differential archives as big as full backup

Hi
Using true image 11 here.
Doing something really simple.

Backup the computer to an external HD and then do differential backups every day.
Now the first full back up was 27Gb which is ok since it is a bout the size of my hard drive (HD of computer not external external one)

But each differential backup is about the same size. Why is that? they should be small.... Now i got 6 archive files and they pretty much already fill up my entire external HD.... i don't get this application.... I read a lot of posts of people being equally confused with the inner workings of true image which is not doing what it should do.
could you explain why my differential archive files are as big as the full backup file?

thanks.

 

Hi,

Did you perform any major operation on your computer's HD after the first full back up, like a defrag or installing/size modifying/deleting the Acronis Secure Zone or anything like that ?

I have performed many different operations with Acronis True Image Home 11, except restoring the disk, and everything has worked very well so far.

 

FrenchGuy,

It seems some people have success with differential images and others don't. Would you mind posting your baseline image size and the sizes of several differential images so we can get an idea of what should be happening?

 

Thanks for the replies.

I didn't do any major changes since my full backup but just to make it really simple, i'll start from scratch tomorrow morning making a fresh full back up on a different external HD and then a differential once the full one is done. Then we'll see what sizes i get.

 

Here it is :

Full image : 18 470 182 KB
Differential #1 : 160 237 KB
Differential #2 : 214 004 KB
Differential #3 : 220 350 KB
Differential #4 : 393 850 KB

 

FrenchGuy,

Thank you. Your results are what I expected and are consistent with other imaging apps that create differential images.

Yannickm, you have a problem but I'm afraid I don't have an answer.

 

Hi yannickm,

Just to be sure : in the Acronis True Image Backup wizard, you must give exactly the same name (directory and .tib filename) to the differential backup as the one you gave to the full backup. When the differential backup will be performed, Acronis will add a sequential number to the file generated on your HD.

 

Just wanted to let you know that it works well.
Not sure what i as doing wrong before but i kept it very simple this time, used a new ext HD and did not create any secure zone or backup location thingy.
Just made an independent fullback up.

Then create a new backup and chose differential pointing to the the full back up i had created first. Things are appending well and with a reasonable size.

That's all i need acronis for so i'm a happy camper...

Fullback up: 23 Gb.
Diffe#1: (done a few minutes after): 500 Mb (big considering that i did it right away)
Diff#2: 949 Mb
Diff#3: 1,328 Mb
Diff#4: 1,353 Mb

thanks.

 

I just stumbled across this thread and I'm wondering if anyone has any further information on this as I'm running into the same issues. My original backup size is around 27GB and every weekly incremental that I do is in the same neighborhood (I am however using True Image 10 as opposed to 11).

Are there options in Acronis that I am not aware of? It's almost like Acronis assumes every single file has been modified/accessed when that is obviously not the case. Doesn't Acronis look at some things such as FFT granularity, etc?

Do I have to use NTP to keep the clock on my PC synch'd, is Acronis that sensitive to slight changes?

 

It treats any sector that's been written to as "new data", so if you move a file, it will show up as new to ATI. If you defrag, all the sectors that get written to show up as new even though, with a defrag, only old data got shuffled around.

Also many system files get opened for writing, sys restore, etc.

Silver lining? Well, at least ATI doesn't rely on the unreliable backup archive bit ;-) and at least it knows not to bother with the page or hibernation files.

 

Interesting. I believe that Windows Vista does an automatic defrag on the filesystem quite frequently and that could possibly account for the large incremental sizes.

Sadly it sounds like I will have to abandon doing incremental backups and just stick to doing periodic full system backups.

 

That's what I do. It keeps things so simple. And I can copy any file out of the archive or restore the entire disk.

However, if you don't like the automatic defragging, I belive you can turn it off in Visata by:

1. Start
2. Control Panel
3. Select Control Panel Home
4. Select System and Maintenance
5. Find the Administrative Tools section at the bottom, select Defragment Your Hard Drive
6. You may need to grant permission to open the disk fragmenter -- don't you have to grant permission to almost anything under Vista?
7. Anyway deselect Run Automatically. Or select if if you want to re-enable auto-defragging
8. select OK


This is one thing MS still let's the user decide without turning too many somersaults.

have fun

 

Ya, the original idea was to do a single 20-30GB backup and then do incrementals every 30 days to keep the size down.

Otherwise I would probably just do full system backups every 90 days and purge the oldest, keeping maybe 3 on file.

It's already challenging as I don't like the way that Acronis handles backup of user data in Vista (it doesn't recognize the new "users" folder and tries to just backup a few document folders)... so I'm forced to rely on a batch script that runs robocopy and keeps everything synchronized that way to an external drive (in the event of data loss, etc).

Acronis is absolutely stellar at image backup and restoration, and sadly somewhat mediocre at everything else.

 

The user folder is really just a filter isn't it, not a true folder?

Still it would be nice if ATI could replicate what you want replicated.

 

Users is a real, "physical" folder on %systemroom%. All of the old "my documents" folders, etc, are sort of like symbolic links now into the appropriate folder for that user in the new "users" folder.

Acronis by default selects "my documents" even in Acronis 11 (loaded on my wife's Vista laptop) which really doesn't back everything up and relies on a somewhat outdated linking strategy.

Definitely it would be nice if Acronis offered a system to do folder backup and mirroring to an external location, as opposed to forcing that everything be dumped to a .TIB file.