How to create image with incrementals? Acronis True Image Home 2009

Acronis True Image Home 2009
Windows XP Pro sp2
250GB system drive
1TB external USB 2.0 backup drive

Have read the manual, the online help, created sample backups - yet cannot figure out how to do what I want and, what I think everyone would want.

I just want an image (full backup) created of my system drive (to external USB drive) each week; and an incremental run every night.

I want to keep 4 weeks worth of this, with each weeks full/incremental backups being a separate archive.

So, at the end of 4 weeks, I would have four "tib" files on the backup drive. Each tib would contain a full backup and all 6 incrementals. Then, when the fifth week is reached, it erases the oldest tib and starts anew.

Can someone tell me how? The help pdf does not seem to match the product in every detail.

This seems like it should be a good product, but quite ambiguous and vague so far. I am reserving judgement as perhaps I don't have the gist of it yet.

thanks
Jeff

 

I have the same question. Would it be possibel that someone from Actronis Support could step in here. Why is backup only on Macs easy? An function like "Time Machine" is all what is required.

Thanks,
Tom

 

Same issue here but with a slightly different version.

I can only image that it will take an external script to do the archive set management.

(Hint Hint)
It would also be nice if the session log could be redirected to an external user defined text file instead of email or Winpopup

What a pain in the Axx.

Maybe Acronis has a Generic magic answer.

 

I have the exact same requirement. My problem is that the "incremental" keeps not finding the night before's file. I use the file name ABCWeekly[date].tib and it keeps changing the file name EVERY night and doing a full backup EVERY night with a new file name. I would like to be able to schedule once then not have to worry about changing anything after that. What am I doing wrong - or - does Acronis know how a real working company does their day-to-day work? You set the schedule and walk away - it should know that on Friday is the full backup and the other nights should point to that backup and do an incremental. The way it appears you have to do it (since the manual is of NO help) is to name your full file "ABCWeekly[date].tib" then point your incremental files to the full file. Which means you have to reschedule every week to point the incremental to the new full. Not very good way to go.

What am I missing here?

BTW - I'm using True Image Echo Server for Windows - it has the same issue as True Image Home.

 

levinhu: Check your message box.

cheers

 

Hello all,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

In order to create scheme mentioned by jjjones, you should do the following:

1. Create a task for daily incrementals backups
2. Define the backup policy to create full backup after N=6 incrementals.

First, the program will create full backup, and will proceed to create incrementals up to 6. When sixth backup is created - software will create the full one.

Regarding erasing: there's no such option of "clean" erasing in current version of the software, but the program can consolidate the backups from one chain to the full one, so you will be able to delete unnecessary backups after.

Please keep in mind that full information about backup policy is available in 5.3.4 chapter of User's Guide, which can be downloaded here.

Thank you.
--
Alexander Nikolsky

 

jjjones,

There is a way of implementing the backup plan you want, though it will require four scheduled tasks, as well as patience because implementing the plan will require three weeks.

Let's assume you start creating the tasks on Sunday.
a) When you come to the "Scheduling" step while configuring the first backup task, choose the "Weekly" option, set "Run the task every 4 weeks", then select all seven days of week and set the start time.
b) At the "Backup method" step choose the Incremental method, select the "Create a new full backup after" checkbox and set "6" in the number of backups field. In addition, check the "Remove old archives" box. After that finish configuring the task.
c) Next Sunday create the second backup task with the same settings as the first one.
Caution: When creating the second task, make sure that the target archive name differs from the archive name assigned in the first task, because if the names are identical the backups created by the second task will overwrite those created by the first one.
d) On Sundays two and three weeks later create the third and fourth backup tasks as above assigning different archive names.
When all four tasks run, they will implement precisely the backup plan you want.

BTW, a single tib file can't contain full and incremental backups, but you can create 4 folders for separate archives and in such a case you needn't assign different backup archive names.

Vlad