Backup filling up external drive

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by rjgreer, Jun 13, 2006.

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  1. rjgreer

    rjgreer Registered Member

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    I have a 120 GB hard drive, with about 22 GB used, and am backing up to an 80 GB external hard drive. It has about 24 GB used. I cloned the hard drive, and then elected to do a differential backup daily. Eventually, this will fill up my external drive.
    Can I start over every month or so (erase everything, do a new clone and start backups again)? Can this be done automatically?
    Any suggestions?
     
  2. TheWeaz

    TheWeaz Registered Member

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    First, let’s make sure our terminology is correct.
    Did you really “clone” the drive or did you create a full backup image?
     
  3. rjgreer

    rjgreer Registered Member

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    I did a "clone" from the menu.
     
  4. TheWeaz

    TheWeaz Registered Member

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    IMHO, that’s not what I would do.
    And no, AFAIK, you cannot automate the cloning process.
    I would not bother cloning (which can cause boot problems if you leave both drives attached). I would use the external drive for storing backup image files. If you want to start clean every month, you can schedule a FULL image backup on the 1st and schedule DIFF backups whenever you want. On the 1st of the next month, the FULL image will be overwritten (rendering the DIFFs useless) and then the DIFFs will begin to overwrite themselves.
     
  5. rjgreer

    rjgreer Registered Member

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    I'll give that a try, thanks for the help.
    I figured out AFAIK, but what is IMHO?
     
  6. TheWeaz

    TheWeaz Registered Member

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    In My Humble Opinion
     
  7. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello rjgreer,

    Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

    We are very sorry for the delay with the response.

    First of all, please be aware that, as TheWeaz has already mentioned above, there are two approaches available:

    Clone Disk - transfers the entire contents of one disk drive to another;

    Backup - creates a special archive file for backup and disaster recovery purposes;

    Please take a look at this FAQ article explaining the difference between Clone Disk and Backup approaches in more details.

    The 'Clone Disk' approach is usually used to upgrade the hard drive (e.g. install a larger disk), while the 'Backup' approach is basically dedicated for the complete data backup and disaster recovery purposes. As you are interested in backing up your hard drive for the disaster recovery purposes, we recommend that you follow the 'Backup' approach.

    Moreover, there are several advantages of creating an image over the disk cloning procedure such as: you can create an image without rebooting your PC, image creation can be scheduled for the particular point in time, Acronis True Image allows you to create incremental and differential images, image archive contains only the actual data and so it has a smaller size, images are ordinary files and can be stored on any type of the supported media (e.g. any internal, external or networked drives, CD, DVD, ZIP, etc.), etc. However, the final choice is always up to your needs.

    You can find more information on how to use Acronis True Image 9.0 Home in the respective User's Guide.

    Please also note that if the disk cloning procedure is initialized from under Windows it always requires a reboot and therefore can not be automated in any way.

    You can find the detailed instructions on how to schedule a task for the backup creation using Acronis True Image in Chapter 7 of the above mentioned User's Guide.

    If you have any further questions concerning Acronis software, please feel free to submit a request for technical support or post any of them on this forum. We will certainly try to help you in resolving any issues.

    Thank you.
    --
    Alexey Popov
     
  8. rjgreer

    rjgreer Registered Member

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    Thanks for the help.
    I scheduled a backup for the first day of each month, it shows on the schedule as "New task backup(1) 1 AM, 1st day of every month".
    I then tried to schedule a differential backup every day, and used the existing full backup as the file to attach it to. It shows on the schedule as "New task backup, 2 AM, every day".
    Will this do a differential backup daily, or will it do a complete backup daily?
    Thanks
     
  9. TheWeaz

    TheWeaz Registered Member

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    Right click on the task and a window should open with “Create xxxx Backup Archive” on the top line. The “xxxx” will be Full, Incremental or Differential depending on how you set it up.
    You can also rename your tasks to something more meaningful if you wish. There is an icon in the Active Tasks toolbar.
     
  10. rjgreer

    rjgreer Registered Member

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    Thanks for the quick reply. My scheduled backups are set up as I wanted, full monthly and differential daily.
     
  11. bVolk

    bVolk Registered Member

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    I do only full backups, manually, so I have no experience scheduling.

    Nevertheless, thirty interdependent image files seem many to me. It will be quite a job to isolate the good ones if one of the incrementals goes corrupt, since the validate procedure always checks the whole chain.
     
  12. rjgreer

    rjgreer Registered Member

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    You're suggesting maybe a weekly backup might be better?
     
  13. bVolk

    bVolk Registered Member

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    That's what I had in mind, yes, but let's hear what the scheduling people think.

    It's another world ... :D
     
  14. TheWeaz

    TheWeaz Registered Member

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    You have to decide in how far back you might need to go and how large any missed “in-between” time periods you are willing to do without. For some, 1 backup each month, keeping 3 backups, is fine. For others, backing up everyday, keeping the most current 14 is a must.
    It’s all really up to you to decide your needs.
    “I have 9 scheduled tasks, all Full images.
    One each for the 1st, 8th, 15th, 22nd and 29th.
    A Weekly each Sunday.
    Then three more, one each on Mon & Thu, Tue & Fri and Wed & Sat.
    Once these 9 images are created, they just cycle through and get written over.”
     
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