True Image 2012 Home: backup destination full
Hi,
I had a support case for this from November 2012 although I did not mark it as closed it has been closed as solved which is not the case. Support told me to set the backup like this (which is actually the configuration I intially used anyways):
- destination is a 500GB USB-Harddrive
- daily differential backups
- every five backups make a full backup
- keep the last 2 full backups and the differential backups for those
- after that consolidate up to 3 full backup and their differential backups
My problem now is that Acronis True Image 2012 Home seems to partially ignore this configuration as it keeps more than 3 of those full backups and that fills the destination drive until it complains that the drive is full. This issue is there right from the start and I would really like to get this fixed, because it is really annoying.
A differential backup ranges from 400 to 700 megabytes. The full backup is currently 30 GB.
Space should not be an issue if using a 500 GB storage disk and each backup chain of 5 files consuming 35GB storage space per chain.
I believe your problem is being caused by the consolidation.
I would suggest that you create a new task pointing to its own empty storage folder and invoke the automatic cleanup feature. I am suggesting a custom backup scheme as suggested next.
Look at link #2 below and set your new backup task according to the example of figure 11-diff except change the 6 and 4 examples to fit your needs.
It sounds like you want 1 full plus 4 differentials or a new full would be created via the completion of backup #6,etc.
Option=keep no more than x recent version chains:
In the option of keep no more than 4 recent version chains. Each chain would keep 5 files if the first option is to keep 1 full plus 4 differentials so a setting of 4 recent version chains would keep (4 x 5) 20 files or about 35GB per chain or consume about 140GB of storage. Note: I am allowing that each backup chain might consume about 35 GB of space
Even if you keep 8 recent version chains, the space requirements would be only 280 GB or 8 x 35 GB.
However, do keep one thing in mind. TrueImage will always create its future replacment before deleting the oldest chain so you allow for an an extra 35-50GB always to be available for this temporary need.
If your current storage disk does not have adequate space, some existing file chains will need to be removed in order for the new task to begin.
Editing a task or changing its parameters has been known to cause the program to retain the wrong number of files. If corrections to a task needed, my recommendation is to always start a new task.
What I have proposed is that the program will retain whatever number of "keep no more than x number of chains" and that deletion of old chans will not begin to occur until "X" is reached.
If "X" is 4 (4x5=20) chains, then the deletion of chain 1 (5 files) will not occur until after the completion of backup #21 which will be a full backup beginning chain 5.
Deletion of chain 2 will not occur until after the completion of backup #26 which will be the full backup beginning chain 6.