"Target drive is running out of space"
I'm unclear about the best strategy to use in performing a daily, incremental disk image backup. I continue to run out of space on my backup drive, although it seems to have more than enough space to hold an entire disk image plus incremental changes.
The details: the size of my disk image is 114GB; using normal compression, the estimated size of the backup is 68.23 GB. My target disk has 251 GB free.
The first day's backup seems to work fine. It consists of 25 files and is 96.6GB. The second day's backup runs out of disk space before it's complete. It does not appear to be incremental - it seems to be a complete backup. I free up disk space by deleting the first day's backup - and I check "automatically consolidate when the number of backups exceeds 2," (which is the default value.) The next daily backup again runs out of space before it's complete, and seems to, again, be another full backup, rather than incremental.
To make matters more confusing, a) after the initial popup warning about disk space, subsequent backups display no popup warning, and b) the calendar in the Tasks Management tab shows every day as green - which means "Successful"!
And lastly, an unrelated but ungood thing: when I edit my backup, select one of the Optional steps, and cancel out, Acronis hangs permanently.
Any and all advice welcome.
You have hit the problem due to the way TI runs the consolidation task.
It consolidates by making the increment first, then it remakes the full version and adds the increment to it. Then it deletes this temporary file and renames the consolidation. So at the point of consolidation you actually will have almost double the images (in size) on your drive.
Full = 96.6GB
Inc = 68.23GB
NEXT INC = 68'ish GB
CONSOLIDATE = 96.6 + 68.23 = 154GB drive will have one 154GB + 96.6+68.23 +68'ish before it deletes it's temporary working file(s).
Thanks, Bodgy. This does seem to be a dramatically inefficient use of disk space. What I have done, which seems to have worked so far, is to automatically consolidate when the number of backups exceeds one.
It does at first glance seem an inefficient use of disk space, but on reflection it is actually a 'safe data' way of doing things. If the consolidation process fails, you will still be left with recoverable images, whereas, if it either deleted as it went along or made a multiple pass per archive slice, you run a greater risk of having no recoverable image.
I am having the same issue.. I have a brand new empty 1TB drive to back up to. My main drive has about 600 gigs on it so backing this up should not be a problem. It won't even make the primary backup. I could see how it would fail doing an incremental backup if it was accumulating several but it won't even do the first. This is really a piece of crap. The non stop back up won't even start as well, it also has an error " the partition for the non stop storage cannot be found " etc etc.. again, space is not an issue and I have selected a drive and it just won't work.
CUSTOMER SERVICE IS BEYOND ABYSMAL - I had an open case that was never resolved in my 30 day support period and now it has lapsed, same problem and now they want me to pay to get the software to do as it was intended, which they couldn't do during that period ! I was stupid enough to buy it for the second time, having the same customer support problem the first time but I will not be stupid enough to pay them to "help" me again. They are exceedingly good at trying to sell me an upgrade ( already ).. phhhffff, like hell !
Michael, what OS are you using and what version and build of True Image do you have? Try doing that Backup with the bootable Rescue CD.
I am having this same issue, when trying to back up my system drive with the windows ATI program. The target is an external eSATA 1TB drive, and every attempt at a backup terminates after a few seconds with that message -- "The target drive is running out of space" -- along with instructions to delete any unused files or try another drive etc, etc! The drive has over 600GB free, and the drive being backed up is 160GB with less than 100GB used. The system drive is the only drive I back up using imaging -- other drives are simply duplicated using windows or Karen's, as they need not be bootable after a restore.
To clarify, the trouble only occurs using the windows version -- the bootable recovery disk version works perfectly every time doing a "full disk backup" with "validate after create" option. And, the windows version validate function works fine, it only fails doing a backup.
My ATI is v.2010 b.5055 and I have delayed updating because of all the troubles reported and discussed here. The bootable recovery disk, which works fine, is the .iso download from the web site. This trouble was posted a few times in this forum several weeks ago, and was described as a known issue. If it is known to be fixed in a later build, with the SNAP update applied, I will consider trying an update.
Since the boot disk creates the system backup image perfectly fine, I am able to get by, though it is very inconvenient to shut down long enough to boot the recovery disk to create a backup image. I wish to do the system disk backups during off hours using "task scheduler". That of course has to involve the windows ATI program. I have set up a procedure using windows task scheduler to "wake" the system and run a ATI script, similar to that described by K0LO (Mark) in forum topic #3985, reply #7, and that works well except for the failure described above.
Edit: I failed to give this system information -- Home built, Win7 64 home premium, Asus P6T, Intel i7, 6GB ram, 1 internal 160GB SATA containing system partition, 2 external 500GB SATAs, 1 external 1TB eSATA used for backups.
Do we know any updates to a resolution of this issue??
Bob
Bob:
Failures while Windows is running usually are caused by a bug in the Acronis Snapshot Manager (snapapi.exe), so it may be worth trying the updated snapapi file. I've seen links to it posted on the forum or you could contact Acronis Support.
What I would do is to first go reboot and save an image of your current Windows 7 partition, then try the updated snapapi file or even the latest build of TI 2010. If things don't work out then restore the image you made before updating to remove all traces of the newer files.
Robert, build 5055 is probably the better of the 2010 builds. I use it on a Win 7 64 bit system and have done backups from within Windows without problems. Those done via the CD also work. There must be something on your system that is interfering with the process when done in Windows. It doesn't take much to make True Image falter in some way.
Problem solved -- well, not solved, but identified!!
Under backup options, there is an option for "free space threshold", and a check box to notify me if free space is less than the specified threshold. Unfortunately the box was checked and the threshold was set to 50TB! That leaves very little wiggle room with a 1TB drive!! No wonder acronis thought "target drive is running out of space".
After changing the threshold to 200GB, I was able to do a successful full disk backup. However, starting ATI again, the value again was set to 50TB with the box checked! It seems that each time I do a backup in windows I must remember to either manually uncheck the box, or change the threshold value.
Since I did not know that option existed until now, I certainly did not set it to that value! Is that a default setting for that option? Is there a way to change the default?? Otherwise, using windows task scheduler to wake the system from standby off hours, and run a schedule backup with ATI will not work.
Using the bootable disk, that option box is NOT checked by default. But, if I check the box, it produces a default value of 100MB. That’s why my backups using the bootable disk worked OK. It could be good to have that option, to test for available space before starting a backup, but not having a workable value is a "show stopper" as far as unattended operation.
Any way to set a different default value??
Thanks for any advice...... Bob
Robert.
I had the same issue as you. I re-intalled TI on this PC and all jobs were getting this "free space threshold" message which prevented all of my jobs from running un-attended.
I found your post and the 50TB default was exactly what had occured. I fixed my existing job and changed the gobal default for new jobs.
the global default is found
"tools and utilities"
"options"
"local storage settings"
"freespace threshold"
And change the 50TB setting to a more realistic setting
once you do the above all new backup jobs will assume the realisic setting you declared.
Oracledba,
Thanks for the note!
Yes, I found the global default settings very shortly after posting above. I should have acknowledged that much sooner, rather than leave a concern hanging out there after it is no longer a concern. In fact, there are a couple of other similar items I had posted queries about, and have since found the answers, that I need to "pull of the table" so to speak!!
Thanks again.
Bob
Robert, thanks for discovering the cause of this annoying issue. Someone please tell Acronis support. As far as I can tell, they don't yet realize you posted the answer here many months ago: http://forum.acronis.com/forum/5394#comment-35243
Robert, thanks for discovering the cause of this annoying issue. Someone please tell Acronis support. As far as I can tell, they don't yet realize you posted the answer here many months ago: http://forum.acronis.com/forum/5394#comment-35243
I second that.
Hello all,
Thank you all for posting.
I would like add something to this issue.
Although this error message in ATIH2010 was caused by the freespace threshold that you correctly pointed out, this is not the case with Acronis True Image 2011 Home.
If suck issue occurs in ATIH 2011, I would appreciate if you can provide me with the following diagnostic information:
1. AcronisInfo report.
2. Screenshots of every step in the backup wizard taken during backup creation.
Please let me know if you have additional questions.
Thank you.
The same issue happens in my ATIH 2012.
John,
What do you mean?
I'm running ATIH 2012 on a Win7 64-bit computer, and backing up to a 2 TB NAS drive. Several times during each image backup, I get a message saying "Target drive is running out of space" although there are hundreds of gigabytes free. If I click Ignore, the backup continues. If I'm not sitting there monitoring the computer and I miss the error message, the backup fails due to a timeout. It sounds like the same problem has been happening to users ever since version 2010!
John,
Do you have consolidation enabled or make new full after so many images are made?
Just upgraded from TI2010 to TI2013 and now I am getting "Target drive is running out of space" errors drive is 500GB with 105GB free...all scheduled backup are Single Version Scheme. How do I stop this error should I setup custom full backup instead of Single Version?
Thx
Jeff,
You will need to start new tasks for 2013 and you will have to do some of your own cleanup if space is needed. 2013 will not automatically remove any of the old backups. The new task should point to its own empty storage folder or sub-folder. My recommendation the new target folder should only contain backup files created by the new task.
Yes, I suggest a custom backup scheme so it can maintain its own cleanup retention of the backups created by the new task. Click on link #2 below and look at figures 11-Inc; or 11-Full or 11-Dif for examples.
Were the existing backup files created by 2010 or 2013?
OK so I have 3 machines, one windows7 x64 and one xp home in the house and one xp home in the garage the garage computer has a 500GB USB drive that is used only for TrueImage. Once a month on the 15th each drive from each machine backs up a full image to the 500GB USB. I had TI11 on the XP machines and TI2010 on the win7 machine. I removed the old versions and installed TI2013 on each machine. I setup all the machines in the Single Version Scheme to the USB drive no folders all backups to the root directory. I tested and a new backup would save and then be overwritten on the next pass. There was all of the old backups approx 400gb on the first pass when I got the "Target drive is running out of space" so I deleted all of them and had a clean 500gb drive the first drive backup went through fine but the second again gave the "Target drive is running out of space" error even through there was over 400gb available. The other issue I was having was speed a 65gb backup used to take about 3 hours (averaging about 133mb/sec to the garage pc its a gig card but the distance drops the speed) with TI that same backup in Single Version Scheme took 7 hours. In the end I ran out of time so I removed TI2013 and put TI2010 and TI11 back in place and the backups are running currently. I would like to move towards the TI2013 as I plan to replace both XP machines in the coming year but I find the new interface difficult and really out of the box it should work and not have me chasing down errors and knowledge base articles. I find myself wondering if there is something better out there...been using TI since version 6. I appreciate the help GroverH and am willing to try the change to TI2013 again IF it can be done without wasting another day on it.
Jeff,
If I am understanding correctly, you have about 400GB of used backup space split between 3 computers of 1 backup each. This would seem to indicate each backup from each machine is about 130-140GB in size which would translate to about 200GB of used space on each computer.
TrueImage WILL NOT OVERWRITE the existing backups until AFTER it has created a new current backup..so if there is 400GB of backup files, there has to be at least 130-150 GB of free space is needed on the 500 storage disk before the new backup will begin and complete. As that much free space does not exist, you are getting the out of space error. It would appear you need a larger storage disk or if space permits, have each computer backup to its own disk located in a central point--as you are currently doing. A 500GB disk for each computer would enable you to retain two backup sets of 135TB each with an additional allowance for the temporary space needed before a 3rd could be completed.
[strong]There is no Acronis setting which will enable the overwrite to occur before a replacment is created.[/strong] In order for that to happen, you would need a batch file (or manually) to delete the old backup before the backup begins to provide room before the new backup begins. This manual deletion would need to occur for each backup being run.
While it is permitted, I would discourage the storing all files in the root folder. My ppreference and my recommendation is that each backup task have its own sub-folder so there is no intermixing of backup files. This type strategy seems to have fewer problems of the DataBase becoming corrupt. I would also recommend that none of the backup tasks be edited as editing seems to cause unpredictable results for many. My suggestion is if the task needs modification, create a new task with the correct modifications and point the new task to its own empty sub-folder.
Another alternative would be to use a supplemental program named CHAIN2GEN (C2G) in conjunction with TrueImage. The benefit of using C2G would be that it would delete the old backup first before enabling TrueImage to create the replacement. C2G is a free program written by Acronis MVP Volunteer OracleDBA. Many of the users (including myself) have found it this program to be very useful as it provides options not available from Acronis. My signature contains links to C2G if you are interested.
My preference would also be to use a Custom Backup scheme as compared to the Single Version. Click on on link #2 inside my signature below and look at figure 11-full. You would need to modify the example of 4 to something less--based on your storage disk size plans.
Whether you use 2010 or 2013, the restrictions above still exist on both. Using 2013 would support Windows 7-8.
Hopefully, this has provided some food for though about the changes needed. Other volunteers may offer some differing suggestions.
GroverH,
The total currently used space is 396GB on the 500GB drive some of this used space is an older TI2010 full image (IE the XP image before WIN7 was installed). Anyway each machine has a operating system drive and a media drive the largest single backup is 65GB each backup runs on it own so only one backup ever occurs at a time this means there is always at least 103GB of free space which is plenty. There should be no reason to receive the error as it does not matter based on the information provided a new 65GB image is created and the old one is then deleted leaving 103GB free till the next backup runs.
I will look at C2G
Thanks for your help
Imaging used to be a whole lot easier
Jeff,
Check your backup tasks to make sure you do not have a size quota setting enabled which could also cause the notification.
A couple places to look would be inside the "Disk backup options" insiide the notification tab and also inside the custom backup scheme if the size option is set.
Yes, 2013 is a completely new learning curve for us all.
Could you move the old XP backup file to another disk and see if the disk size error message continues. You cold also have a disk size error occurring with not all free space being reported. If true, this could only be corrected by checking the storage disk for disk errors.