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TI 2014 - Incremental Backups to Rotating USB Drives

Thread needs solution

I am trying to do an incremental partition backup to two external USB drives that I swap every day or two for off-site storage. I thought things were working fine, but now the backup is failing with two errors:

- failed to locate backup file
- failed to open data stream

The backup it is not locating is numbered 39. The directory on the USB drive now attached contains many backup files, but all are numbered 45 and 46.

The backup settings are:

- all partitions
- incremental backup
- create full version after every 5 incremental versions
- delete version chains older than 8 days

It seems like it is failing because the full backup file cannot be found.

Does the original full backup file need to be in the directory for it to do the incremental?
Do my settings need to be adjusted if I want to rotate drives daily?
Should I just do a full backup instead of incremental?

Any other suggestions?

Thank you for your help!

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It seems like it is failing because the full backup file cannot be found. Yes, that is true

Does the original full backup file need to be in the directory for it to do the incremental? Yes
Do my settings need to be adjusted if I want to rotate drives daily? Different tasks needed for each target disk used.
Should I just do a full backup instead of incremental? Not required but a lot easier.

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http://forum.acronis.com/forum/64634
This link will show you how and what is needed to use multiple disks for storage. Bottom line is that each storage disk needs its own backup task.
The task is matched to the specific destination disk that is attached when the backup task is created. When you switch target disks, you must also switch backup tasks.
Backups will only work when the correct task and the matching target disk is attached.

Understand reference GH25 below. A large number of incremental's is not data safe. Each inc contains its own unique piece of data and that data is not in any other backup--except perhaps a later full backup.
No single incremental can be deleted and all must be present together in one folder and each to be readable for any of the backups to be recoverable except for the full which is usually always recoverable.

If you are going to use full only, or full +incremental's, or full plus differential, then set the number of backups to be whatever can be completed before the next switch.
Each switch of target disks should only be when the backup task has completed its number of backups for that week ( or day or month--whatever your switch period is)
Using the option "delete after 8 days": day 1 of the 8 days does not begin until ALL the backups in that chain has been completed. So if the task scheme is full plus five incremental's(chain length = 6 files per chain) the deletion of the oldest chain will not occur until the 5th incremental (last file in chain) is OLDER THAN 8 DAYS.
Instead of using "delete after x days", a better choice for automatic chain deletion is to use the option "store no more than n' number of recent version chains." So if you switch disk each week, then one weeks backups(full + 5 inc) is a chain and your store quota number is whatever number of chains you wish to keep before rotating deletions begin to occur. If you set your store number to be 4, your are telling the program that your store or retention quota is 4 chains of 6 files per chain and deletion will occur after the 5th full backups.

If you wish to set your switch for daily switches, then full only is best option, but others could be used.
If set to each backup to be a full backups and with daily switches, you could configure the schedule to use the weekly schedule with Monday/Wednesday/Friday to be the backup days for disk 1,
and set the other task schedule to be Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday as the backup days for disk 2.

Specifics really depend upon what settings you want to use and create the appropriate task to achieve that.

http://forum.acronis.com/forum/64634

GH25. Understanding differences between Incremental and Differential backups for data recovery.

GH63. 64640: Hints to help prevent issues with your TIB backup files creation.

GH63. 75086: A discussion on how to configure backup schemes.

A review of my signature item 2A would be helpful of users of 2014.
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General: Examples of automatic cleanup. Each task must carry the backup scheme name "custom" as illustrated by the examples.
Depending upon the type of backup scheme you wish to create, here is an example of each type. These can be set up for Disk image, or Partition, or Files-folders backups. These example show how to set up automatic cleanup so the program will do the deletion after it reaches your set goal of how many chains to retain.

Editing an existing task is not recommended. Rarely does an edited task perform to user expectations. It is usually better to start with a new task using a new non-identical task name and point to a new storage sub-folder so each task has it own storage folder/sub-folder. Old task can be stopped or deleted from the task listings.

GH11. Create Custom Full Backup Scheme w/auto cleanup....Store/Keep 4 versions (chains). Use whatever number best fits the individual needs..

GH12. Create Custom Incremental Backup Scheme w/auto cleanup. ...Keep Full plus 6 Inc per chain. Store/Keep 4 chains. Use whatever number best fits your needs.

GH13. Create Custom Differential Backup Scheme w/auto cleanup. ...Keep Full plus 2 Diff per chain. Store/Keep 2 chains. Use whatever number best fits your needs.