What's Going on with my Filenames?
I started using ATI 2020 around September 26 doing incremental backups of a Win10 machine. I had previously been using ATI 2014. The first backup created a file called Susan.tibx. Each day the file date and size changed. after a few days a new file was created called Susan-0001.tibx. The very next day a third file was created that is substantially larger than either of the first two, and the filename is completely different scheme that the first two. It's more like what ATI 2014 gave me.
Two screenshots attached. One showing the backup scheme I'm using, and the other showing the filenames created, with the three in the red box being from 2020 and the others from 2014.
What's going on here? Why did the naming format suddenly change?
Thanks.
Fred, the new .tibx naming format is causing some confusion among users who are more familiar with the old naming format.
In principle, the file name is taken from the task that created it, i.e. if your task is called 'Susan' then your files Susan.tibx are expected for the first version chain of incremental files - each new increment is added to this same container file. When a new full backup is created, then the file name becomes Susan-0001.tibx and the same process adds new increments to that file.
For the above scenario, the file Susan.tibx will continue to be present but will change in size to be only 12kb but holds all the metadata for the other files in this version chain. Double clicking your mouse on any of these files should show you exactly the same content.
How you have ended up with Susan_full_b2_s1_v1.tibx depends on what you have been doing here? If you have altered the underlying .tib.tis script file as per the tutorial topic on changing from .tibx to .tib, then this could be one reason, except that this process only works for new backups, not existing ones!
The other explanation would be that you created a backup task called Susan_full_b2_s1_v1 which would give this file name for a .tibx file.
Did you do an "Add existing backup" pointing to a "Susan_full_b2_s1_v1.tib " file? That function sometimes creates a task name with the " full_b2_s1_v1 " stuff included. But I'm surprised it created a .tibx file in that case. I'll have to try that.
As to the very large size of the last .tibx... is it possible that you are including the first two .tibx files into your backup? Your 2014 task would include a default exclusion for *.tib, but not for *.tibx.
Going from ATI 2014 to ATI 2020 should involve creating new backup tasks and not trying to continue with prior tasks.
Thanks everyone for the explanations. I will try to address each question or comment here:
@Enchantech- thanks for the 'activity tab' tip. That's helpful. As for the three backup files, Susan.tibx and Susan-0001.tibx have what appears to be the same thirteen files withing the tibx. The 'same' at least as far as date and time go. But the overall size of each is different, so they can't be exactly the same.
@Steve- You're saying that Susan.tibx will shortly show as a 12kb sized-file. Based on my backup scheme of keeping two backups before starting over again, is that about the time frame I should expect to see the file size change? As for "how I ended up" with the different filename format, I made no changes to the retention scheme nor to what was be be backed up. I changed nothing between the backups of Oct 3 and Oct 4. While I have be reading and re-reading your post about switching from .tibx to .tib, I haven't done anything. Yet. As discussed in another thread, I do like the old filename format. And when I first created the backup job "Susan" it's possible I pointed it to the older .tib backups thinking it might continue from there. But even if I definitely did that, why would the first two chains be Susan.tibx and Susan-0001.tibx before switching over to the older naming format?
@Patrick O'Keefe- I did not do an "add existing backup." Had I known that would give me the file naming convention I prefer, I would have. And I will test that tomorrow after seeing what file name tonight's backup creates.
@BrunoC- What would cause the current backup to include the two previous chains? I did nothing intentionally. I did create a new backup job when I installed 2020, but it's -possible- that I pointed it to the (then) most recent 2014 file in hopes it would continue from there. At this point I can't remember if I did that or not.