Help Me Understand Incrementals w/Acronis
Yesterday I installed Acronis TI 2015 as a trial. In testing the software, I created a job that backs up the entire PC, leaving the defaults for the files to be backed up, which is pretty much everything.
Backup Scheme = Incremental; Backup Method = Incremental; with the option to create a full version backup after every 5 incremental versions.
I ran this job for the first time yesterday evening, and the full backup appears to have worked well. I expected to see the full backup created (as it correctly did). I have the schedule set up to run at 8:00 a.m. daily, so this morning the job kicked off again and this time the back up appears to have created another full backup, with the file resulting from the 8:00 a.m. job. Both backups are the same size (305gb) with the second one being a few hundred megs larger).
I'm sure the software is performing correctly, but it was my understanding - incorrectly apparently - that under the Incremental scheme and method I would get:
Day 1 = Full backup
Day 2 = Incremental backup (i.e. only the files that changed since the full backup, which would result in a considerably smaller backup file, especially since, for this test, I changed very little on the computer)
Day 3 - 6 = Incremental backup, again, only files that changed
Day 7 = Full backup
Day 8 = Incremental backup, and so on.
Can anyone help me understand why the incremental backup is larger than my original full backup? I'm sure this is user error, but I cannot figure it out.
Thank you.
Enchantech, I appreciate my post's acknowledgement. No, I do not have BitLocker nor any other overall disk encryption software installed or running. I've been able to recreate the issue once more today. Started with a full backup, then ran job again (Backup Scheme = Incremental; Backup Method = Incremental; with the option to create a full version backup after every 5 incremental versions) and same thing: Acronis just makes another full backup. Obviously I could just devise a way to live with full backups only (like once a week), but it doesn't bode well for this trial or subsequent purchase. Again, I can't help thinking its user error on my part, not setting something correctly, but I've stared at the options panel for a while now and its not obvious. I am no stranger to backup utilities, including those offered by Symantec, Genie, Syncback, as well as a host of the backup freeware. I've never had them fail the simple concept of incremental backups, but perhaps Acronis does things a bit differently, not sure.
Not going to lose sleep over it. I WANT to like Acronis, but it needs to work to fit my requirements before I'll cough up the $.
Thanks.
Jim first off, incremental s are added to the initial backup. What you should see is (normally) and additional file added to the end of the full backup. After reading your first post, since you manually ran a full backup the schedule is going to ignore that one. As what on the second day, the schedule kicked in and generated a full backup per your instructions. Tomorrow you should see an incremental file added to the second full backup.
Storageman, I appreciate your response, and I figured it was user error in some way, in this case my misinterpretation of how the order of operations occurred. Thanks for enlightening me. I will monitor the incrementals over the next week or so and return if they still are not following the cadence as I understand it now.
Thanks again!
This can help you understand how to configure backup schemes.
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/75086
If you wish to post a picture of your backup scheme, this can help to explain what to expect.
Editing a backup task rarely produces the expected results.
A backup scheme whick works best is one where "custom" is the type selected.
