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Cleaning up backed up files

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I have 7 full backups and 34 inc. backups.  I have clicked the option to clean up files and it says they will be

cleaned up after 7 full backups.  Can someone please advise me on cleaning up these.  Will it automatically

clean up the files or do I hve to do it manually.

 

Thanks

 

Tom

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Tom, please post a screen shot of the actual backup settings, including what you have configured for the automatic cleanup rules, then we will be better able to answer your question.

Automatic cleanup does work well for me but there are common misunderstanding about the way it works that often trip up users.

Here are shots you asked for.  If you need others I did not send let me know and I will send them also.

Tom

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Tom, thanks for the screen shots which help with understanding your backup scheme.

You are doing a Daily backup using a scheme which creates a new Full backup after 5 Incremental backups, and your cleanup settings say to Delete version chains older than 7 days.

This means that unless you have changed these settings to cause a reset of counters, then your oldest backup version chain should be deleted 14 days after the Full backup for that oldest chain was created.

Any deletions are only done when a new Full backup for a new version chain has been created at which time the previous version chain is 1 day old, hence 7+7 days before it is deleted.

Personally this cleanup method is harder to understand than using the alternative one which says to 'Store no more than X recent version chains', where you know exactly what you are getting and where backups are deleted as soon as you get to X+1 version chains.

Given that you say that you ' have 7 full backups and 34 inc. backups' then I suspect that you either did not have automatic cleanup enabled previously or have made changes to these settings causing the count to be reset.

It is possible for you to manually delete your oldest / unwanted complete version chains (those sharing the same _bx_ identifier for the full and all incremental files) by using Windows Explorer, but if you do this, then you also need to run a Validation for the backup task so that the Acronis Database which tracks all the files can be reconciled to match the remaining files and remove any references to those that have been deleted.  Validation will popup an error for each deleted file and you should take the Ignore option for these.