Backup will not run
I have the following backup scheme
Full backup once a week
Store no more than 2 versions
Notify me if less than 300gb is free
Overnight I received 2 emails saying Target drive is running out of space then a third which said the backup had failed as it was terminated by timeout. It looks as if it was waiting for some kind of response.
My hard drive is 259gb and I am backing up on to a USB 3 external WD Elements 1tb drive. At present there are 2 backup files there which are 204gb and 234gb. ATI 2015 shows 502gb free out of 920gb on the WD drive.
I cannot understand why the backup has failed when there seems to be loads of room. I still have the email with all the messages if that would be at all helpful
Yes I did edit it a week ago . I originally had it to store 3 versions but I received the same message as yesterday. I then edited it to store only 2 versions because I thought that might be why it failed. Could that be the problem?
Remember that the setting is to retain chains, not versions. A chain is a full with the corresponding incrementals or differentials. A version is any new backup file created.
Yes I was aware of that but this backup is for full versions only. I run it once a week just as a reserve in case my main backup proved to be faulty.
With the original store 3 versions (full only), the program is really needing space for 4 fulls because it will not delete the oldest until after the replacement has been completed so 4 x 234=936GB needed or marginal on the 920. Probably a no go on final backup resulting in disk full error.
With the store 2 version settings plus the temp replacement, the less space needed is 3 x 234=702 so no disk size issue when "store 2 versions" is set.
However, the 300 space limit restriction does come into play which is probably the cause of the most recent error.
Remove the limit and the store 2 should work. A new task set to "store 2 versions" most definitelyi will work (without the disk size limit), but
whether the edited version will work, only time will tell.
If it continues to fail, one option you could try with 2015 would be to manually delete the oldest full and afterwards, validate the most recent full.
You should get a warning notice of missing file but click ignore and hopefully the full would reset itself.
If the above does not work, you will need to recreate a new task with the correct store 2 versions and manually delete each old full to obtain the needed space.