Differential Backup Excessive

[webuser]

I have two internal hard drives. C for Programs and D for data. True Image 10 is set to run a differential task for each of these drives on Friday am. The backup saves to my external G drive. Differential for D is usually approx 2G and now suddenly the last two differentials have been 12G. As this is my data drive and I have not created any files of 12G is there any way of finding out the difference between the 2G differential and the 12G.

Thanks
Sue

[tuttle]

If your disk has been defragged, or if Checkdisk or other disk repair tool has repaired file or disk errors, then your disk may have changed substantially. Windows Vista is set to automatically defragment the hard drive during idle time, so a lot will change at the disk level. Thus when ATI tries to create a differential, so much has changed that it's essentially creating a full image again.

Unless you delete large files, such as video, your drive's used space and therefore your ATI images are likely to increase over time. Windows Updates alone will add to used space, as will anything you create.

[webuser]

Thanks, Tuttle

I have not downloaded any files (incl Windows XP updates), and no system changes. Only changes made were to a couple of Excel files. Yet the differential increased by 10G. I wondered if Acronis had a utility that could list the changes between original backup and differential so I could locate the gremlin.