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Backup size and naming conventions?

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I'm trying True Image 2013, on my Windows 8 computer. I have a couple of questions because something isn't making sense to me.

Question 1: Backup file size.

I made a FULL backup, sector by sector. It took several hours and was 230GB in size. This was expected. Right after the backup was complete, I created a single, small, text file that was 4K.

Then, I did a differential backup, which should have created a backup of all that had changed since the FULL backup. That differential backup was 96GBytes. Why so large?

Please don't suggest I do an incremental backup. The point of this question is to understand specifically the differential backup. Why did adding a single 4K file, give me a 96G backup?

Question 2: File naming

My FULL backup was placed in folder: E:\My Backups\Lenovo\
The filename was Lenovo_full_b1_s1_v1.tib

My differential was placed in the same folder and it's name was the same with the exception of the -2 and the end. My question is why does the differential backup say "full" in the name? Seems it should say"diff" or something.

I'm trying to figure out how I know specifically what type of files I have, if I go back later and do a restore. If every backup (full or differential) has full in it, that seems confusing.

Can someone explain the file naming conventions or point me to a link that can?

Question 3: How did acronis know about other backups

I have an old system, in another room, that had a previous backup using Acronis. That was This computer has never had acronis on it and I'm using a completed new backup drive. None of the backup drives are shared on the network. And I have never done any cloud backups. When I completed by FULL backup, my new backup drive, it had folder names that I used on my other backup from a couple of years ago.

How did the new acronis know about those old backups. Since I never have used online or cloud backps (don't like that type of storage), it looks like acronis might have been capturing something and storing it on the internet, when I never authorized it.

Can someone explain how the new backup drive wound up with that other computer backup information? In fact, this drive has never been attached to that other drive. I could imagine when I ran acronis on this computer that it might have scanned the network for backups but none of my drives are shared across the wireless network. Odd!

Thanks,

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Michael Davis wrote:
I'm trying True Image 2013, on my Windows 8 computer. I have a couple of questions because something isn't making sense to me.

Question 1: Backup file size.

I made a FULL backup, sector by sector. It took several hours and was 230GB in size.

You don't need to do a sector by sector backup. Leave this option turned off. You just add unnecessary data to your backup: sectors used by your system but containing no useful data for your OS.

This was expected. Right after the backup was complete, I created a single, small, text file that was 4K.

Then, I did a differential backup, which should have created a backup of all that had changed since the FULL backup. That differential backup was 96GBytes. Why so large?

Please don't suggest I do an incremental backup. The point of this question is to understand specifically the differential backup. Why did adding a single 4K file, give me a 96G backup?

If you trust that ATI is only backing up sectors that have changed, the OS has probably modified a bunch of sectors in the meantime: could be system protection, indexes, hibernation file, paging file. Note that for some system files, ATI is creating a placeholder file with the size of the original file but random data in it, since this data doesn't matter when you reboot the computer.

That said, given the rest of your posting, I think something didn't work out right for your backup.

Question 2: File naming

My FULL backup was placed in folder: E:\My Backups\Lenovo\
The filename was Lenovo_full_b1_s1_v1.tib

My differential was placed in the same folder and it's name was the same with the exception of the -2 and the end. My question is why does the differential backup say "full" in the name? Seems it should say"diff" or something.

Something went wrong with your backup. Delete your task and your backup files. Create a differential backup, do not check sector by sector. Make sure you switch to disk mode, select the entire system disk when you select what to backup. Run your backup. Your first backup file will be a full backup.

I'm trying to figure out how I know specifically what type of files I have, if I go back later and do a restore. If every backup (full or differential) has full in it, that seems confusing.

Can someone explain the file naming conventions or point me to a link that can?

I think you understood the file naming convention right. But either you didn't set your task properly (you may have first created a full backup task, and then a differential backup task), or something else went wrong during execution.

Question 3: How did acronis know about other backups

I have an old system, in another room, that had a previous backup using Acronis. That was This computer has never had acronis on it and I'm using a completed new backup drive. None of the backup drives are shared on the network. And I have never done any cloud backups. When I completed by FULL backup, my new backup drive, it had folder names that I used on my other backup from a couple of years ago.

How did the new acronis know about those old backups. Since I never have used online or cloud backps (don't like that type of storage), it looks like acronis might have been capturing something and storing it on the internet, when I never authorized it.

Can someone explain how the new backup drive wound up with that other computer backup information? In fact, this drive has never been attached to that other drive. I could imagine when I ran acronis on this computer that it might have scanned the network for backups but none of my drives are shared across the wireless network. Odd!

Thanks,

I don't fully understand what happened. To my knowledge, no data about your backup is going out of the network, and I think ATI doesn't scan the networks, but only the destinations of backups (which might be on the network).

You aren't reading this correct. I did NOT do a "sector by sector" on the differential backup. I only did that on the FULL backup. The differential didn't have the sector by sector checked.

I repeated the differential and got exactly the same size backup, 96.45GBytes.

I'm not following you.

I think you understood the file naming convention right. But either you didn't set your task properly (you may have first created a full backup task, and then a differential backup task), or something else went wrong during execution.

Let's start from scratch. I want a FULL backup. And then DIFFERENTIAL backups. These differential backups will be essentially restore points. To recover I will just restore the FULL backup and whichever of the DIFFERENTIAL, to get to a point I want to be at. I realize that each differential will be all changes since the last FULL backup. I want that. But I need to make sure it's working, which is why I did that test.

Shouldn't this work:

1) Make a FULL backup initially ( I still want sector by sector on this)
2) Make a DIFFERENTIAL backup, at some point (perhaps after a week of work)
3) Make another DIFFERENTIAL backup, at some other point (perhaps 2 weeks later)
4) Make another DIFFERENTIAL backup, at some other point (perhaps 3 weeks later)

Then, if I have a crash and want to get back to where I was at in 3, I would just restore the FULL backup and the 2nd DIFFERNTIAL

Shouldn't that work? But in my test, only one file was added and my differential (not sector by sector) was 96.45GB and it was repeatable.

[b]Oh wait![/b] Maybe I'm not understanding something. You said "you may have created a full then a differential" like that's the wrong way. I thought that was the right way. It seems logical. But based on what you might be saying, when I did my differential and the filename had full in it, that might be the first full, with differentials to follow. hmmm. Maybe I'm just misunderstanding the terminology.

Does Full backup mean you intend to do only and all FULL backups.
Does Differential backup mean the first one will be FULL and the remainder will be DIFFERENTIAL
Does Incremental backup mean the first will be FULL and the remainder will be INCREMENTAL

If that is the case, to do differential, should all my tasks be differential? Are they grouped by the backup name I give? For instance Lenovo is my Lenovo computer. Just give everything that name and always select diferential (never FULL, even for the first one)?

If all this is correct, My FULL one is FULL and my DIFFERENTIAL ones are FULL (and smaller because I didn't have sector by sector).

Verify this, if you can follow it.

Also, NOW, to run a test to make sure it work. Would this work, to do what I was attempting.

Premise: I want to do differential backups with the first one being a FULL backup and the remainder differential

1) Click Disk and Partition Backup
2) Name the backup Lenovo
3) Spcify DIFFERENTIAL
4) Perfom the backup (the first one would be FULL, i.e. the 96.45GB)
5) Add the one text file
6) Repeat from 1 (and see a differential backup, which is small)

You also said "swich to disk mode". What is that?

If this is correct, what is the difference between the FULL backup and the FULL backup created in the first DIFFERENTIAL backup? There must be a reason that one of the types is FULL.

With ATI, you set a backup task. A backup task is either full, increment OR differential. When the task is full, all backups created are full backups. When the task is differential, the first backup is a full, the following ones are differential.

You cannot create a full backup, then create another backup that is differential. You second backup will be in fact the first FULL of your differential task and will have nothing to do with your first full from your full backup task.

The 96.45GB is the size of the first backup of your differential size, and this is a FULL backup. It is smaller than you other full because that full includes empty sectors.

Again, create only one backup task. Set it as a differential backup task. Do not select sector by sector. Run your backup task. You get a full. Run it again, you get your first differential backup.

When you select what to backup, you will see a blue link at the top right that says "switch to disk mode", click on that link to have a view of the disk volumes.

Ok, I think I understand the backup types now. But the "disk mode" is still confusing.

You said,
"switch to disk mode" and I can have a view of the disk volumes.

I have been naming my backup something like "Lenovo" for my computer name. When I set my task and clicked the "switch to disk mode", the C drive was checked and "ST1000DM003-9YN162" was inserted in the Backup Name. Should I not be giving them my own name? What was inserted there is very cryptic. Is clicking "Switch to disc mode" a required step? What exactly does it do? It didn't do anything except fill in the Backup name. I'm not sure what clicking that does or when or if it's required.

Also, what is the proper method to do a differential to product the 2nd backup file? For instance, now that I have this first full backup, using differential, if I add another file an want to test it, how do I initiate the following differential? I have tried running another differential using the same backup name but it just creates another full backup, for the 2nd file. What is the proper way to do a follow on differential backup, to capture differences, since that first full backup.

Can it be done manually?
Can it be done only by clicking the "turn on" schedule?

Switching to disk mode ensures that all partitions (including the hidden ones) are included in the backup. I assume you have a Lenovo laptop and you have only one disk. With Windows 8 systems and Lenovo systems, you should have several hidden partitions.

After you have selected the disk, choose your destination. This will let you type the name you want for your backup files. After that, you can still change the task name, but I would leave it very close to the backup file names.

If you don't browse for the destination of the backup, you will end up with the files named by default, in a subfolder of the My Backups default folder.

If you are making an image of the complete disk, it is best or less confusing to switch to disk mode. Instead of seeing all the partitions available over however many disks a system might have (which some users find confusing), you will see just each disk itself listed using the disk manufacturers model as reported directly by the drive and listed in registry.

If you require the ability to not only image complete disks but individual partitions as well you stick or switch to partition mode.

You can amend the backup/task name to whatever you want.

***edited typing error***

I have the Lenovo All in One computer. It has only one disc. I guess I can just click that link but it's not obvious that it needs to be done.

Anyway, I made a differential backup and it created the first full backup. I then added one file and tried to do another differential but it made another full backup. How does one make the 2nd differential, on a backup. Can it be done manually or only by scheduling? I'm testing that the 2nd differential only does the delta but it's still doing the full. Obviously I'm not doing this right. Boy this sw is not very intuitive.

Update: Oh! I think I see what's going on.

I just created a file and setup a schedule to do the backup again a few minutes later and it did the backup and validation.

When I click Disk and Partitions Backup, it creates a task (with the purple bar at the left). That task takes care of all backups of one computer or disk or whatever (i.e. the full and the differentials). I thought I had to click "Disk and Partitions Backup" to create the other differentials. Wrong! So "that" task (already created) runs again to create the other differentials. Is there a way to do this manually vs. by scheduling a backup?

What I was trying to do was create another task for the follow on differentials, instead of just relying on the first one created.

I think this is starting to sink in, although it's not very intuitive.

Hopefully this will be my last question for a while

Will doing a full backup and these differentials allow me to recover a completely crashed system, exactly as it was to one of the differential points? The reason I ask is because I have seen some backup software in the past that couldn't deal with hidden files, system files, open files, etc. And some files had to be in specific locations. Previously using ATI, I did "clone" and tested it and it worked perfectly to give me an exact copy. I'm a little concerned that backing up like this will leave some files not restored correctly after a crash.

A complete disk image will include all hidden files and placeholders for the hibernation and pagefiles, but doesn't actually include the contents of those two files as Windows recreates the content whilst running.

You will be able to select the differential you want to restore which will automatically restore the full and that particular differential.

Note, make sure you remake tasks and prevent True Image from running a shceduled task on a restore as obviously it will restore the database as it existed at that moment of imaging, which is not necessarily the same state as the TI database at the moment of restore.

Note, make sure you remake tasks and prevent True Image from running a shceduled task on a restore as obviously it will restore the database as it existed at that moment of imaging, which is not necessarily the same state as the TI database at the moment of restore.

Not sure what that means.

I was looking at the backup I have. It has 3 file (1 full and 2 differential). I don't see how I select which differential I want to use. I just see a "restore backup", with no apparent way to select which differential to use.

To restore a disk and partition image, you would boot your computer on the recovery CD. Make sure you try it. Make sure you also try to restore a couple of files (not an entire partition) from your newly created backup.
On the recovery CD, click on "home", "recovery files and folders", "browse" to point at your backup files.