Weekly Backup strategy

HELP: Weekly Backup strategy

I would like to have a 1 week hystory as far as the image backup of the HD is concerned. I created a task whick perform a full backup image every friday.
Then I created a another task which create incremental backup on monday ,tuesday ....till friday included. My question is : can ,with this strategy ,choose to recover the image of a particular day in a week ? (will I have a one week hystory?) IMHO I should always had no more then 6 files stored in my external USB HD, because the full back uo should overwrite the old one .....I am right ??.....I've consulted the guide but it is not very exhaustive..

TIA

 

Re:HELP.. Weekly Backup strategy

I have changed task..
1)on every monday a I scheduled a full backup (I have prevently created a full backup manually)

2)on tuesday,wed,thu,friday I sheduled an incremental backup

Is that correct to have a 1 week history ?

suppose I will have 5 files (1 full, 4 incremental) always in my external HD

When I have to recover ...say wednesday...which file do I have to select ?

Please Help me in understanding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I do something simular, however I make a full backup every day to a different directory. On Monday I make a full backup to a directory called "Monday", on Tuesday I backup to Tuesday and so on. That way when Monday rolls around again I do not loose the incremental backup from Sunday. I always have a full week of daily backups, however is does use more space this way.

 

To more directly answer your question, pick any of the backup files. TI will read through the full backup and the incremental files and give you a list of all the backup points. Then you just pick the day you want to restore.

 

Hello aries58net,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Each incremental backup depends on previous one (or on full if there is no previous incrementals). It means that if you recreate the full image you won't be able to use incrementals you create to the full that was replaced. If you need to have a "week history" it would be better to create one full (let's call it full1) once in a fortnight and another one (full2) once a fortnight as well but a week later. Then you need to schedule incrementals to each of the full backups to be created once in a fortnight. In this case you will certainly have the history of one full week and another history containing part of the week.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

 

well i did not quite get what u mean..I need to go back 5 days ..anyway I do not have enough space to create more than 1 full backup...I repeat my question :
1 full backup on monday
2 tuesday incremental
3 wednesday incremental
4 thursday incremental
5 friday incremental

(saturday and sunday nothing because no change will be made due simply to the fact that the server obviously wont work!!)

and so on with the weeks to come

1) will I be able to recover whatever day (within a week?)
2) will I have no more than 5 files stored onto my ext HD (1 for the full
backup, 4 for the incrementals) ?
3) if it is so, to recover , say wednesday of a week, do I have to select the
full image and then TI propose me which day to choose from the back up
set ??

TIA

 

Hello aries58net,

I am sorry for the vagueness of the instructions.

With your strategy you will always have 5 files. However, there is a problem. Let's assume you need to restore the image on Tuesday (though I hope you will never have to restore the image other than in testing purposes). You will be able to restore only full backup from Monday but not older incremental images because these incrementals depend on the previous full image that was replaced with the new one.

If you need to restore on Thursday, for example, you will be able to restore only full backup and incrementals from Tuesday and Wednesday but not the one from Friday previous week. In fact the whole history will be available only on week-ends and Mondays before the new full backup is created.

To restore the image you need to launch Acronis True Image, click on the "Restore Image" button and choose any part of the image (full or incremental). You will be given a list of dates when the images were made and you may choose any you wish.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

 

Aries58net,

You could take my TiRolls script (see the TiRoll thread) and alter it for 2 weekly rotations, instead of months like I have it now.

 

Now I get the idea ..may be with 2 separate job as I described above which alternate week by week..or 5 full backup (but no enough room!)
Anyway thank you all ...I am gonna to try to find out the best solution.
(think I'm gonna buy a 400GB ext HD!!!!)

 

Ilya ..I am going to take in serious consideration the back up plan u previously explained...can u please explain me again in more details ...and by the way ....how many files will I have with this solution...?

TIA

 

I've counted 22/23 files with the 2 backup solution on a fortnight basis ...is that correct ??...it'll be a bit of a lot of files ...ILYA please HELP?
I.m searchin for the simplest solution...do not want to use script!!

TIA

 

Hello aries58net,

If you wish to use the first strategy I proposed you will get 10 files permanently (or 14 if you create images on weekends as well).

Let me explain in details how the proposed strategy works:
1. First schedule the full image (let's call it Full1) once in a fortnight (let's assume on Mondays once in two weeks);
2. Then we schedule the incremental image creation twice in a fortnight but choose each work day except Monday in the appropriate screen.
3. After that you will need to wait a week to schedule similar backups for other weeks (once in a fortnight as well - Full2 and incrementals to it).

Finally, the process goes in the following way:
Week1, Monday - the Full1 is created;
Week1, Tuesday to Friday - incrementals to Full1 are created;
---------------------------------------
New schedule task is created (for other weeks, described in point 3)
---------------------------------------
Week2, Monday - the Full2 is created;
Week2, Tuesday to Friday - incrementals to Full2 are created;
Week3, Monday - old Full1 is replaced with the new Full1;
Week3, Tuesday to Friday - old incrementals to Full1 are replaced with new ones (one file per day);
Week4 - the same process but for Full2 and its incrementals.

Please note that everywhere during scheduling you will need to choose Weekly option and set "Each 2 weeks" in the next screen.

Hope this helps. If you have any questions concerning this strategy please feel free to ask.

Thank you.
--
Ilya Toytman

 

How can you do this, if it is impossible to set a start date to a backup? You'd have to wait a week to schedule the backup. Scheduling could be so much improved!

TiRoll can easily be modified for weeklies, and no orphaned incrementals too

 

I'm scheduling a full backup every week on Sunday and incremental backups Mon-Sat. Once the next Sunday arrives, I will erase the previous backups. Won't that work? (I haven't done this yet as I've just installed TI).

Not to sound to naive, but what is a fortnight?

 

Thank u ILYA
before creating the incremental tasks, suppose I have to wait for the full image to be created? (what if an incremental task starts without a full its full image previously created??)....

when a full backup is replaced by a new one , does Acronis TI automatically delete its relevant incremental images

How will TI handle this 2 bi-weekly images (and its incrementals) stuff ?? will not it be a little confusing for it to correctly manage ?

why do I have to wait 1 week ....

sorry for making to many question , but I need to understand...

TIA

BTW a fortnight is simply a period 2 weeks long

 

Hello aries58net,

Yes, if you start incremental task without a full image, the program creates the full image at first.

When a full image is replaced by a new one, Acronis True Image doesn't delete its corresponding incremental images. If you create the image to Acronis Secure Zone: the images saved to Acronis Secure Zone are deleted automatically if required, using the following scheme to clean up Acronis Secure Zone:
- If there is not enough free space in Acronis Secure Zone to create an image,
then Acronis True deletes the most old full image with all subsequent incremental backup images.
- If there is only one full image (with subsequent incremental backup images) left
and full backup is in progress, then this only full image (with subsequent incremental backup images) is deleted.
- Otherwise (only one full image left, and incremental backup is in progress) then
you will get out of space error. In this case you will have to either create full
image or increase the Acronis Secure Zone size.

If you don't understand me please ask the questions. I will try to explain all the questions.

Thank you.
--
Irina Shirokova

 

I recently got an external 400GB external USB HD. Think I better do without creating any secure zone; at least if I have to implement the above mentioned backup strategy (the one suggested by Ilya) which means to maintain the first job when a new one is created (so I can go back one week whatever day I may I decide to )...correct me if I am wrong...

TIA

 

Hello aries58net,

You are absolutely correct. Ilya suggested you the good strategy and you can go back one week at any time.

Thank you.
--
Irina Shirokova