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"consolidation"- "cleaning up"- I don't get it.

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OK, so I'm experimenting with ATI on an older PC. I set up a custom scheme which would create a full backup, then do 6 incremental backups, then start over again- and the clean up would delete the oldest so there will never be more than 2 sets.

However, that's not what happened. I did the first full backup 2 weeks ago. The scheme then did as requested- 6 incrementals, then a new full backup, then 6 more incrementals----

then, it created a new full backup- but instead of deleting the oldest full backup from 2 weeks ago, it deleted the full backup from a week ago

so I now have the oldest full backup from 2 weeks ago, and a dozen incrementals covering ever day since then, and now the latest full backup

there was one day when the PC didn't do the auto incremental- the machine was hibernating as always- I turned it on and manually had ATI do the incremental- perhaps this somehow messed up the clean up proceedure?

Joe

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Joseph,

I have seen ATI creating orphaned backups that just stay there instead of being deleted, while more recent backup get deleted, but I have never seen ATI delete the wrong backup in the logic of the cleanup.
It seems to me the "deleted" backup might have been consolidated in an older version.
I would recommend you delete the task from within ATI and create a new task to do your experimentations. ALthough editing a task is conveniently supported by the product, the results of changing the backup name, destination, scheme or retention rules can easily lead to confusion about what is necessary to restore and problems at restore time.

Pat, thanks for your comments.

This is why I'm experimenting with the old PC so I can get a good understanding of what I really want to do on my primary, business PC.

I'm now thinking of a scheme which will do a full backup, then maybe 2-3 differentials, then another full backup, keeping maybe 3-4 sets- I have a 2T external drive, so it's plenty big enough.

Regarding "consolidation"- so that means that ATI will actually reconstruct backup files? I'd love to see how that actually happens, from a programmer's perspective. I presume that this means it can take sectors from an inc. or diff. file and add them to the full backup- pretty much the way ATI would do a full restore?
Joe

Consolidation is an internal operation by ATI on the existing backup archives. It is similar to video editing. ATI creates a temporary working file in which it places splices of existing backup files to build an image equivalent if to a backup that wouldn't have created the consolidated intermediary files. If the creation of this working file succeeds, then ATI deletes the consolidated files and rename the entire chain to make it again similar to a backup that wouldn't have created them in the first place.
Consolidation is a resource intensive process. I would recommend you just use the cleanup option, with the option to keep only the most recent X backup chains. Remember a chain is a full + corresponding partials. Remember ATI will create a new full before deleting any existing chain.