Scheduled Backup Question

I'm a refugee from Ghost 9.0. It just caused too many problems on my XP SP2 SATA hard drive PC. So I'm trialling TI. There's a lot about TI that's better than Ghost, but not it would seem the scheduling function.

Here's what I'd like to do. I want to create a full backup on a weekly basis. Backups will be created in a folder in a partition of my second hard drive (my E drive). On an ongoing, automatic basis (using SyncBack) I want to copy the backup files from my E drive to an external HD where they will be archived. Therefore, I realise I cannot use the Secure Zone. I would like to hold only one or two backup image at a time on my E Drive. I know that holding only one image happens automatically under the scheduling option where the Secure Zone is not used, as each new backup has the same name and thus overwrites the existing one. My problem arises when I next backup the new image to my external HD, where the more recent file also overwrites the existing one, thus defeating my desire to create an archive of images.

With Ghost, this problem does not arise because Ghost when run under scheduling: 1. gives unique file names to each full backup based on the date and time it was created and 2. has a setting to specify how many old backups should be held and deletes any over that number.

The only solution I can see with TI involves me remembering to manually rename the files on my external HD after they have been transferred there. Am I missing something or is this really my only choice?

Any ideas?

Sally

 

Hello Sally,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

There is a workaround for you. You may schedule two full backup creations once in a fortnight for each. Give the image files different names and you will always have two backup files. To schedule image creation once in a fortnight please choose to schedule "Weekly" and then "Every 2 weeks". Hope this helps.

Thank you.
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Ilya Toytman

 

Sadly,

Using this, when overwriting "week one" for example, the "base" backup is overwritten, but the incremental files remain - it's a bit confusing...

Scheduling is far from what V2I and ghost 9 can do...

 

Hello Tonio,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

If you create incrementals they are overwritten as well since the names of them are the same, for example if MyBackup.tib is the full image the incrementals will be MyBackup1.tib, MyBackup2.tib, etc.

When you restore the image Acronis True Image will determine which incrementals are created for the full you indicated automatically so there is no problem at this point as well.

Thank you.
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Ilya Toytman

 

Ilya,

I still believe this is something worth investing time in - Ghost 9, and especially Livestate, is years ahead in scheduling options - however I feel that Trueimage is the better program when it comes to stability.

In Livestate you can do the following:

A) Schedule a backup to make a base BU at a certain moment (1st day month, monday, ...) - and incrementals at other moments, *in a single scheduling*

B) In the same schedule you can choose the max. base backups to keep. When the base backups go beyond this point, the old base backup *and the incrementals* are deleted, and a new backup is made. A number is added to the filename to show what "set" of backups you are in.

C) When using a lot of incrementals (for example each 4 hours) you can choose to "consolidate" the latest incrementals (each 4 hours, at the end of the day, becomes 1 incremental for one day instead of 6 incrementals)

This is a very lacking part of the Acronis program - major improvements can be made here!

 

Hello TonioRoffo,

Thank you for your input in the improvement of Acronis software. It is really appreciated. We have a special wish-list thread and you are welcome to post here everything you wish to have in our software. We will certainly consider all your wishes.

Thank you.
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Irina Shirokova