Removing backup archives

HUH?!?

I am very confused by the text from the user guide (see end of post) on "Removing backup archives."

I can understand why the "successive incremental" backups are deleted, since all incrementals from the last full backup up to the last remaining are needed for a restore. But you should be able to delete ANY differential backup you want without affecting any other, since a differential has all changes since the last full backup. This should hold true whether the backup is disk, partition, or file based.

If the text is wrong, then it should be corrected quickly to avoid confusion. If, however, the text is correct a clear warning should be provided when removing a differential that all differentials newer than the one selected will also be removed. Otherwise, the user could lose much data if they, logically, try to remove the oldest differential backup, and find (SURPRISE) that all of their differentials are deleted.


From the 'TrueImageHome2009_UserGuide_Eng.pdf' (downloaded from the acronis site with TI Home 2009 build 9709):

11.6 Removing backup archives
You may want to remove backups and backup archives you no longer need. Because Acronis
True Image Home stores information on the backup archives in a metadata information
database, deleting unneeded archive files using Windows Explorer will not delete information
about these archives from the database and Acronis True Image Home will consider that
they still exist. This will result in errors when the program tries to perform operations on the
backups that no longer exist. So you must only remove obsolete backups and backup
archives using the tool provided by Acronis True Image Home. To remove the entire backup
archive, select it and click Remove on the toolbar or right-click on the full backup of the
backup archive and choose Remove in the shortcut menu. To remove an incremental or a
differential backup, select it and click Remove on the toolbar or right-click on the selected
backup and choose Remove in the shortcut menu. In this case all other successive
incremental and differential backups created later than the selected incremental or
differential backup will be also deleted. The following screen appears:

 

Hello frodob,

Thank you for using Acronis True Image

The information provided in User guide is correct, the program will delete differential backups created later than the selected differential backup. This behavior is illogical. I will create the appropriate task.

Thank you.

--

Oleg Lee