Acronis TI 2020 - Clean up backup versions takes forever
Hi,
I'm backing up a computer to a QNAP TS412 with full and differential backups. I want to clear down some old versions which Acronis TI2020 has an menu option to do. However, when running the cleanup, the progress is already about 90 minutes in and the progress bar has only gone about 3-4% across the page (see image1).
Image2 shows the files on the NAS drive. I should be deleting files older than 12 June (just before the last full backup). The QNAP is formatted with ext4 and Acronis is using a share (samba) connection. Lock File (Oplocks) is enabled for the shared directory on the NAS. The shared drive on the NAS is 6TB with 2TB free space.
I've just tried cancelling "Clean up backup versions" but the UI has locked up. The X top right does nothing.
Any thoughts on the cause of the problem?
I could manually delete the old files off the NAS but Acronis TI seems to think they are still there and there doesn't seem to be a way to get it to refresh it's catalogue.
I've closed Acronis and it won't launch again, however, in Task Manager Backup Worker (32 bit) (part of Acronis) is the most CPU intensive process (around 6% on my Core i7 and high network activity). This continues to be the case 10 minutes later.
I could try a reboot of computer and QNAP and repeat the process but I expect I will get the same result.
Any advise would be appreciated.
Thanks
Chris
Chris / Steve
I did similar cleanup several weeks ago and again weekend. Main backups are C: (100GB, daily) and 4 data drives (400GB (daily), 200GB (weekly), 3.0TB (weekly), 500GB (weekly)). The 100, 200 delete relatively quickly, the 300-400 not so much and the 3.0TB took 2-3+ hours today. I have all set for auto clean up, 24 Diff, then Full (the 3.0TB is 74 Diff, then Full). The auto clean up is only working on the C drive, started working after I did manual clean up earlier.
Next time you do such a cleanup:
1) Stop using the PC (or at least stop using anything that does network access)
2) Launch Task Manager and watch the network traffic while cleanup executes
When I watched today I got 50-200Mbips on both send and receive for all of them (GB network to a NAS). Likely the reason for such long clean up times.
Leads me to believe the for some reason the clean up is reading / writing the data, but for the life of me I don't see why. Might be doing some kind of checking or some such, but, ...
I would have thought that it might need to read / write 'something' to update chains / validity (although I hold, it shouldn't be doing anything with the actual backup files), then just delete the version. It appears to be deleting the most recent file in the delete list, that may cause extra updates to previous, just to see same/similar on next most recent on next cycle working towards the oldest in the delete list. I will try deleting the oldest, then next oldest, ... next time to see if that seems any faster.
When I did clean up a few weeks back, I watched the existing files as it did clean up. It appears to do 'updates' to the existing backup files as part of cleanup (the modified date changed), assume updating chain link and/or validity data.
When I worked in IT (~40 yrs), our backups NEVER modified the file of an existing backup. When the backup media was tape, they were write locked when removed from the drive. If there was metadata or some such it was in a separate file and could be rebuilt from existing backup files (given metadata in the file and/or a naming convention (like TI 2019 had)).
I also did a backup of a 2GB RamDisk. I put some files on it, never added, removed or changed anything. Setup as a Differential, full after 3rd diff. Sizes from that were (all KB): Set 1: 392, 124, 128, 132, Set 2: 412, 132, 152, 156, Set 3: 436, 160.
Not sure what is going on with this, but I keep trying to talk myself into going back to 2019, but haven't succeeded, Yet!