Unclear if I should Backup, Archive or Both
So I just created an account. I'm using a Mac and I backed up my entire hard drive (500GB) to the cloud. Perfect.
Now the way I work is I create large video files, I edit them and every few months I back them up to a few hard drives and delete them from my main system drive which is only 500GB. So I need to clear out space regularly or my drive will be completely full. I rarely use the deleted files again but I don't want to throw them away forever.
What happens to these files regarding my daily backups? Will Acronis notice that they're not on my hard drive anymore and delete them from my cloud backup. Or will my cloud backup just keep getting larger and these files will remain? I'd prefer the latter but if it's the former, I guess I need to create an archive for them first, then delete them from my internal system drive?
Thanks.
Thanks for your response. I do have the same options on Mac. What's not clear to me is what it all means. IOW - I have it set the same way you do. The default of 20 recent backup versions and deleting them after 6 months. But I assumed that meant you'd have 20 versions of any one file to choose from and those versions only stay around for 6 months. Then the multiple versions are deleted. But not the original. But what if I remove the file from my computer completely? Does the backup of that file go away after 6 months? Or just the multiple versions to choose from. IOW - If I want all my deleted files on my hard drive to always be a part of the backup (not concerned with the backup size) do I need to turn OFF "Delete versions older than:" so that I always have those files? Although, then I would also always have 20 versions of everything which is wasteful. The other option is to use archiving (I think) so that I can backup those large files and then delete them from my computer. So my computer is always backed up normally but I also always have those specific deleted files. Thanks again.
Kenny, I understand your confusion over these settings! Acronis has not clearly defined or explained them in any documentation that I can find, so any explanation that I can offer is purely my own understanding!
A version means the data captured each time that a backup is performed as defined by the data selected for the Source of the backup task, and the changes to that backup source data.
If you change one or more files in the Source data, then those changes are captured when the backup task next runs, and if using the default settings, up to 20 such changes to data / files can be captured and stored.
In the same way, if you delete or remove one or more files, then that is also reflected in the subsequent versions of the backup, and eventually those deleted / removed file(s) will be purged as new backup versions are created.
Any files which remain unchanged from when the initial backup to the Cloud was made are not captured in subsequent backup versions as only changes are captured, so take no additional space in storage.
The net effect of the above is that the user can choose any restore point for recovering either the whole backup, i.e. a disk backup of the OS, or specific files held at the available points in time as reflected by the available versions in storage.
That makes a lot of sense. Thank you so much for your time. It is greatly appreciated. Thanks.