Full and Differential backup plan

I am using version 9.1 Windows Server version.

Just implementing the backup plan now and running some tests with diffs, pre, post cmds etc. Good so far.

Though, I would like to clarify if what I understand is correct.
Am backing up from the server to an ext USB drive that's connected to a host pc. This works ok.
Its a 200gb drive in the target USB drive and the server's full image backup is about 20GB - this is a full drive image - NOT files and folders.
There's no need to backup everyday so the plan is:
- 1 weekly full backup. i.e. sunday night
- 2 or 3 differentials per week. i.e. Wed and Sat.

In this case I WANT the diffs and full backups to be overwritten every week.
Just need to capture a week's worth then start over.
Will this happen unattended if I schedule it this way?
I don't want to have the 2.tib, 3.tib, 4, etc files continue on building in numbers for fear of running out of hard drive space!
I don't prefer to have to manually move files around to make room.

If this works as expected, maybe I'll use a 2 week window.
Or maybe 1 full image per month and 2 or 3 diffs per week - still overwriting the diffs each week, doin 1 full per month. Does this make sense?

Am flexible and whichever makes sense and uses less drive space and drive activity.
Hardly any changes on the O/S side - why would one do frequent
full images? Don't want to create separate files and folders images for data - easier just to grab all with image backup.

Thanks - good looking product so far!

 

Hello TFVersion1,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Server Disk Backup Software.

We are very sorry for the delay with the response.

First of all, please be aware that there are no any special recommendations on which types of backups you should create and how often you should create them. In fact, it always depends on your particular needs.

Please also note that if you have already created a set of backups consisting of one full backup and several subsequent incremental\differential backups and the new full backup is created overwriting the old one then all subsequently created incremental\differential backups will overwrite the old ones as well.

Generally, there are four different ways to limit the amount of backups created by Acronis True Image:

- Use Backup Server feature (available in Acronis True Image 9.1 Workstation and Acronis True Image 9.1 Enterprise Server for Windows only, details can be found in section 3.5 of the corresponding User's Guides);

- Use Acronis Secure Zone (see section 3.3 of Acronis True Image 9.1 Server for Windows User's Guide for further details);

- Use batch file (script) which deletes or renames images as a pre\post-backup command (see section 5.3.3 of the above mentioned User's Guide);

In the pre\post commands fields of the backup archive creation options you can specify commands or batch files to be automatically executed before and after the backup procedure. You can use any commands supported by Windows command line interface or enter a path to the batch file written in terms of standard Windows scripting rules (see this Microsoft Knowledge Base Article for details).

Please also take a look at this previous post of mine providing the example of a batch file automatically renaming backups in accordance with the current date.

- Schedule several pairs of tasks so that several sets of images covering several last weeks\months will be created (see these previous threads for details: Can TI9 control the number of backup sets?, differential back up Q's).

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

 

Ok thanks. So there's no need to delete the diffs or incr. ahead of time you say? They will overwrite and not accumulate... (Why do I still fell unsure with that.. I don't know.) I have to do it I guess.

Before I read this post, I went ahead and found a way to do this with a pre-cmd... ..delete or rename any or all of the backup files based on which day it was .oh well.

T