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Unaccounted for disc file space in Acronis backup procedure

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I have noticed for some time that there is a problem (since my external 2TB backup disc informed me that I was out of disc space). I only have 6 files on this drive. Five of them are static, with no ongoing backup activity. The other file is "Acronis Backup" which has an image file backup done daily. My backup scheme is:

  • Incremental
  • 6 incr. versions
  • delete version chains > 7 days
  • store no more than 2 recent version chains
  • keep b/u size under 1 GB

The issue is that for some reason, Acronis uses considerably more space on the disc beyond the itemized backup files. Since I formatted my drive and started backups over again last August, I began checking file storage monthly. By mid-September, the difference between the identified file sizes and the total "used space" was 40.9GB. It has increased monthly and as of Dec.1 that difference is now 394.9GB! I have no idea what is filling this 394.9GB created by Acronis or why it would not be appropriately labelled. Can anybody offer a suggestion about what is going on here?

Bob

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Bob, welcome to these public User Forums.

The other file is "Acronis Backup" which has an image file backup done daily. My backup scheme is:

  • Incremental
  • 6 incr. versions
  • delete version chains > 7 days
  • store no more than 2 recent version chains
  • keep b/u size under 1 GB

The above does not look correct to me as you either have 'delete version chains older than 7 days' or else have 'store no more than 2 recent version chains' - these are exclusive so if you have one you cannot have the other!

Next, what type of backups are you creating and what version of Acronis are you using?

If you are using ATI 2020 and making Disks & Partitions backups using .tibx files, then incremental backups are consolidated within the initial Full backup .tibx file, but if you are creating Files & Folders backups, incrementals are stored in separate .tib files.

Seeing a listing of the actual Acronis files you have on your storage drive would help clarify what is being used, along with screen shots of the actual Backup Scheme settings.

Steve Smith,

Sorry, first time on Forum... don't know my way around! I was unaware of your posting on 12/08/21 (I had assumed that I would be notified somehow when a response to my question was posted).

Below, I have posted the Acronis backup files which you asked me to provide. I hope this helps.

BTW... as of today (Jan.7/22) the unaccounted for space used on my 2.7TB external drive amounts to 1,238GG! At this rate, I will soon run out of space on this drive and again need to format it. Why is this happening?

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Private message received from Bob. Reply sent as below:

Bob, you should have received an email notification for any responses to your forum topic: Unaccounted for disc file space in Acronis backup procedure - but this may have gone into your spam / junk mail folder.

Communicating via private messages is not recommended as is very very slow and denies you help from any of the other MVP's and users in the forums.

I suspect that anything you tried to upload to the forum was too big to be allowed.  There is a maximum file size of only 3MB for file attachments etc and the forum seems to just ignore anything larger that that!

Please try posting again in the above forum topic, and in particular, first confirm what version of Acronis True Image (ATI) that you are using?  Your signature says ATI 2017 but you have posted in the ATI 2020 forum?

Note: you do not need to upload any of your backup files, I was only asking for a directory listing of the files so that I could see how they are named, what extension is used, size etc.

Regards, Steve