Criteria for excluding folders

[ericwood]

This has been asked several times but never answered as far as I can tell. What is the syntax for excluding all folders matching a criteria. The use case is if you are using a CM tool like subversion, your working copy will have .svn folders that you want to exclude. The previous suggestions of
1. Specify the absolute path to the folder or
2. Deselect the folders from the backup
aren't practical given the number of the folders and the number of places thay can be found. Is there a way to specify a folder exclusion critiera? I treid /.svn/ and it didn't work. I can do this with DOS xcopy with that exact syntax.

[ericwood]

I am evaluating this software, but frankly I don't see any reason to use it over other tools if it can't exclude folders as I described. I'll assume no response means this isn't possible and I'll go find another tool.

[Acronis Support]

Hello ericwood,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software (http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/).

We are sorry for delayed response.

Please see this previous post (http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1211192&postcount=19) for details on files/folders exclusions.

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov

[tpham33]

I have the same issue with folder exclusions when creating disk image backups. The Create Backup Wizard or Help Contents do not mention how to exclude folders.

It should be a clear user-friendly option, like a directory tree allowing us to select the folders we want to exclude. Instead, we have to write file exclusion criteria to exclude folders. Very annoying.

If I want to exclude the folder C:\temp, what do I have to type?
C:\temp or C:\temp\ or C:\temp\*.* ?
I have multiple folders I want to exclude.
What about sub folders? Are they excluded automatically or do I have to add a criteria for them too?

Will this be addressed in the new build # and when will it be available?

I am also evaluating Acronis True Image 11 and I am switching to Genie Backup 8 if this is not resolved soon. Thanks.

[MrMorse]

-{ Quote: "I have the same issue with folder exclusions when creating disk image backups. " }-
That makes no sense.

An image is an image.
If you want to exclude something then it is not an IMAGE furthermore. It is then a DATA-backup.

[tuttle]

I thought Acronis staff had posted that exclusions were not possible from a full image, that it was possible only from a files-based ("My Data") backup.

[MrMorse]

-{ Quote: "I thought Acronis staff had posted that exclusions were not possible from a full image, that it was possible only from a files-based ("My Data") backup." }-
I don't know whether Acronis staff had posted something about this, but that is what I wanted to say before and that statement makes sense ;)

[shieber]

With ATI11, one can specify masks to to exclude files from a disk/partition backup. It's an added feature that some folks asked for.

The user guide has some instructions on use:

for example:
"Source Files Exclusion

You can apply custom filters, using the common Windows wildcard characters. For example, to exclude all files with extension .bmp, add *.bmp mask."

This suggests that driveletter:\dirname\*.* would be an appropriate format for an exclusion mask. However, I think that one cannot actually specify directories, only file masks when doing full disk/partition images. One can specify masks that include directory names (with or without wildcards) when doing a Mydata backup but not when doing a disk/partition backup.


-{ Quote: "I thought Acronis staff had posted that exclusions were not possible from a full image, that it was possible only from a files-based ("My Data") backup." }-

[tpham33]

-{ Quote: "That makes no sense.

An image is an image.
If you want to exclude something then it is not an IMAGE furthermore. It is then a DATA-backup." }-


Well, I want to make an image of my laptop for disaster recovery but I have limited hard drive space (or I want to minimize the number of DVDs). So I was hoping to exclude certain folders from my image to save some space.

[MrMorse]

-{ Quote: "Well, I want to make an image of my laptop for disaster recovery but I have limited hard drive space (or I want to minimize the number of DVDs). So I was hoping to exclude certain folders from my image to save some space." }-
Then do following:
Save/Burn the certain folders to CD/DVD.
Then delete the folders from your hdd.

(if there are no important folders deleted Windows can start correctly.
NOTE: If Win cannot start without the folders the image you want to create excluding these folders is worthless...)

Then create a full image on your limited hdd.
After that you can copy back the saved folders from CD/DVD to your hdd.

[shieber]

Or instead of futzing around with all this, get yourself a nice big hard drive to use for storing backups. You can get a pocketsized external drive that holds over 200 billion bytes for about $130 - smaller-byte-size drives for even less. If you're willing to use drives with a larger physical size, they are even cheaper yet, cheaper than they've ever been. I always think of CDs/DVDs as a storage medium of last resort -- they are slow, small in byte-size; and generally no more reliable for archive purposes than harddrives.