ATI 110 Archive Management -- File Quota Feature not functional

If you define a manged location and set the quota to, for example, 3 files, the managed location is supposed to automatically delete a file before writing another backup to that managed location. However, ATI ignores the file number quota.

 

I got it to work. Not sure if this is useful, but this what I did.
I set the Backup location, setting 'Maximum\number of backups' to 6
Then created a backup task.
On the 'Backup Archive Location' page, I chose my backup location from the 'Backup Locations' branch of the tree.
On the 'Backup Policy' screen I chose 'Create differential backups', checked the option 'Create a new full backup after' and set the value to 3.
I now did a few backups using this task.
I did 6 backups and got:

2006_10_18_20_46_51_906F.TIB 2,714KB
2006_10_18_20_46_51_906F2.TIB 3KB
2006_10_18_20_46_51_906F3.TIB 3KB
2006_10_18_20_46_51_906F4.TIB 3KB
2006_10_18_20_51_05_125F.TIB 2,714KB
2006_10_18_20_51_05_125F2.TIB 3KB

After the 7th, I got:

2006_10_18_20_46_51_906F.TIB 2,714KB
2006_10_18_20_46_51_906F2.TIB 3KB
2006_10_18_20_46_51_906F3.TIB 3KB
2006_10_18_20_51_05_125F.TIB 2,714KB
2006_10_18_20_51_05_125F2.TIB 3K
2006_10_18_20_51_05_125F3.TIB 3K

After the 8th I got:

2006_10_18_20_46_51_906F.TIB 2,714KB
2006_10_18_20_46_51_906F2.TIB 3KB
2006_10_18_20_51_05_125F.TIB 2,714KB
2006_10_18_20_51_05_125F2.TIB 3KB
2006_10_18_20_51_05_125F3.TIB 3KB
2006_10_18_20_51_05_125F4.TIB 3KB

 

I'll ahve to try that when I get back on Monday. Maybe it only works with diff and incs?

Maybe it only works with scheduled task run on a schedule?

No clue to this in the help file.

 

How do you get to the backup policy screen?

 

If I select Diff, then it will rename files by appending a 1, 2, ... etc. but it keeps making files and leaving old ones behind.

I can't find a place to set when it automatically makes a new full instead of an diff.

 

Found one problem. I wasn't getting the ATI 10 schedule wizard.



I had, following the guide installed over ATI 9-3677. So I uninstalled and reinstalled ATI10 and I still get the older looking backup mode screen without any choices of how many diffs to do before doing a full.

And each time I run the task I get a new backup file,-- with the threshold at 6, I get file 7, 8, 9 . . .

And if you choose full, you get an overwritten file each time the task is run.

Drat. I'm back to the darn batch files.

What the f........?

 

On the Backup Location screen, are you choosing the location from the new 'Backup Locations' branch at the top of the folder tree?
I'm not scheduling anything, just creating a task and running it manually.
Apart from that, I can't think of any other reason why it's not working for you.

 

Just had another think about this and I guess the backup policy options will only be available when creating a repeatable task i.e. not much point setting them when specifying the parameters for a one-off backup.

 

I can use the defined location or not, in either case, I don't get the Version 10 backup policy screen, I get the onld version 9 mode screen.

I don't have to "rename" files if ATI will automaticlaly give new names and not overwrite. I'd like to set up a schedule that limts the number of fulls to say 10, and then start overwriting in the order written -- oldest overwritten first.

I'm following the instructinos, I'm just not getting the screens that I'm supposed to get and I'm not getting an limits inforced on the number fo backups in a defined backup location.

 

I am having the exact same problem, what i did notice was some errors in the Windows event log, these errors accur when using the Create Backup Location, Edit Backup Location & Delete Backup Location wizards when you click next on any of the screens within the wizards.

http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/9026/ati10errorpm2.png
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/194/pic1ht2.png
http://img398.imageshack.us/img398/6343/pic2rg5.png
http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/9043/pic3sw9.png

 

Thanks very much to JonWallace!

The manual doesn't make it at all clear that you have to select a folder from the "Backup Locations" branch when you set up your scheduled task to specify the backup policy, otherwise you get the V9.0 schedule options. It now works for me. I

If you choose a folder which is included in the Backup Locations, but you specified it under "My Computer" for example, it still doesn't work. It has to be selected via "Backup Locations". Nice one JonWallace.

Cheers, BlackCat3.

 

Yes, precisely what led to my problem and I am guessing others will make the same mistake I did, i.e., selecting the backup location off of the directory tree (selcting the managed directory under the Drive -- which won't work foor autonaming) instead of selecting from under the tree location called "Backup Locations". So that clears up the autonaming and the issue of getting the backup policy screen. Don't understand why the destination appears in two places onthe tree or why choosing the same location from diff places on the tree makes ATI behave diff. -- but that's how it works.

However, ATI 10 still seems happy to make more backup files than the limit set in the manged location setup. I set the limit at 13 and had 18 files when I stopped testing the filenumber threshold.

 

I missed it too. Wasted too much time on the documentation. RTFM and forget about it.

 

A couple of quirks I've noticed when restoring with this feature:

If you restore via the backup location, even though you can choose a specific archive in order to restore to a particular point in time, you always get a full restore. If you restore via the normal drive path, you can restore to a particular point in time.

The other oddity is that when restoring, the Archive Date Selection screen shows all of the archives as Differential when clearly one of them (the first one) is a Full backup. This is slightly disconcerting! Í think this happens after the auto-deletion stuff has kicked in.

These may be a bugs, but they're probably expected behaviour - just a pity the documentation is so poor.

 

Hello d.chatten,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please note that we have forwarded a request to Acronis Quality Assurance Team regurding the behavior of Acronis True Image 10.0 Home you have described in you post#10. We will let you know the results of their investigation as soon as possible. As this can take a few days, we apologize in advance for any delay with response.

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov

 

Hello shieber,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please note that the Backup Location is a regular folder which becomes accosiated with Acronis True Image 10.0 Home after you specified path to this folder in the "Create and Configure Backup Locations" Wizard. Therefore, this folder can be accessed as a regular folder from the drives tree. However, if you would like to use it to store the backup archives and use backup rules you have specified for Backup Location you should select the needed backup location from the special section in the drives tree ("Backup Location").

Please note that this is a very strange behavior of Acronis True Image 10.0 Home. Therefore, could you please do the following:

- Create a new backup location (or delete all backup archives from the current backup location);

- Set the value "maximum number of backups" in backup rules to two (2).

Now start to create backup archives (small backups) to this backup location. As soon as the limitation will exceeded collect the log file from Acronis True Image 10.0 Home that contains the information about this (third backup) creation. Then submit a request for technical support with the subject indicating that you want to contact Aleksandr Isakov. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with a solution.

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov

 

Hello jonwallace,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please note that we have forwarded a request to Acronis Quality Assurance Team regurding the behavior of Acronis True Image 10.0 Home you have described in you post#14. We will let you know the results of their investigation as soon as possible. As this can take a few days, we apologize in advance for any delay with response.

Thank you.
--
Aleksandr Isakov

 

I have now got everything working ok, but , i still see the errors in the Windows event viewer that i reported in post #10, i will look forward to a response from Acronis on this issue.

 

What you need to do is when you create a backup location, you need to set the backup limit to 14, then when you create a scheduled task, set the option "create a new full backup after" 13 incremental/differential backups.

This worked for me when i set the limit to 2 and create new full backup after 1 incremental backup.

 

Thaks jonwallace, that's good info to have on hand.

sh

 

Actually, I don't really want to make diff or inc backups at all, just a series of full backups and then overwrite them, oldest overwritten first. this is supposed to be possible with ATI 10 if you selct backup policy of Full -- there's even a little note at the bottom fo the backup policy screen that says so.

I'm missing something or ATI 10 is missing something that prevents the file number limit from being am effective limit. But whatever it is, it doesn't seem to be in the "manual".

 

I get different results depending on what I'm backing up when using policies. If I set the policy-based backup to use a "Backup Location" and set it up as a differential backup, then:

1. Selecting an entire partition for backup creates the first backup file as a full backup but with a "D" suffix.

2. Selecting some folders to backup to another "Backup location" also creates the backup file as a full backup but gives it an "F" suffix.

Looks to me like it's incorrect when doing the first differential backup of a partition.

 

Nope, all my partition backups get a "D" suffix while all my folder backups get "F".

Is this how it's supposed to work? Are we mistaken to assume that "D" means "Differential" and "F" means "Full" (perhaps it means "Disk" and "Files" or "Folders")?

 

I have just tested this with full backups and it worked fine for me, i set the backup limit to two for quickness, then i created a scheduled task to make full backups and ran the task four times, when i was finished i only had two backup archive files, i checked after the third and fourth run and i still only had two archives.

What i also did was disable the time limit when i created the backup location, also, for quickness, i disabled varification in the scheduled task that i created, maybe one of these settings made a difference, but it did work.

 

I've gotten those messages in in thelog also. Curiously, today I deleted the manged directories and recreated them and recreated tasks and now the file limits are working. I'm still getting those errors noted in the log but they don't seem to matter to the filenumber threshold issue.

sh