Acronis backup autorotation script

Group members,

In the interest of furthering the use and testing of Acronis Backup, I am submitting the attached backup rotation script which I developed for my personal installation of Acronis version 9.0. My operating environment is a Windows XP Home (SP2) computer (HP ZV6130 AMD64 w/ 1.25GB RAM and 80GB hard disk), a Small Business Server 4.5 LAN (10/100 ethernet, 500MHZ server and 160GB shared hard disk), with backup to a 250GB external NAS storage device on the 10/100 LAN.

The attached script is in the form of a DOS/NT bat file which is called from Acronis 9.0 prior(*) to the backup operation being performed. (*-users should be careful of this priority because backups are rotated prior to the actual backup operation... therefore test carefully on your systems). It may be possible to develop additional protection by reversal of the backup rotation in the event a new backup is not made, but I have not provided this capability in this version of the script. Note: Because .bat files apparently cannot be uploaded, I have renamed the .bat file with a .txt extension and you will need to rename it back as a .bat pre-process command file in your acronis backup jobs:

filename as attached - backup_rotate.bat.txt
filename of script - backup_rotate.bat

As provided, the script provides 3 levels of backup rotation. The current backup is always written to the \current subdirectory, and before this backup is made, earlier backups are moved from \current to \prev1, and from \prev1 to \prev2. You could extend this scheme to provide additional backup levels if desired. Designed to work in conjunction with the capabilities of Acronis 9.0, this script is compatible with full, incremental, and differential archives of any frequency. My particular implementation uses separate backups of my PC workstation and network file server, with a new full backup weekly. In addition, nightly differential backups are made automatically to the \current archive whenever I leave my PC and NAS device on. In fact I don't always leave everything on, but I try to remember to leave the PC and NAS powered up on weekends when the full backups are made.

The script is relatively simple and straightforward, taking only two arguments: 1) the parent directory of where the backup will be written (the directory containing \current, \prev1, and \prev2, etc subdirectories, and 2) the base name of the archive (from which acronis will append an index number if necessary). In my environment, the 1st argument is the NAS storage device which is referenced as \\storage\backup\server and \\storage\backup\BGlaptop, depending upon whether I am backing up my laptop or specific server directories. The 2nd argument is a base filename such as ServerFiles or LaptopFiles, but this distinction is not entirely necessary since the archive contents can be determined by the target directory.

I wish I could say my backup system works flawlessly, but unfortunately it does not. The problems I am having seem to be due to failure in either the Windows or Acronis scheduler, as the scheduled backups which are initiated manually seem to work fine. I do not know whether the scheduling problem is a result of something I am doing wrong, laptop going into standby or hibernation, tweaks required by Acronis, or the way my network is set up, but if anyone has any ideas, I would appreciate any suggestions from more experienced Acronis users.

My contribution of this software is without any warranty, express or implied, and any consequential liability for damages incurred by users is hereby disclaimed.

Respectfully submitted,

Brian Goodheim

 

Hello Brian,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

Sharing your experience and your collaboration on this matter is very much appreciated.

If you have any further experience to share, please feel free to post it on this forum.

Thank you.
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Kirill Omelchenko