Editing Full Backup to Differential Type
I created a full backup scheme for disks & partitions and have it set to run a full backup every last day of the month. I then completed my first backup manually using this scheme. If I were to edit the backup profile from a full backup to a differential type, will I need to start over with a new full backup after selecting a differential scheme?
I'm not sure I can do a differential backup scheme now. I've haven't changed it yet to a differential type. I'm worried that I don't have enough space for this to work. Here's my situation:
- C: drive 250GB disk containing the OS and some programs
- E: drive 500GB disk containing most of my programs and media files docs, pics, vids, etc...
- F: drive 1TB disk solely used for Acronis backups
- Acronis Cloud Backup 1TB used for backup replication
From what I understand, If I decide to change the type from a full backup scheme to a differential scheme, the differential scheme will require enough space for 2 full backups and whatever differentials I create, in which would be 4 diffs. I wanted to try to have 4 diffs for each month, 1 diff created each week for a month along with a full backup renewed every month. So given the amount of space required for this to happen, I would expect it to be 2 TB for the F: drive and 2 TB for the Acronis Cloud Backup. Sound about right?
The size of backup storage required will depend on your Automatic Cleanup rules, but at a minimum even if using 'Store no more than 1 recent version chain', you would still need space to store at least 2 x Full backup files for each backup task.
For your backup drive size, I would strongly recommend investing in a larger drive or drives - the cost of drives has been very low for some time now.
For the Acronis cloud storage, then perhaps keep that to the data that is most important for you, whether that be the smaller OS drive or else your larger programs and data drive. The key with Cloud backups is that a full backup is only uploaded once for a backup task, after which a hybrid incremental type scheme is used to just capture & upload changed data.
I would recommend considering how to split your backup of the E: drive into multiple tasks based on the type of data and frequency of change etc. Example: have one task that backs up just your installed programs & associated data on that drive, which I would expect to be changing at a lower frequency. Create separate backups for your other user data (docs, pics, vids etc) according to their size and change activity.
To expand a bit on Steve's last paragraph...
Rather than do a single Entire PC backup (which it sounds like you are doing), create a backup for each drive at a minimum. Assuming you are using automatic cleanup to keep just one version chain, the requirement of having space for two chains would only be for one drive at a time. Also, if you are backing up against potential drive failure you are only concerned with restoring to one drive.
Secondly, consider what you can eliminate from the backups. On the C: system drive you should be eliminating swapfile.sys, pagefile.sys, etc. A lot of the exclusions are defaulted by True Image.
For your E: drive, do you need to do a full disk backup? Can it be Files and Folders? You mention having Programs on the E: drive. File and Folders backups are quicker to restore from. Also, they will be .tib and not .tibx files.
And to reiterate what Steve said... look at the idea of separating out backups based on data update frequency.
From my own experience... I have a backup task that does a Disk / Partitions backup only for my C: drive. I run that one twice a month to my NAS and weekly to my G: drive. I run a File and Folders backup of my data on a daily schedule. That includes all important data from my D: drive as well as the AppData folder from the C: drive. Finally, my G: drive has things like photos, music, etc... those things which I do not update often. So I back those up twice a month (or manually if I do a big update I am concerned about).
Depending on what you have, the 1TB may be enough... at least for the time being.
Steve Smith wrote:The size of backup storage required will depend on your Automatic Cleanup rules, but at a minimum even if using 'Store no more than 1 recent version chain', you would still need space to store at least 2 x Full backup files for each backup task.
For your backup drive size, I would strongly recommend investing in a larger drive or drives - the cost of drives has been very low for some time now.
For the Acronis cloud storage, then perhaps keep that to the data that is most important for you, whether that be the smaller OS drive or else your larger programs and data drive. The key with Cloud backups is that a full backup is only uploaded once for a backup task, after which a hybrid incremental type scheme is used to just capture & upload changed data.
I would recommend considering how to split your backup of the E: drive into multiple tasks based on the type of data and frequency of change etc. Example: have one task that backs up just your installed programs & associated data on that drive, which I would expect to be changing at a lower frequency. Create separate backups for your other user data (docs, pics, vids etc) according to their size and change activity.
I was trying to keep it as simple as possible with just a full disks & partitions backup of my C: and E: partitions in which I am utilizing a whole disk space for C: and a whole disk space for E:, but I can see based on your suggestion that I am going to need to create a separate partition for my programs installed on E: disk. That way I can better separate my programs from my media files and folders so when it comes time to perform the backup I am only doing a full backup of the partitions that I hold most dear, being my OS and programs. Then I could invest in a much larger external USB drive to backup my media files and folders without worrying about them consuming so much space on the cloud replica and my F: disk.
BrunoC wrote:To expand a bit on Steve's last paragraph...
Rather than do a single Entire PC backup (which it sounds like you are doing), create a backup for each drive at a minimum. Assuming you are using automatic cleanup to keep just one version chain, the requirement of having space for two chains would only be for one drive at a time. Also, if you are backing up against potential drive failure you are only concerned with restoring to one drive.
Secondly, consider what you can eliminate from the backups. On the C: system drive you should be eliminating swapfile.sys, pagefile.sys, etc. A lot of the exclusions are defaulted by True Image.
For your E: drive, do you need to do a full disk backup? Can it be Files and Folders? You mention having Programs on the E: drive. File and Folders backups are quicker to restore from. Also, they will be .tib and not .tibx files.
And to reiterate what Steve said... look at the idea of separating out backups based on data update frequency.
From my own experience... I have a backup task that does a Disk / Partitions backup only for my C: drive. I run that one twice a month to my NAS and weekly to my G: drive. I run a File and Folders backup of my data on a daily schedule. That includes all important data from my D: drive as well as the AppData folder from the C: drive. Finally, my G: drive has things like photos, music, etc... those things which I do not update often. So I back those up twice a month (or manually if I do a big update I am concerned about).
Depending on what you have, the 1TB may be enough... at least for the time being.
I'm not doing an Entire PC backup, I am only doing a full backup using Disks & Partitions. I am also using the default exclusions on the 2 full disk and partition profiles that I have created. Space at the moment is not a problem with this scheme for both profiles. I am only concerned with later down the road as my disks fill with more data. I get what you are suggesting though. I am going to separate my media files out from the full backups to the cloud and my F: disk and purchase a much larger External USB disk to back them up to. This way I can eliminate the massive overhead of full disk & partition backups to the cloud and my F: disk by offloading them to the USB disk instead. The only downfall to that is that I will only have 1 backup of my media, but sometime in the near future, I am planning on investing in a NAS setup. Currently, I have 2 NAS drives, but they are old as the hills WD drives and only 1 TB each and already have loads of data on them. I'm thinking Synology.