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External Drive getting full

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I utilize a 2TB external hard drive with my Acronis True Image 11 Home. I have a large amount of data and photos that are backed up, and my external is getting close to "full"

I do a "Full Backup" and then an "Incremental Back Up" every three days. I have the "Full Backup" and thirty-one (31) "Incremental Backups" on the 2TB external.

The last "Incremental Backup" was 9,762,602 KB.

Since the external has 1.81 TB space available and presently 1.23 TB is used...leaves just 600 GB available.

Is there a better way for me to handle my backup so that I do not "fill" the external, but also have all data available ?

I am a computer novice, so any help will need to be explained in "basic" terminology

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Is it only the data and photos that you are backing up?
I also would not do as much as 31 incrementals. If one of those incrementals gets corrupted then you would lose all the rest dated later than the bad one.
If it is just your data and photos that you back up, I would use something like Karen's Replicator or Microsoft's Sync Toy.
To not fill the external but have all data available ... you need another 2Tb drive.
True Image's strength lies in it whole disk backup and restore capability. It is excellent for this.

In reading further I find that if I change my method and do a new "Full Backup" and then "Differential Backup", if one differential is corrupted, the rest are still available. Is this a "better" system than the way I am doing it now ?

Hello Charles Lamb and DwnNDrty,

DwnNDrty, thank you very much for your help.


Charles Lamb,

Thank you very much for your post. I would like to apologize for the delay but I will certainly help you with this question.

If your objective is to reduce backup size and backup time, then the best strategy would be to create incremental backups. On the other hand, if you want to increase backup reliability, by not having to rely on a chain of incremental backups, then differential backups would be the best solution.

If you would like additional information, please refer to the following article in our Knowledge Base:

- Difference between Incremental and Differential Backup

Please let me know if you have additional questions and I will definitely help you.

Thank you.

If your backup storage drive fails, do you have any of your other photo and files copied onto anything else?

As an added safety precaution, why not copy the photos plus any other static non-changing data onto some DVD's for additional safety. Make duplicate or triplicate copies if the data is important.

Is there any photos or personal data that you could move from you primary drive onto your storage drive? This would remove this moved data from your regular backups.

Differential backups are much larger than incremental so space can become even more of an issue. Look at the size of the backup files. Maybe doing weekly full backups or every other week full backups would not consume any more space and you would be safer.

If you do regular defrag's, only do a defrag just prior to a full backup. A defrag in the middle of a backup set makes the backup file much larger since the sectors have moved.