TI Server 9 incremental backups. what happens when I run out of disk space?

I have TI 9 server and using incremental backups. What's going to happen when I run out of space on my back up disk?

I have a newer home version and it has a consolidation option. I see no such option on version 9.

will I have to delete all my backups?

 

Generally, people on this forum suggest that no more than 6 incremental backups be made before creating another full backup and starting the incremental chain over again.

The reson is that if any incremental is damaged, no incrementals made after it can be restored. That's a rather dangerous situation if there are many incrementals.

A good backup practice is to have some older, "aged" backups just in case there is a problem such as a virus in the current backup. For aged backups, all that needs to be kept is the original full backup, and the incrementals to that backup can be deleted to save space. Your backups would then look something like:

First old full backup
Second old full backups
Current full backup
Incremental 1 to current full backup
Incremental 2 to current full backup
etc.

When you reach the sixth incremental, you would create a new full backup and delete the First old full backup and any incrementals. etc.

If the hard drive isn't large enough for at least two full backups and the current incrementals, get a second external drive and use both.

Does that answer your question?

 

Ok, thanks. I was hoping for a more automated way.

what about if I use differential backups and delete the interim back ups. That way, I don't have to keep creating new full backups.

Full backup
differential 1
differential 2
....
differential n-1
differential n

At any point, I can delete differentials 1 to n-1 to free up more space.

Is that a sound plan?

 

It should be, but I don't think you will be able to validate the backups if you delete an intermediate differential. I'm not sure on this but I recall that there is something that makes deleting the differentials undesirable.

Differentials also get pretty big rather quickly, so you don't save that much space.

Big backup drives are the answer with room for several full backups and several incrementals. Of course, it's easy for me to spend your money.

 

Hello barth2k,

Thank you for your interesting in Acronis True Image

The only way to achieve the desired result is to use Backup Server. You can schedule Acronis Backup Server to keep only the necessary amount of archives in a Backup Location. There is no Consolidation option in Acronis True Image 9.1 Server for Windows or Acronis True Image 9.1 Enterprise Server.

Best regards,
--
Dmitry Nikolaev