Exclude files from being backed up?

Acronis True Image 9 Home - when I do a full partition backup, is there a way to exclude certain files from being backed up? There is perfectly no need to back up the page.sys file, and the backup would be considerably quicker if I could exclude this (and other unnecessary) files?

Would upgrade to TI 10 provide me with such an option?

 

With Acronis 10 you can create backup rules to exclude certain types of files. Page file is also not backed up.

http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/6170/42457883jv0.jpg

 

The pagefile is not backed up in TI v9. A placeholder appears in the image, but the file is skipped in the backup.

F.

 

A full partition image does not backup the Windows page file or hibernation file by design It does include place holders and these are use to rebuild the files after the system has been restored.

The user has the choice to turn off Windows System Restore completely or delete all but the latest restore point. If more than one Windows restore point is needed the overall storage size can be restricted in Windows settings.

Then there is general houskeeping such as IE temp file removal and deletion of all other temp files.
Just the good old Windows Disk clean up run before a restore can get rid of a lot of junk with little effort.
There are lots of third party disk and registry cleaners about which can shift even more though some are very powerful so make sure you have a usable image in place before trimming your HDD down to the bone.

 

This is true only for a "My Data" (Files and Folder) backup. If you select "My Computer" and check a partition to create an Image, the backup rules do not apply.

 

I assume you are referring to the first sentence only of MTX's quote?

Or are you saying that there are circumstances when V10 now does backup the pagefile?

F.

 

I belive he's saying that the pagefile and hibernation files are never backed up with ATI because they aren't needed for a restore. When you do a full disk/partition backup, you do not have the option to manually deselect any files -- nonetheless, the pagefile and hibernation file will not be backed up.

If you want to exclude other fiels, you have to select My data and do a file backup rather than a disk/partition backup.

 

foghorne,
Yes, first sentence only, and I know of no circumstances when V10 will backup the pagefile. My brain feels somewhat muddled this morning and apparently that is making itself evident through my keyboard. -CF

 

Thanks. I am sticking with V9 until the wheels fall off, so I am quite ignorant about what precisely is in V10.... but then again I could always check the change history

F.

 

Thanks for all the replies - this has been very helpful!

 

If I understand you correctly, setting backup defaults to exclude, say, " *.dat " files...
will have no effect when you perform an initial full partition backup.

So when you do subsequent incremental backups for that same partition -
those prior exclusions you specified still don't apply, right?
bo

 

Hello bolobolo,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please be aware that a drive/partition backup is performed on a drive structure level, not file system one. Therefore, single files/folders cannot be distinguished and separated during a drive/partition backup (either full, or incremental/differential).

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov

 

I hope that you mean that A SPECIFIC file or folder cannot be excluded, because I though that you could exclude file TYPES.

MTX posted above in this thread that you CAN exclude file types and showed a screenshot of this, right?

The acronis page:
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/features-backup.html
also shows excluding files as a feature.

I have a need to backup my linux distro (ubuntu 6.10) on which I'm running mythtv. I want to backup my whole partition, but DO NOT want to backup the recordings. I was hoping to be able to EXCLUDE the *.mpg files. The various Acronis liturature I've found seems to indicate that I can boot from the CD to get a fully-functioning TI10 and, I thought, exclude these files.

Does anyone have any experience with this?

thanks,
eric

 

A couple comments to clarify. TrueImage offers two backup options.

Option A: The entire disk contents or disk partition:
Will backup all files--nothing excluded--except for page file placeholders, etc. User cannot specify any files to be bypassed. The mpg files could need to be moved to another partition to avoid their being included in this type backup. The advantage in using this option is that the entire disk/partition could be restored--if needed.

Option B: Files & Folders:
User chooses files to be included or excluded (except place holders). One major dis-advantge to this type is that the backup has no system recovery options. The only files recoverable is the user files included in the backup.

Note: Audio files and video files and picture files are already somewhat compressed and it is suggested that they be copied/archived ("as is") onto another hard drive or additionally to DVD. Including these in a proprietary backup has caused grief for many.

Reminder: Unless you test your backups via a variety of restore options (discussed frequenty in other posts), you will never know whether your backups will enable you to recover should you have difficulty. Many postings on this forum indicates that far too many users simply perform a backup and hope for the best. Sometimes these backups are not of the right type or validated,or tested, etc. Additional user involvement is a must if you want your backups to provide some sense of security. (TI9 samples)