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Duplicate backups on same disk

Thread solved

Hi:

Acronis True Image 2021

Windows 10 Pro (64-bit) (up-to-date)

Backup medium: external 5TB drive

Incremental, new full backup after 5 incrementals

Weekly backup

When I backup this week, it took around 12 hours. Normally it takes 5-6 hours.

When I checked the tab for cleanup versions, it showed what I expected, the previous full backup and five incrementals, and this week’s new full backup. However, it also showed a relatively small incremental backup as of the same date. I have not seen this before.

Refer file “Cleanup backup versions issue..”.

When I inspected the external drive it showed two completely identical backups including this week’s full and incremental. I have never seen this before.

Refer file “Double files issue..”.

Can anyone shed some light on this odd behaviour?

Cheers

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There are two backup files, although it is all one backup task.

The first .tibx file contains the original full and the series of incremental backups. the -0001.tibx file is where the second full goes. When the second file is created, the first file is linked to it. So when you see the contents, it seems to be showing you the entire backup chain for each file. This is expected.

I have no explanation for why there is an extra incremental backup on June 7th in the afternoon. No enough information here to see. Depends on how things were scheduled and the state of the PC.

Thanks BrunoC.

When you say "the second file", are you talking about the June 7 full + 1 incremental files as opposed to the previous full and its incrementals?

If so, why is the second linked to the first when it's a completely new backup?

And why would it take double the time to do the new backup when there have been no major changes to force such a dramatic time difference?

Cheers

 

Tork, please check out Steve Smith's response on this thread as it contains links to understand the quirks of .tibx files:
https://forum.acronis.com/forum/acronis-true-image-2020-forum/incremental-backups-not-being-made-only-one-file-keeps-getting-overwritten.

The "second file" is MANAGEMENTSALAD-RED-WHITE-0001.tibx. In effect, yes, this file contains the June 7th full and the increment. But, the linking of the chain of backups is a function of the .tibx format so you can't think of one chain (full and increments) as completely independent of another.

Do you have validation turned on in your backup? If so, that could explain why the long time. Validations can end up validating all chains, not just the latest. Or, you could be suffering the same issue as reported here:
https://forum.acronis.com/forum/acronis-true-image-2021-forum/2nd-full-backup-speed-problem-still-unresolved

 

Thanks Bruno.

I don't schedule backups. Instead, I manually start them each week at the best time of day. Also, I have validation set, however I've always done this over the versions of TI that I've used.

My USB drive is 5TB which according to the posts you recommended may be one cause for the long times. Incrementals may also cause lengthy times. The full backup is 600GB which may also be a component of the delay. The combination of these may justify the increase in time.

I may be best to simply do a single backup each week, with validation.

Given that I have an incremental scheme, can I change this to single scheme and after it backs up then delete the previous incremental (full) backup?

Cheers

If you're going to change from incremental to single, create a new backup task to do so.

Also, do not delete previous backups using the Windows Explorer. Always use the option within ATI to clean up older versions. Otherwise, you can mess up the linkage between the files.