Salta al contenuto principale

Incremental backups almost the same size as full

Thread needs solution

Hi

Has anyone got this resolved?
I've been reading around a dozen threads, and every answer boils down to disk fragmentation advice.

I bought the three license bundle of ATI 2011, which I installed on three machines. Two of them are running XP Home (SP3) and one W7 Pro. W7 Pro has the defragmentation schedule disabled. On all three machines I have the strategy set to "version chain". On all three machines, the incremental backup is nearly the same size as the full backup.

I also have a 16GB flash drive, which I like to backup in case it gets lost/damaged. Again, I tried "version chain" with incremental backup. Again, the incremental backup is the same size as the full one. Surely there is no defragmentation happening on the flash drive?

This was not happening back in the days with Workstation Echo version (which I had to upgrade, as it does not support W7).

Thanks,
Mauricio

0 Users found this helpful

I had a similar problem this week. Using the latest version of 2011 ATI (updated before I did this). I created a ~ 500 GB full backup. First scheduled backup after that was ~ 200 GB. Next night, same thing. That's just not right.

Hello,

I described a similar Problem several weeks ago in the following thread:

http://forum.acronis.com/forum/18624

All I can say is, that this problem has nothing to do with disk fragmentation. It's some kind of "losing the configuration" problem!?!

Maybe the workaround I've found will also resolve your problem.

I also sent a PM to Anton and hope that Acronis will fix this horrible Bug in the upcoming version.

If not - I will stop using ATI Home and look for another solution.

Thanks, I'll try from a clean slate. Originally I had been trying to get "version chain" backup working successfully. My problem is that my backup set (.TIB file) is about 500GB, and my backup drive is only 1.8 TB, so after the 2nd full backup, the disk is usually full. So I thought I would switch from "version chain" to incremental instead, that's when I noticed that the incremental backup was about 1/2 size of full backup (it didn't used to be this way before the last patch update).

I have been doing tag-team between ATI and NovaBackup. The latter seems to generate much SMALLER incremental backups, compared to the properly-sized incremental backups from ATI before the latest update). ATI also does a full backup in about 4 hours, vs. about 12 for NovaBackup. The problem with NovaBackup is that the backup engine (service) stops working after a couple of days, then I have to restart it or reboot the computer (which I leave on all the time.

At this point, I'd prefer to use ATI 2011, but if it's going to fill up my backup drive after only a few days, then it's not a better option. I'll follow-up after a few days of good or bad incremental backups.

This illustration is one example you might use to set up your task but adjust the number of keeps to match your needs. TI records changes of disk position for the data so any time a file is moved via any means (such as defrag or other means), the change will be placed in the inc or diff file for that backup.

"TI records changes of disk position for the data so any time a file is moved via any means (such as defrag or other means), the change will be placed in the inc or diff file for that backup."

Really? That sounds unnecessary for file backup (unless it's trying to exactly mirror the partition). That could explain some of it, as my PC runs Diskeeper 2011 in the background.

I'll play around with the other settings.

Suggest that you run Diskkeeper only just prior to a full backup and turned off at all other times if you want to use TrueImage Home.

Jim,

Grover's comment applies to partition backup. File backups should not be affected by defragmentation.
If ATI doesn't do incremental/differential files normally, it is likely to be that:
- the file backup include hidden files like system volume information. THis happens if you selected an entire drive. To check, make windows exploere to show the hidden and system protected files, launch ATI and verify these hidden or system files are NOT in the backup,
- a database corruption issue is getting ATI lost. Starting a new task, with a new name in a new directory should clear this problem.

Apparently I am doing Partition backup after all. The only other obvious choice is Disk backup, but there was a partition that I did not want to back up. I've turned off Diskeeper and the incremental backups, while still several GB, are not outrageously huge. If Windows 7 is doing defragmentation by itself during idle moments, that could explain the size (my Novastor backups were on the order of 1/2 GB or less).

I might end up creating another backup job at some point in the future.

Thanks for all the explanations.

Also, ATI's backup size will reflect changes in:
- the system restore data,
- the page file,
- the hibernation file.

Although ATI actually just keep a placeholder file for these files (ie: the size of the placeholder is the same as the original file, but the content of the file is not there and is not restored), these things can change quite a bit between backups.

On my Win 7 system, I get easily 1GB of changes doing nothing...