier to just reformat the USB disk and start again, which is what I have been doing every couple of weeks so far!
Many thanks again
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Hi Steve
Many thanks for the fast reply... I did post this earlier and the forum said it would show after moderation - but it never did, so here goes again.
What you say makes sense about store no more than 1 recent version chain, so I have set that. The files being backed up are not from a full PC backup, they are flat files from my NAS box which contains 20 years of photos, family videos, files etc - so there is no easy way to reduce the size of this.
I know the importance of backups, so use Areca, an open source product, to back up my critical files to other USB nVMe drives as well as some file sync backups on USB keys kept about my person. (All in encrypted containers :) ).
You mention that I will need to use the "Clean Up Versions" tool to remove the oldest backup chain - but didnt see this listed in the tools section... is it a seperate tool I need to download, or should it be there and I am missing something? Up till now I have just deleted the whole backup every couple of weeks and restarted.
I guess that with this change there will only be the first full backup, 6 incrementals and then when a second full backup the original full backup plus dependant incrementals will be deleted - so as the incrementals are so small I could increase this value from 6 to gain longer versioning period to allow restoring older files if needed?
Anyway - thanks again and hopefully this will sort it.
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You mention that I will need to use the "Clean Up Versions" tool to remove the oldest backup chain - but didnt see this listed in the tools section... is it a seperate tool I need to download, or should it be there and I am missing something? Up till now I have just deleted the whole backup every couple of weeks and restarted.
The Clean up versions tool is an option within the task menu for each backup task in the GUI as is applied at a task level.
KB 61844: Acronis True Image 2019, 2020 and 2021: How to delete old backups
It is best not to delete backup files manually as this leaves references to deleted files behind in the database used by Acronis which can cause other errors further on.
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Thanks Steve
I have made the changes you suggest and will let you know if there are any more issue - but, it does seem to be working again at the moment :-)
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