Differential sizes are all over the place.

What size is the flashdrive?

A backup after a restore will usually be full size. This includes any Differential based on a Full created before the restore.

If you run several Differentials at short intervals does it stay small? From the screenshot it looks like it only needs a few hours to jump.

I don't know about it being safer, but I would probably just do Full backups on something that small.

Thanks, I will have to test that and get back with you.

Thanks MudCrab. I think you are right. I was testing the restoration. When I tested without doing a restore the differential sizes were what I would have suspected.

It is just a 1 Gig flash drive and I do have lots of room if I choose to run fulls.

Off this subject. I have noticed some postings that have snip files in the posting rather than being attachments. Is this something I am missing or would I have to create something like create a pdf document to accomplish this?

Charlie

Charles,

You need to exercise your HTML coding skills to accomplish the inline image postings.

(img src = " file name"/) where the ( ) = < > . However you also need to either preview your post (which might still lead to the double posting bug) or save and edit the file so as you know where the image path lies for that thread/post.

The link to your attachment (from your posting) is
http://forum.acronis.com/sites/default/files/forum/2010/08/13908/tested…

With that information, I have placed the link in the proper syntax and it becomes:

<p><img src="http://forum.acronis.com/sites/default/files/forum/2010/08/13908/tested…" /></p>

You can also add either or both of these two listings
"style= width: 728px; height: 230px;"
alt="tested_differentials.png"

If both added, the syntax can become
<p><img src="http://forum.acronis.com/sites/default/files/forum/2010/08/13908/tested…" "style= width: 728px; height: 230px;" alt="tested_differentials.png" /></p>

There are various methods possible to display your attachment in its original form. This is one of the methods I use. This is your attachment link coded with the proper syntax so the picture will appear on the screen

Once you upload and actual save the message, the final link to the attachment becomes available. If you edit your posting and look the file attachment information, you will see the link. It is the same link as shown where you check or uncheck whether the attachment link is displayed.

Copy the information below into your clipboard and then edit your last posting and paste this coding into the edit at the bottom of your comments.

<p><img src="http://forum.acronis.com/sites/default/files/forum/2010/08/13908/tested…" "style= width: 600px; height: 180px;" alt="tested_differentials.png" /></p>

The alt= provides information about the picture usually for those people who may not display images.

the style=width is used in two ways. You can use the exact size or the preferred way is to reduce the size and width setting by a percentage--maybe 25% so the initial display is smaller and for those wanting to see the full size, they can dbl click in the picture and see it in full width.

A whole book could be written here about the choices but I have listed a few of the basics.

ps: Congratulations on using Chain2Gen.

Sweet! Good things to know!

Unfortunately I was premature declaring success.

When my scheduled backup task awakens the computer to run the backup the size of the image gets large. If the computer is not asleep when the task starts, the image size is what you would expect.

My wife's flash drive backups are behaving the same. I just did not notice it before because I only run it from task scheduler once a week and we are often using the computer at the time the task runs. The rest of the time I just have her run it manually from a shortcut I created for her benefit.

Both of these flash drives have one thing in common, other than being flash drives. They are both plugged into usb ports I have in my monitor. I know when I bring the computer out of its slumber state it sometimes takes a few seconds to re-establish the usb ports.

I am going to try moving one of them to a usb port local to the computer and see if it works there. If it works there, then I will move it back to the monitor and create a task to backup one file and schedule it to kick off 2 minutes prior to my scheduled time. Maybe this will allow the computer time to get the usb ports synchronized and the computer will still be awake for the backup I want to run.

If this does not work, I can always run full scheduled backups. I could also leave the flash drives plugged into the local ports on the computer but I like the convenience of plugging them into the monitor. I guess I could also try adding a sleep

I will report back in a few days to update my progress and the final outcome.

Thanks again for everyone's assistance!
Charlie

The attachment in your initial posts appears to show that you have been getting full backups because of their extreme large size. Whereas, the attachment in post #3 appears to be working correctly.

One thing we have learned about TIH2010 is that in order for differential/incremental backups to be created, the command to create the first full backup must come from within the TI program via either the automatic schedule or the user manually choose the start command from within the program.

When this occurs, the program automatically switches from the "create new backup archive" to the "add to existing backup archive". When the task is initiated by a desktop shortcut or Windows scheduler, the switch to "add to existing backup archive" never occurs. If you look at your log file, you will see that backups created by the shortcut have a completely different log title--for whatever reason. I do not know whether this same situation exists in the 2011 version.

My suggested fix would be as follows

Create a new task to start fresh for the thumb drive which is using shortcuts

1. Allow the program to create the full backup either as per schedule or start the program manually from within the program. Do not use shortcut.

2. Only use the desktop shortcut to initiate differential or incremental backups after the full backup has already been completed.

I do not believe the usb port location has any effect.

MudCrab's Drive Notify program could provide some assistance if you want to be reminded when-where-what to connect about your usb drives.

Let us know the results.

PS: If you want or need to reduce the width/height of your attachment, after you performed your capture, you can then open the capture inside your favorite picture editor and cut/paste to remove any excess space--such as the space between the contents in column 1 and column 2. Also, nice posting. You adapted quickly.

Before the capture, sometimes the picture width can be reduced by changing the width of the columns or moving a column (such as favorites) and move it to the right completely out the way as it serves no useful function.

Thanks for your input Grover. I agree that it appears these images are full backups although ATI 2010 shows them as being differentials. See below

Next the explorer output for those same images.

Now, Charles- through Charles-5 all (large images) happened when they were ran by task scheduler when my computer was in a sleep mode.

Images Charles-6 and Charles-7 (normal sized differentials) went though the following procedure.
1. I scheduled a 1 file full backup to occur 1 minute before the backups Charles-6 and Charles-7 were ran.
2. The computer was put in sleep mode the same as the Charles- through Charles-5.
3. Task scheduler kicks off the 1 file backup. It ran and awakened my computer.
4. The computer was still awake when task scheduler ran the Charles-6 and Charles-7 images.

Let me also state that I have 4 backups that run through the task scheduler and were all set up the same way. The two backups of my hard drive are not impacted by the sleep issue. Only the backups of the flash drives are affected. It might not have anything to do with the location of the flash drive ports. I will test that theory later but it definitely appears to be related to flash drives and the computer sleep mode.

The 1 file quickie scheduled backup is just a workaround but it appears to be doing what I need.

Charles,
First my congratulations on the mechanics you have use to post your pictures which are nice and neat for placement and size. I added some notes to the bottom of my prior post above.

Also my congratulations on the thoroughness of your investigation. Consider trying one more change.
1. Assign a specific letter (such as x or y, etc) and create a new task pointing to the new drive letter. If you have not done so, I would also have unique drive letters on all the thumb drives and have the task include the specific drive letter as part of the target.

Thanks again Grover!

I did create another backup task and moved the flash drive to a usb port on the computer. It also ran full backups rather than differentials after I put the computer in sleep mode. It was correctable by having the task scheduler kick off the 1 file backup one minute prior. This eliminates my concern about the usb ports on my monitor but still indicates a problem to me with the sleep state and flash drives.

I am not sure what you mean by assigning a specific letter and pointing the new task to the new drive letter. I thought Windows assigned a drive letter designation when it detected a device although you can change the drive letter designation

When I create a new backup task and it is asking what to backup it lists the drive letters along with the drive label. See below.

Would you further expand on this idea?

Thanks so much
Charlie

Generally speaking, it is preferable to use a usb connector directly off the computer rather than connect via a usb hub. Some user have trouble and others do not--when using a hub. Just be aware of the these facts when troubleshooting problems.

As for lettering drives, I will try to clarify.

Let assume that you are using 4 different thumb drives and each is a different color.
Plug in the blue one and open Windows Disk Management.
1. Inside Disk Management, Right click on the picture for the thumb drive.
2. Change the drive letter from whatever to letter W:
3. Assign a name to this thumb drive and call it Blue-W
Now from here on, when you look at this drive inside Explorer, it will show as
Removable Disk Blue-W (W:)
Now you will have to create a new task pointing the backup destination to the W: drive

Repeat the same procedure with the next thumb drive.
Assume the disk color is Red and you want to assign the letter X:
Make the changes to Red and X same as you did in steps 1-3.
Adjust the tasks to point to the backup destination. X:

Do this for each of your thumb drives.
Instead of color, you may want to use other unique names such as 4G_PNY-X
or 8G-HP_Z but include the drive letter as part of the volume name.

The point I am trying to make is for you to control the drive letter assignment so that when your task is supposed to backup to blue-W, you do not insert Red-X instead.

What I am recommending is that any thumb drive you use as a backup destination for a TrueImage backup be assigned its own unique and constant drive letter. You can have 3 different thumb drives attached as as long as you have them assigned unique and constant drive letters, both Windows and TrueImage will know which is which. Item 3-D inside my signature index.

Additional: The removable drives you have displayed may also relate to card readers built into a computer case. If these are not used, I always disable each one inside the device manager.

I find that MudCrab's Drive Notify can be very helpful in advising me what device is needed to be attached for any given backup.

Thanks Grover. This makes sense and seems like a good idea. I will work on this and Drive Notify when I get a chance. Right now golf and work will have take precedence for a couple of days.

I'm working with Acronics 2013, Build 6514. I want to make differential backups to save time and HD space. But every differential backup needs the same time and HD space as a full backup. But I just changed one file!

Who has the solution?

Chraschi,

Is there either a manual or automatic defrag going on between images? This will always make TI make a complete full image.

Do you have for example a database or Exchange running or any other software that are constantly writing data to your drive?

Do you have any form of encryption mechanism on your drive?

Is your hard drive starting to shift sectors around as it is starting to become old? Run chkdsk /r to find out.

How full is your drive?

Where are you writing your images to?