Salta al contenuto principale

How to delete individual backup versions within an archive in ATI2018

Thread needs solution

After reconfiguring my NAS, my backup settings were reset and the backup schedule was set to 'Daily'. While away, the backup had time to run a few times, before I noticed, resulting in my NAS now being full (of backup files).

How do I remove the 2-3 last Backup versions in the current chain?

My settings:

  • I am using the 'Differential' backup scheme
  • 10 backup versions in each chain before a new full backup
  • Maximum archive size is 15 TB
  • Keep the initial full backup 

I couldn't find a way of deleting backup versions in the GUI of ATI2018, so I thought of simply deleting the .tib files through Windows Explorer.

Before deleting, just to be sure, I searched the Acronis documentation pages, and eventually, I found this article, How to Delete Backups, relating to Acronis Backup 11.5, suggesting deleting individual backup versions from the CLI using the command acrocmd. Furthermore, they are saying not to "not delete backups manually from the file system (e.g. using Windows Explorer)". Since that would "leave the metadata outdated causing possible backup/cleanup failures."

I couldn't find any information of an equivalent to acrocmd in ATI2018, or how to do this via the command line. In fact, I actually found information about there existing no CLI at all for ATI, and information about it being removed in ATI2014.

I continued my search and found the article, Deleting backups in Windows Explorer fails with "Folder access denied", an article which actually refers to ATI. Here they say, "we recommend deleting backups in product interface." But they don't specify how and where in the GUI you can do this. I then went back and thoroughly explored the GUI and I can't find any way of deleting individual backups.

***

I am a big fan of Acronis products, and I do recommend them, but this whole ordeal has been quite frustrating - not being able to find any information. It is actually shocking to me that such a simple thing isn't described anywhere within the documentation of such a premium and costly product such as ATI. I recently upgraded all our 5 licenses from ATI2017 to ATI2018, as well, meaning that I am stuck with ATI2018 for a while now.

0 Users found this helpful

Noah, welcome to these User Forums.

There are several methods you can use to help cleanup the extra backup files.

The official recommend method is to use the Automatic cleanup rules for your backup task, where I would suggest using the 'Store no more than X recent version chains' as being the easiest to understand and manage!

Using automatic cleanup will also cleanup any metadata held in the internal Acronis Database for your backup task.
Note: A version chain in this context would = 1 x Full and 10 x Differential backup files per your settings above.  No cleanup is performed until a new Full backup file has been created successfully, so you would need room on your NAS to store X+1 chains plus the initial Full file you are keeping.

One alternative method would be to use the 'Clone settings' option for the backup task which will create a duplicate task in the GUI with the prefix (1) for the same name.  After doing this, you can then remove the original task settings from the GUI while leaving the files in place.  Removing the task will also cleanup any metadata from the database for the task, leaving you free to delete any files related to the task as you wish.
Note: you should configure the clone (1) task to point to a different folder on the NAS if using this method.

The other method is to go ahead via Explorer and delete the unwanted files from your NAS, being careful to either delete whole backup version chains, or only differential files, then after doing this, you should then perform a Validation for your backup task and be ready to deal with an error pop-up message for each deleted file.  You should take the Ignore this file option each time which will then reconcile the information in the database for that file.

frestogaslorastaswastavewroviwroclolacorashibushurutraciwrubrishabenichikucrijorejenufrilomuwrigaslowrikejawrachosleratiswurelaseriprouobrunoviswosuthitribrepakotritopislivadrauibretisetewrapenuwrapi
Messaggi: 250
Commenti: 7092

Nh wrote:

Here they say, "we recommend deleting backups in product interface." But they don't specify how and where in the GUI you can do this. I then went back and thoroughly explored the GUI and I can't find any way of deleting individual backups.

Hi! Thank you for your feedback! We'll add more information to  https://kb.acronis.com/content/59857