Add all existing backups
My daily backup job was not cleaning out old backups and ran out of space for new backups (write error on backup). I started to follow this kb article: https://kb.acronis.com/content/49502 to address the problem. The first steps is to remove the backup settings, then to free-up space, then to add back the existing backups.
There are 85 existing backups to add back. As far as I can tell, there is no way to add back all of them at once. Has anyone found a way to do that?
The process of adding back each of the 85 backups looks like this:
- Click the down arrow, and click "Add existing backup".
- Navigate to the backup folder (the program doesn't take you to the folder that is related to the backup, nor does it remember where you navigated). For me, this is 2 double-clicks each time.
- Now I see a squished list of 85 backups sorted by name. I have to expand the window to see the full name, find the next backup job, select it, and click add.
- Repeat 85 times (hopefully without choosing the same one twice or skipping one).
The attached picture shows the (frustrating) Add Existing Backup dialog. This will likely take me an hour, when it should really take 30s. Hoping desparately that somebody knows a better way to add these existing backups all at once.
Thanks for suggestions!
Ben
Ben, if all the 'Entire PC (....)' backup files were created by the same backup task, then you will only see the one backup task in the list of tasks regardless of how many of these 85 files you try to add back. You cannot add back individual files from backup version chains unless these were created by totally different tasks, and then only one task per set of files.
Thanks very much for that observation! That does the trick. And I now see that doing a Shift-click changes the little file icon showing it is selected (very subtle).
Greatly appreciate the response. Thanks again.
Ben
Hey Steve -
Thanks for that info. These backups were indeed all created by the same backup task. So it sounds like I would only need to add back any one of them and the program would figure it all out?
Thanks very much for the reply. I couldn't find that in the user guide.
Ben
Ben, glad to have been able to help. Typically, I would add in the latest dated backup file and let Acronis figure the rest out itself, but you will still need to reconfigure the backup task that is added to the list, including setting any schedule for when it runs, plus I would encourage you to configure the automatic cleanup rules, so that Acronis can maintain the backups for you and save you the task of managing these manually.
The key to understanding automatic cleanup is that this works on completed version chains, where a completed version chain = 1 x Full backup, plus all associated Incremental or Differential backups created before the next Full backup is created.
Automatic cleanup does not delete any completed version chains until after the next Full backup for a new chain has been created successfully, so your backup drive needs to have space to hold all the backups you configure to keep.
Example: 'Store no more than X recent version chains' will require space to hold X+1 backup chains before the oldest chain is removed.
Thank you, Steve, for that explanation of the X+1 backup chains. That makes sense, and it explains why auto-cleanup wasn't working correctly (which was the cause of my problem).
I'll make some adjustments with this info.
Very helpful, Steve.
Ben