Incremental Backup

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by Phil B., Jun 1, 2005.

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  1. Phil B.

    Phil B. Registered Member

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    On 5/29 I diid a full backup of my system, 22+GB. On 5/30 did an incremental backup, 692+MB, On 5/31 another incremental, 498+MB and on 6/1 another incremental 288+MB. I thought as I did incrementals each day the size of the incremental file would increase each day.

    Is the above correct or did I do something wrong? Any help appreciated. Thanks.

    Phil B.
     
  2. TonioRoffo

    TonioRoffo Registered Member

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    Nope, each incremental is an incremental of the one before. You need to have the base, all "in-between" and your last incremental to be able to restore. So it's true, sometimes they are smaller, sometimes larger.

    Differential backups (not currently in TI) are what you are thinking. Here you only need the base backup, and the differential of a certain day to restore the backup - these would have the tendency to grow, as your base backup is getting older and older, and more "different" data is found every day.
     
  3. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello Phil B,

    Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

    Incremental backup is based on the first full backup and on all previously made incremental backups. It contains only changes in drive image that have been made since the last incremental backup (or since the full backup if there is no one incremental yet). You can safely delete the latest incremental backup but you cannot delete the middle one or the oldest one.

    Thank you.
    --
    Irina Shirokova
     
  4. Phil B.

    Phil B. Registered Member

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    Irina & Tonio,

    Thanks for the info re: Incrementals.

    Phil B.
     
  5. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello Phil B.,

    If you have any questions concerning our software, please feel free to contact us.

    Thank you.
    --
    Irina Shirokova
     
  6. bobat

    bobat Registered Member

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    This graphic is a simple way to visualize the difference between incremental and differential backups.
     

    Attached Files:

  7. Menorcaman

    Menorcaman Retired Moderator

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    Hi bobat,

    Nice!
    Regards
     
  8. Lauchlan Mackinnon

    Lauchlan Mackinnon Registered Member

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    Are there plans for a differential backup feature?

    I think I would prefer this as I think it would take less space and I wouldn't need to be careful about keeping all the old increments.

    Thanks

    Lauchlan Mackinnon
     
  9. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello Lauchlan,

    We do plan to implement differential backup feature in future versions of Acronis True Image. Currently you can create differential backups by moving last incrementals to another folder.

    Thank you.
    --
    Ilya Toytman
     
  10. Menorcaman

    Menorcaman Retired Moderator

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    Hello Laughlan,

    Actually, I think you'll find that differential images would take more space (each differential contains all the changes since the full image) than the same number of incrementals.

    Regards
     
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