Migrating from Acronis 2017

ATI 2020 should upgrade over 2017 just fine. However take a backup before upgrading, just in case. There is no export in 2017 of settings, it came out late in 2018. Yof things go south, start with fresh 2020 backups but keep some of the old 2017 backups for recovery just in case .

As for cleanup, that's entirely up to your, your retention needs and storage space. My personal preference is to keep a months worth of backups and use automated cleanup rules to groom them out automatically in the backup task. 

If you cleanup manually in windows file explorer, you will likely have issues in Acronis because changes outside of the application will be unknown. However, rescue media is also a means for recovery and can always be a fallback.

4) Make an acronis USB safe disk ? (still needed ?)

You will need to create a new ATI 2020 recovery medium of some flavor and on some kind of recovery device (USB flash memory stick, external drive, DVD, etc.) because the old versions will not support the new .tibx backup format.  You could rely on initiating a recovery from within Windows, but I think you will find everybody on this forum advising against that.  You really should use a stand-alone recovery device,

Bobbo_3C0X1 wrote:

ATI 2020 should upgrade over 2017 just fine.

 Hello Bobo and sorry for the late answer.

I have upgraded to 2020. Now it says that I have to activate the product but the serial seems in place and is the same one I received when I purshased do you think I should contact Acronis support or am I missing something.

Bobbo_3C0X1 wrote:

 

As for cleanup, that's entirely up to your, your retention needs and storage space. My personal preference is to keep a months worth of backups and use automated cleanup rules to groom them out automatically in the backup task. 

If you cleanup manually in windows file explorer, you will likely have issues in Acronis because changes outside of the application will be unknown. However, rescue media is also a means for recovery and can always be a fallback.

Of course I forgot about your note and I just read it AFTER I cleaned up using Windows Explorer :) First I made a backup of the tib files on an external disk and then I deleted these ones on my NAS using Explorer...

What should I do now ? Do I need to do an action inside Acronis to mark these files as deleted ?

Should I delete the files directly from Acronis 2020 ?

Now the program seems to have recognized my old 2017 setup so not sure if I have to  change anything from now apart from creating the rescue disk...

Cotp

CotP

You might try logging out of the account in the application and logging back in to get the license to activate. Before you do, log into your account online and see what applications and licenses are registered. If there is an issue, yeah, you'll want to contact customer support and may need to provide them with proof of purchase or something, especially if you used different email addresses for the old version and the new upgrade license.

To clear things up with the manually deleted backup files, run validation for the backup task in the Windows application. You'll be promoted the chain is corrupt and asked to locate or ignore each missing file. Keep pressing ignore until the prompts are all gone and then it will validate the rest and cleanup the internal database in the process.

Bobbo_3C0X1 wrote:

CotP

You might try logging out of the account in the application and logging back in to get the license to activate. Before you do, log into your account online and see what applications and licenses are registered. If there is an issue, yeah, you'll want to contact customer support and may need to provide them with proof of purchase or something, especially if you used different email addresses for the old version and the new upgrade license.

 

Hello Bobbo,

Thanks for the message

I logged in to my online account everything is fine then tried login out and loggin inthe software  again but I still have the same problem, how do you recommend I contact support ?

Cotp

Cotp

Do you see an error message in the Account page of the app?  Can you use the application or does it refuse to fully start so that you can use it?

Hello I finally find a solution. I explain it here.

Thanks for your message

Cotp

Yeah,  I had a feeling it might be that or possibly the app in Trial mode.  Glad you got it working.

Bobbo_3C0X1 wrote:

CotP

To clear things up with the manually deleted backup files, run validation for the backup task in the Windows application. You'll be promoted the chain is corrupt and asked to locate or ignore each missing file. Keep pressing ignore until the prompts are all gone and then it will validate the rest and cleanup the internal database in the process.

 

Hi Bobbo,

When I try to enter the options in the backup it tells me a message that says that some file has been moved or erased and ask me to ignore the file.

1) Problem it asks me this with EVERY file s9 s8 s7 etc ... is there a way around this ? 

2) Does that mean that after that I will not be able to use these or not ? (I backed them up on a seperate disk to save space on my NAS that became full)

3) After I have backed up some files on external disks if I don't use Explorer and want to delete them inside the application where do I do that (can't find the list somwhere) sorry about that :/

Cotp

Yes, you need to ignore each one until they are all accounted for.

The backup files you moved are still usable, as  you long butas they are a full chain,w all in one location, and have the original names. However, you will need/want to use rescue media to restore those down the road.

Manually moving files around is really not good for the Windows version because it has a database to keep track of everything. And, since you have the backup task still running and using the same name, but have other files from that task manually moved off, there will be a conflict if you try to add them in the Windows version of True Image since you can only have one backup task with a unique name at a time and it's no longer associated with the files you moved manually.

The rescue media is fine for recovering those files if they are all in tact though... We'll, at least in 2019 and earlier. Honestly, I haven't tried this in 2020 now that there is a 12kb meta data file associated with all chains in the backup. If that wasn't copied with the other files, I don't know if you could still copy it in its current state and still use it. 

I would test with a mock recovery to a test disk to see.

Thanks Bobbo very much for all this intelligent feedback !

In True Image interface I found a button called "Clean up versions"

When I click on it I arrive with a list where I can select which files I want to delete by date.

This is the good procedure I understand if I want to keep the database intact instead of deleting them directly from Explorer

What I think is missing or could be intersting to have in this case would be an action "Re connect deleted backups"

that would allow me to put back in database those deleted files. I don't know if there is a feature place I can submit this idea... if you think that makes sense ?

From what I understand also I need to have all the series in the incremental: full  + 1 +2 +3 etc... so this can work not only the number 3 for example... right ?

Is there a risk of corrupting data when I copy a big file like that from my NAS to a disk through USB ?

Do yu suggest I make sure the files are exactly the same before I felete them I am just afraid it might take hours to check since they are so big....

Cotp

Edit: I tried to compare binary the file with a program I have (Beyond Compare), but it annonces me 920 minutes so that's around 15 hours to compare 1 file of 300Gb (for the full file)... not sure if there are other ways to check if the file is okay ans has been well copied... :/

I am trying it now on a smaller file 6Gb where it tells me 15 min

Yeah, that could be a nice feature. There is a feedback option in the app, which is the best way to submit feature requests. In 2019 with .tib backups, there is a move option too and that's likely to be added at some point, but is not built in to date... Hopefully soon though as it continues to get fine tuned.

Correct, an incremental chain reqUires the initial full and all files in the chain that came before it. So yeah, if incremental 2 and 3 are missing, then 4 and beyond are useless, but the full would still be usable. Also, in 2020, whenever a cleanup is done, the very first file remains and is 12kb. This file also seems to be required for the new .tibx format because it contains the backup metadata, so you'll always want that too! This could make manually copying files difficult in the future... If you have an older version of that file and add newer copies to the folder, that metadata may be old for the copies!

There could be possible corruption copying, but not likely. There are checksum tools that might allow you to easily compare the checksum of the file in its original location and then run it in the copied location and it should be the same.

Hello Bobbo and everyone,

I just tried to delete files within the application but it was difficult because the name of the files don't display.

So I looked at the date of the file I had backed up and was able to figure out which set to delete.

I deleted them but then when I went to see if they were physically deleted on the disk they were not and still there.

Any idea why ? 

Cotp

Edit: for checksum I tried to software: HashTab (which uses context menu in Internet Explorer) and Md5Checker (was able to calculate MD5 on my USB drive but not on my NAS).

I didn't find any of these easy to use and my program Beyond Compare that I use for differences takes ages...

So I had to trust evrything was ok out of despair ^^

CotP I'm not quite following. Did you mount the backup as a volume and then try to delete files out of it? The backup files are read only so can't be modified that way.

The best you can do is "cleanup versions" in the True Image app to free up overall disk space that the backup might be using, but at the cost of having less options to recover from as a result. 

Hello Bobbo

Sorry if it is not clear. I will try to explain again.

1) My NAS (where my backups are saved) was running out of space. So I wanted to delete some files to make space. (this is the reason of all this)

2) I first backed up the tib files on an external drive through USB cable.

3) Then I deleted the ones I already copied directly from internet explorer. On this forum I was told it was better to delete them from the software itself (because of conflict issues afterwards). So that is what I tried to do. I went to Clean Up Version and tried to find the files that I had to delete (was not that easy because the actual name of the files did not show up so I figured it out with the dates)

4) I deleted them that way but the files were not actually deleted. So I wanted to know if that was normal behavior and have to physically delete them afterwards ?

5) If I understand well if I ever want to use one of deleted files again I will only be able to use them through explorer but not through the app itself (since they won't be in database anymore)...

So I wonder if I just should continue deleting them with Explorer and then if I ever want to use them again just replace them to their original location (does that make sense) ? or will it make conflicts in the program not to find this backups anymore ?

Thanks for you help, hope I explained it better this time

Cotp

B. wrote:

 

3) Then I deleted the ones I already copied directly from internet explorer. On this forum I was told it was better to delete them from the software itself (because of conflict issues afterwards). So that is what I tried to do. I went to Clean Up Version and tried to find the files that I had to delete (was not that easy because the actual name of the files did not show up so I figured it out with the dates)

4) I deleted them that way but the files were not actually deleted. So I wanted to know if that was normal behavior and have to physically delete them afterwards ?

You say you deleted the files in both 3) and 4). Just to clarify, did you do all the (attempted) deletions - at that point - using Cleanup?

When you say "files", are you talking about .tib backup files or your "user" files backed up by ATI?  As Bobbo said, you can't delete user files with ATI.  Cleanup lets you delete backup files but it can't modify the content of those backups.

You say in 4) that the files weren't deleted. The .tib backups files were not deleted?  Did ATI give any error messages? I don't recall Cleanup failing except with FTP backups and there was (eventually) an error message announcing the failure.

Do the supposedly deleted backups still show in Cleanup?

4) I deleted them that way but the files were not actually deleted. So I wanted to know if that was normal behavior and have to physically delete them afterwards ?

No, that is not normal behavior.  If using "cleanup versions" in the True Image application, that is supposed to delete the files as well.  In 2020, the first file will likely always remain (although with a smaller 12kb size which contains meta data for all of the remaining backups so don't delete that file!!)  Close True Image and open it backup. use cleanup options and see if the dates of the corresponding files are still there, or are gone now.  I had this happen at least once as well.  When I reopened True Image and used "cleanup versions" again, the dates were still there.  I tried again, and this time, it properly deleted them from the destination.  

If the dates aren't there anymore, but the files still exist, that is probably something to report to Acronis via a ticket. However, it might be related to your next question...

5) If I understand well if I ever want to use one of deleted files again I will only be able to use them through explorer but not through the app itself (since they won't be in database anymore)...

So I wonder if I just should continue deleting them with Explorer and then if I ever want to use them again just replace them to their original location (does that make sense) ? or will it make conflicts in the program not to find this backups anymore ?

After using "cleanup versions" you really don't want to try and open those copied files directly in the GUI, while you still have that backup task being used.  The reason being is you removed them from the database with the "cleanup versions" option.  I think that what is happening is these files have the same name as the ongoing task, so the app is confused. 

You either want to use your rescue media to recover them (avoiding the database tracking), or, you would need to remove the existing task in Acronis and then import the copies in place of the original files on the NAS.  I would not do that, and would instead use the rescue media since that avoids all of the database confusion and things going on in the background.

Patrick O'Keefe wrote:

 

When you say "files", are you talking about .tib backup files or your "user" files backed up by ATI? 

 Yes I am talking about tib files.

I will try Bobbo sugesstion to see if the dates are still there and if so will try to delete them one more time.

Not sur Bobbo about your answer when I asked about the idea of deliting them directly through Explorer to KEEP them in the database and reput them in place in case I need to use them again does that make sense or is it going make things worse for me ?

Cotp

Not sur Bobbo about your answer when I asked about the idea of deliting them directly through Explorer to KEEP them in the database and reput them in place in case I need to use them again does that make sense or is it going make things worse for me ?

I think that would cause issues because any validation in the meantime would start telling you that files are missing and need to be located or deleted again and could cause issues during recovery as a result too.

It looks like they fixed the bug in the 2020 rescue media that will allow you to recover from backup files (including your moved / copied ones), so long as all of the chain are in the folder you want to recover from (i.e. the source full and any corresponding incrementals or differentials).

Hello everyone and sorry for the late answer.

I have had problems lately backing up with 2020 since I deleted the files...

I tried to validate the backup and ignored the missing files. Then this pop up appeared:

It asks me for a file calle @task@.tib that is missing. I looked on my backup disk it isn't there nor on my NAS.

It says to click "Ignore" but there is no Ignore button... 

Any advice on what to do next ?

Cotp

It asks me for a file calle @task@.tib that is missing. I looked on my backup disk it isn't there nor on my NAS.

There will not be any files by that name as it is one that is intended to be replaced by the actual name of the backup task, i.e. @task@ = 'my task name'.tib

If all this issue started after deleting files, then I can only suggest making a fresh backup task using a unique name then see that all is working as it should.

Thanks Steve for your quick answer.

1) Does that mean there is nothing I can do to save this and that my backup task is now corrupt ?

2) Here is my setup now:

My first full backup is still there on place wich was something like 

• myname_full_b1_s1_v1.tib

I moved the following files:

• myname_inc_b1_s2_v1 until myname_inc_b1_s11_v1 

and also moved

•  myname_full_b2_s1_v1 and
•  myname_inc_b2_s2_v1 until myname_inc_b2_s11_v1 and
• myname_full_b3_s1_v1

So the next file remaining is myname_inc_b3_s2_v1

and the next full version is myname_full_b4_s1_v1

3)  If I start from a fresh backup are my old tib files still usable for a restore with a USB boot device ?

Cotp

B. wrote:

Thanks Steve for your quick answer.

1) Does that mean there is nothing I can do to save this and that my backup task is now corrupt ?

2) Here is my setup now:

My first full backup is still there on place wich was something like 

• myname_full_b1_s1_v1.tib

I moved the following files:

• myname_inc_b1_s2_v1 until myname_inc_b1_s11_v1 

and also moved

•  myname_full_b2_s1_v1 and
•  myname_inc_b2_s2_v1 until myname_inc_b2_s11_v1 and
• myname_full_b3_s1_v1

So the next file remaining is myname_inc_b3_s2_v1

and the next full version is myname_full_b4_s1_v1

3)  If I start from a fresh backup are my old tib files still usable for a restore with a USB boot device ?

Cotp

1. Not necessarily... the usual 'it depends' applies here.  Any of your full backups should still be ok, as should any complete version chains, full + all incrementals.
    
2. You should not be leaving any orphaned incremental files! 
   You say you moved myname_full_b3_s1_v1 So the next file remaining is myname_inc_b3_s2_v1 - so this inc file is an orphan!
    
3. Yes but see answer 1..

Just an FYI... if you start a new backup in 2020, it is going to use the new .tibx format in the future.  You'll need to keep tabs on the first .tibx file that holds metadeta for all existing backups in it at this time.  Although, that is not an issue with this backup (as it is still using the older .tib format), this is important to know for new backups.  You won't be able to recover anything of use if you don't have this file (and current iteration of it) when it comes time to restore on the newer .tibx backups.

Basically, after an automatic cleanup is run, the first backup in the chain is reduced to a 12Kb metadata file and recovery seems to rely on this being there in order to be successful!  If you're manually copying / moving backup files around with .tibx, this could be a real problem if 1) you don't have it at all and it should be there with your copies/moved files 2) you have an older version of it that does not have information associated with it for newer .tibx files in the backup that you copy later (i.e. you don't also copy the current version of this .tibx file).

Long story short, with 2020 backups and .tibx - probably best to not even mess with manually copying or moving backup files at all!

63227: Acronis True Image: Do not delete .TIB or .TIBX files outside of Acronis True Image

Thanks both for your detailed answers that really help me.

My problem in the first place that my NAS was becoming full because of the tib files.

So I thought of backing up some on a seperate disk to make space on the NAS where my Acronis backups are made.

What would be your recommendation if I want to be safe for going backwards in case of a problem.

I remember when I had the Chrome problem I wasn't able to recover my profile.

So in a worst scenario how many backups do we need ? :/ 

Do you clean regularly your backups ?

My SSD system disk is 500Gb (only have 12Gb left :/)

My Acronis folder is now 2,44Tb (I put around 5Tb on a seperate disk) and have around 2Tb left of space on the NAS

Cotp

Hello again,

Since I am going to go with a fresh backup again, would like to know if my settings are "right"

I do a weekly backup (is that enough or do you use daily backup ?

Does daily backups takes more files or more space or not ?

I am using incremental with creating a full version every 5 incremental versions

Automatic clean up : not sure if I should tick this ?

Exclude: are there some line you recommend I take off this list (reference to my chrome profile problem)

Validate: is that a good idea or does it take ages ?

Performance Operation Priority: is set to low and performance speed to maximum

Compression: Normal

As for what to do when my disk is full maybe could add a process that erases the oldest backup before making a new one...

Thanks for your feedback

Cotp

I'll weigh in on a couple things.

1. You say your 500GB SSD system disk has only 12GB left.This is not good. You should be freeing up space. It may be that there is a lot of stuff you can remove easily. If you can get the TreeSize Free program, it is very easy to see where the space is being used. You may have too many files left in Temp folders. It may be that your System Protection is set to use 100% and too much space is used there. I keep mine set to 15%. Do you have a second online drive? If so, can you move data to that?

2. As to whether a weekly backup is enough, that depend on how often you change things. I do system disk backups weekly, but all my data is backed up daily. The system disk backups are always Full. The daily data backups are incremental where a new full is done about every two weeks.

3. Automatic cleanup: you ask if you should tick this. Yes. When you do, you may wish to limit the number of chains. Let's say you set up with 6 increments and not more than 4 chains and run the backup daily. About once a week a new chain would be started and then the increments will be added each day. After the fifth new chain is written, the oldest chain will be deleted automatically so you are left with 4 chains. And after than, every time a new full backup is done, the oldest chain will be deleted. This gives you about three to four weeks of backups.

4. Validate: With the new .tibx format, it seems that it will always validate all chains every time. So don't validate on the backup task. You could manually run a validation periodically if you have a lot of time that it could run. We're hoping this long validation time issue will be solved soon.

5. Exclude: Should be no need to worry about the list. The Chrome (and other browser) stuff put in by default are just the cache folders which aren't needed in recovery. The rest of your profile would be saved.

The rest of the settings should be OK.

A couple other things to consider:

Are you going to use the backups for recovery only, or are you also going to use it for some kind of archiving?

If you are just using it for emergency recovery then a small number of short chains with backups taken weekly should be sufficient.  In my opinion, this is reasonable for the system drive.  But I would back up personal files (including data in your user profile) much more often - preferably daily.  And if you might want to recover such data that changed many days ago, more, longer backup chains would be in order.  If you judiciously pick which files and folders you back up, the backups will not necessarily be large.

There is no one-size-fits-all backup scheme.  You need to design one that fits your needs.

Cotp - there is no one size fits all backup.  It really boils down to how much backup space you have to allow for the most amount of retention and the best frequency of backup in that case.  

Essentially, you have a 500GB drive that is nearly full.  So, let's assume a new full, with compression is in the ball park of 350GB (just a guess).  And it sounds like you have a 5TB drive for backups?  If this was me, I would do a weekly full and 6 incrementals - daily.  Assuming minimal changes each day, the total backup size shouldn't be a whole lot more than your full, but that could change if you do a major Windows upgrade, or add a bunch of files, defrag etc.  In general though, shouldn't be too much bigger by the end of the week - let's guess 10%, or 35GB, bringing your entire weekly total to 385GB, but let's call it 400GB to make it nice and even.

So, 400GB a week for an entire chain and that's daily backups.  And if you have a 5TB backup drive, you could potentially have several weeks of chains.  Personally, I keep 4 weeks of backups (about 1 month) and that's good enough for me, but does that work for you?  If so, then this should be a pretty good setup... 

Daily Incremental backup scheme with 6 incrementals (1 full + 6 incrementals) = 7 days and roughly 400GB.

Keep 4 backup chains (4 x 400GB = 1.6TB of space).  Then you also need about 400GB for the next full to complete BEFORE cleanup so about 2TB total.  Use automatic cleanup so that after the next full runs, the oldest entire chain is removed to free up space automatically so the disk doesn't fill up and you still have 4 fulls and 3 old weeks of daily backups while the new chain builds up again.  

I would definitely use automated cleanup so you don't run out of space accidentally.  Do you need a daily backup?  Maybe not, but can't hurt if you have the space to hold them.  The more recent your last backup is, the less you have to "re-do" or the less likely you are to lose data if it is important.