Just trying to do an incremental backup (still!)

Is the backups being completed via an Acronis schedule or is the backups being created manually?

If manually, the most likely cause is the incremental backup initiation is occurring from the wrong screen.

When running backups manually, the first creation of the full backup can/may occur when the task is first created. This initial creation will cause the backup task to be listed on your main screen.

To create an incrmental backup, place the mouse pointer inside the newly created task and from inside that task on the extreme right is an option "backup now" which should be clicked.

When the "backup now" option is clicked from inside the newly created task,
if no full exists, then a full will be created.
If full does exist, then the next backup will be determined by how your backup scheme is configured. If you have selected custom/inc, then the backup after the full will be the inc..

You have your backup scheme set to
full after 7 inc
which means each recent version chain will contain 8 files.

You have the setting to keep no more than
10 recent version chains. (10 x 8)

Your automatic cleanup rotation will occur on the 81st backup or b11 full backup.

I created a backup task yesterday teatime. It is set up (or should be set up) to perform an incremental backup of my outlook pst file at noon every day. Having created this at teatime, I then placed my mouse within the new task and selected the 'back up now' option. As this was the first backup, the software correctly detected this and performed a full backup of the pst file at 18.14 on 15/12/13 - as you can see on the attachment.

I have not opened the Acronis software at all today.

I simply expected an incremental backup of the pst file to automatically take place at noon today (16/12/13) or as soon after as possible. A scheduled backup was performed, and verified, and an email notification sent to me attaching the 'Log'. When I looked at the Log I was concerned to see that yet another full backup had been made - why? Checking on the NAS confirmed this was the case - as you can see in the attachment to my original post.

I want my pst file backup to be incrementally updated everyday, and for that 7 day chain to be them be consolidated into a full version every 7 days as that seems sensible to me (and I have had my fingers burnt with ATI before with loooooong unconsoldated file chains missing critical parts of the chain).

First. Look at the log file for both days regarding the new task. There may well be some error messages. Because you are getting only full backups, I believe there is a problem that may relate to the path to the storage folder.

Please reread my prior post as to what your backup scheme will produce. Understand that your current setting will NOT produce any consolidation or merging of files but will simply delete the oldest chain after the 81st backup is completed and the next delete of a chan will not occur until after another 8 backups occur.

I would strongly urge you NOT to change to consolidation as this would greatly increase the possibility that your pst file would not restore properly. If the "store no more than 10 recent version chains" to to many to keep, then change the 10 to a smaller number of chains.

I am not an advocate of editng a task so it would be best to stop the old task and start a new task but before you do, tell us the results of the log examination so we can determine if there is a path problem which we wouldn not want to carry over into the new task.

Thank you GroverH for your further help. I have re-read your comments about my backup schedule and now appreciate the finer points you make - thanks.

I am away from my machine for a few days and will do as you suggest and report back here in due clourse. Thanks once again.

Apologies for the delay in further postings - Christmas and New year etc.

TI 2013 is now performing a backup of my Outlook folder, but, even though it is performing an incremental backup everyday at noon, the incremental backup file size would indicate that the incremental backup file is in fact a full backup.

Please see attached screen capture of what has been backed up to my wifi connected NAS drive. You will see that whilst the backup is happening everyday with no problems, the incremental back up file is virtually the same size as that of a full backup (?) We only receive a few emails each day, and I would expect the incremental file being backed up on the NAS drive to be in the order of a few KB. But as you can see, the incremental backup file is increasing by a few KB everyday but the entire Outlook file appears to be being backed up - and not just the differences between the previous day's Outlook file and 'todays' Outlook file which is about to be backed up.

Consequently the daily backup (of over GB of data) takes way too long and occasionally we close the computer down before the backup is completed, hence why you can see in the screen shot that occasionally TI has to take 2/3 bites at the cherry during the day to perform the backup. I would expect a daily incremental back up of a few KB of Outlook data to take less than a minute - but it insists on doing a full backup and takes ages and ages.

I have looked at the log file, and there are no errors or problems reported with the performance of the backup - it says it has successfully completed and verified an incremental backup - but it hasn't (?), it's yet again performed full back up !! What is going on please?

To illustrate the point further, I have attached a screenshot of my NAS drive after TI2013 has performed todays incremental backup of my Outlook folder.

Please note that once again, despite the file being described (by TI) as an incremental backup, it appears to have performed a full backup of the Outlook file which is slightly bigger than yesterday's file because in the course of the last 24 hours I have received a few emails. I would have expected today's incremental backup to be in the order of a few KB not yet another GB+ full backup!

I'm always tearing my hair out with this product - should I ditch it once and for all? Can no-one offer any advice as to what is going on here? Please?

Edit: I've now attached today's Log file which clearly shows TI thinks it is performing an incremental back up and nota full back up.

Michael,
I am not familiar with a pst file but it appears that your contents are inside one single file and the backup each time is of the one file.
Perhaps someone else can help you.

My understanding is that the Outlook.pst file is where Outlook stores all a 'users' information concerning their email account. So, including the contents of the in-box, out-box, sent, contacts, addresses etc etc.

I've attached a screenshot of our PC.

I would imagine hundreds and thousands of TI users must be using it to backup their email accounts, for most casual users I would have thought it must be amongst their most important information of their PC?

This is most extraordinary. Thanks for your reply.

Sorry to resurrect this thread but I am still trying to sort this problem out - that being that TI still appears to be doing a FULL backup of my Microsoft Outlook .pst file everyday instead of a much smaller incremental back up each day.

To recap, basically I set TI up to do a complete backup of my Outlook.pst file - this is about 1.5GB of data. I then set it up to do an incremental backup of the same file each day at noon. My thoughts being that generally as I only receive a few emails every day then the incremental backup would only be a few KB of data and the backup would be performed in a few seconds - easy! Or so I thought.

But what is happening is that although TI is performing a daily incremental backup of the .pst file, in fact that backup is a full backup of the Outlook.pst file - and not just the changes to it.

I let this slide for a while but am looking at it again. I have set the TI task up to send me an email after the backup and I've copied below the latest email :

1 Information 17/05/2014 13:21:10 Backup reserve copy attributes: format tib; need_reserve_backup_copy false;
2 Information 17/05/2014 13:21:10 Operation 5830TG pst file daily backup at noon. started by schedule.
3 Information 17/05/2014 13:21:10 Operation description: Stage Description.
4 Information 17/05/2014 15:31:51 Backup reserve copy attributes: format tib; need_reserve_backup_copy false;
5 Warning 17/05/2014 15:31:59 The initial full backup version is not accessible at the moment.
6 Warning 17/05/2014 15:31:59 Error occurred while opening the file.
7 Warning 17/05/2014 15:31:59 The network path was not found
8 Information 17/05/2014 15:32:08 Access to the file or folder is denied.
9 Information 17/05/2014 15:32:08 Access is denied
10 Information 17/05/2014 15:32:38 Reattempting the operation. Error: Access to the file or folder is denied..
11 Information 17/05/2014 15:32:38 Access to the file or folder is denied.
12 Information 17/05/2014 15:32:38 Access is denied
13 Information 17/05/2014 15:32:49 Create Backup Archive From: C:\Users\Lynn\Documents\Outlook files\outlook2.pst
To file: "5830TG_pst_file_daily_backup_at_noon_inc_b15_s2_v1.tib" Compression: Normal Exclude: System files
14 Information 17/05/2014 15:32:52 Writing incremental version to file: 5830TG_pst_file_daily_backup_at_noon_inc_b15_s2_v1.tib
15 Information 17/05/2014 15:39:26 The following backups have been successfully created: "\\MYBOOKLIVE\Acronis_5830TG_share\Incremental email backups\5830TG_pst_file_daily_backup_at_noon_inc_b15_s2_v1.tib"
16 Information 17/05/2014 15:39:30 Validate Backup Archive Location: "\\MYBOOKLIVE\Acronis_5830TG_share\Incremental email backups\5830TG_pst_file_daily_backup_at_noon_inc_b15_s2_v1.tib"
17 Information 17/05/2014 16:02:20 Operation has succeeded.

I am wondering if the feedback from the TI email is telling me, in lay mans terms:

I cannot find the previous backup or do not have permission to have access to it, so, I am still going to perform an incremental backup of the Outlook.pst file but if fact I am going to have to backup the entire Outlook.pst file because I cannot access the previous backup of this file.

So, if TI can access my NAS drive such that it can write a incremental backup and validate it, (ie read back successfully that backup) - why can it not find the previous backup versions?

Any thoughts?

It might help if you would post a screen capture of your main menu shows how the tasks are listed; and also post a screen capture of the backup scheme for any of the task listed on the main menu.