New user - con't figure out how to do full / incremental backups at specific times.

David, welcome to these public User Forums.

Sorry but the scheduling options for ATI do not allow for the type of schedule you are asking about using here!

You can set a Daily schedule to run every 1 hour but this is as far as you can set with regards to only having this during business hours etc.

You can create an Incremental backup task which creates a defined number of incremental segments before then creating a new Full backup image, but again, there is no method of setting a specific day for when the new Full is made.

You would also need to decide on the type of backup to be created here, i.e. of disks & partitions, or of files & folders?  This in turn will determine how much storage space might be needed in order to store the number of hourly incremental segments are being created, and how many backup version chains (full plus all hourly incremental segments) are to be stored?

Incrementals will only ever be associated with the Full backup for the task creating them, so using multiple tasks won't change that.  Some users may elect to have a weekly task that just creates a Full backup only every Friday, but have a second task that creates an initial full backup then makes hourly incrementals up to a defined number, then starts again (after the weekly task has run) with a new full and chain of incrementals whenever the number of incrementals has been exceeded to trigger this.

If storage space for your backups is not an issue, i.e. you have lots of storage, then you could consider creating an incremental backup task that has 7 incremental segments before making a new full backup which runs every hour each day when the computer is turned on, making a full backup on the first run, then hourly incrementals such that it is ready to make a new full backup the next morning when turned on. 
This would result in creating say 5 backup version chains each with a full & 7 incremental segments if run on Monday to Friday.
The downside to this approach is that if the computer is turned on earlier or kept on later, the schedule will be slipped!

There is one further option that can be used here, which is to create the task but leave it as being not scheduled in the Acronis GUI, then use Windows Task Scheduler to launch the task at your preferred times during the day and days of the week.  This is possible by using either a Windows batch command file or else using a Powershell script.

See KB 47143: Acronis True Image: How to run backups from Command Line

Steve

Thank you for your answer. Although I must say that I am astonished. I've worked in IT since the 70's and what I am looking for is the only kind of backup schedule that I have ever used - or even seen. I used to use Norton Ghost which worked this way but I can't use it any more since it doesn't work on windows 10.

I'll check the links from your reply to see what can be done. If I can't work something out, I'll have to find another backup solution.

Also, I'm not sure if you work for Acronis or if anyone from Acronis reviews these forums, but I would really suggest adding this functionality to the product.

Edit: Just thought I'd add that I have an 8 TB backup drive so space isn't an issue and I also leave my computer on 24 hrs/day.

David, all the MVP's are just users with experience in using ATI and don't work for Acronis (click on the MVP icon for more details).

I would recommend submitting Feedback to Acronis using the tool provided in the GUI Help area with details of the scheduling options you expect / hope to see from them, so that this is registered with them as a feature request!

I too worked in IT since the mid 70's for over 30 years before taking retirement (from IBM), so understand the frustration being expressed about such limitations!

Steve

I've just spent about an hour talking to Acronis support and I can't see any way that I can use true image. I'm going to get a refund and look around for something else.

Good to chat with another old timer :-)

David

You could look at Acronis Cyber Backup 12.5 which, being a business grade application, is more flexible when it comes to specification of backups. You can download the user guide for it here. There are a number of other resources in the documentation area, just click on the + to see the full listing.

Ian

Ian

Thanks for the tip, but I've already checked out Cyber Backup and it also doesn't do what I need.

I've already been refunded and I'm looking at other options.