Backup Location Needs Serious Explanations!

No thanks to any Acronis documentation, I've figured out the way backup locations work. Only took a few thousand dollars of my time.

But I have to ask what the heck something is doing on what I think is a successful backup location job.

I have a backup location set on a usb2 attached external drive. Unlimited storage size, with a total of 6 backup files allowed.

Then, I have a task which does differentials to that backup location, specifying to make a full backup after five differentials.

What I thought this would do is start out with a full image, then do five differentials, and then the next time, remove all the files and do a full image, leaving just one image in the backup location.

Instead, after the 6th backup (one full and five differentials), it took forever (being stuck at 82% done with 2 minutes remaining for over an hour), and what I'm left with is six backup files in my backup location consisting of one full and five "slices" The five slices have older date/times on them than does the full image.

And now the best (worst) part. On the next backup, instead of creating a differential since it had just created a full the last time, it created another full!!! So I now have five old "slices" (differentials), then a full image and now another full image.

What the heck is this?

I guess I need to go back to the old method of a full on every Sunday and differentials the next six days, and forget about these unexplained, ill-designed backup locations.

Or can someone tell me how to get the same effect with backup locations?

This plus my other thread I've got started on tasks no being allowed to access network computers and I'm scared to death about having to do a restore any more.

 

Well, since I see no one else can really explain what's going on with this backup location, I'm going to remove them and go back to the way I used to do it. Wish I hadn't wasted all this time trying to read between the lines, some parts of the "help" and all through this forum just to figure how they were set up in the first place.

 

I don't know if it'll help, but you might read through the text file attached to this post, especially towards the end. I've written down what I've observed, making no claims to understanding the actual mechanics of the process. The file is for incremental backups, but also applies to differentials.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=172470#13

Regards, CatFan

 

slobizman-

unfortunately, you are not alone in the confusion of backup locations. I tried for quite some time to figure out how they work and finally gave up.

I have a 320 GIG external USB drive. I configured a backup location with a max size of 200 GIGS. I then setup a scheduled task for a full backup followed by 6 differential backups and then start over with full, etc...

Needless to say, this has never worked. First, it would just go past 200 GIGS and keep on doing backups until the entire drive was full. It would also keep doing differentials past 6. I think at one point i had 17 differentials after one full. I tried so many things and nothing ever worked.

I tried this forum for some help a few months back. I got the usual, make sure you are using a backup locaiton and not a normal folder. I quadrupled checked that setting. I then asked for "official" Acronis help on the site and never heard a word from them. One user said that they were told from Acronis that you had to make sure you have enough room past the max size to allow for the next full to be created because it only deleted after the next full was created. I had my max set to 200 on a 320 GIG hard drive, more then enough extra room if you ask me

IMO, the backup location idea is a great concept. Unfortunately it just doesn't work. The documention on this feature is useless. The log files from the schedule tasks dont help. Support doesn't appear to want to discuss it. I finally gave up on it and am just manually deleting my old backups for now. Hopefully in a future relase they will address the defficiencies of backup locations.

Chris

 

Indded you are not alone.

Acronis told me it is a known uissue to be fixed in the next build. I, too have tried everything and none work. It makes differentials forever regardless of my settings.

~Bob

 

I would like Acronis to post a sticky thread in this forum explaining exactly how the backup locations and policies are supposed to work, including what gets verified, when, how backup are consolidated, etc,

 

I just went through the suggestions above and this is SO different than what I was trying. It seems like it may work, though maybe not ideally.

What I wanted was a full backup every month on the first day of the month. Then a differential every 2 days with no more than 10 backups or 60GB of used space for backups.

I made a backup location, set it for max 10 backups and 60GB.

I set a full scheduled for the first of the month but I chose the folder from the drive in the tree, not the backup locations as you point out. It gave the backup the name MyBackup.tib, if I recall, and I renamed that.

I set a differential to run every 2 days, same folder choice, slected the full backup which had already run as the base for the differentials.

This seemed logical.

It did not work. I got backup after backup. The only overwrite or delete is the full on the first of the month.

So, I now see the folder select from the backups at the top of the folder tree I did not see before and it does now say no name needed in this location. I have a max 10 differential backups set with ONE task and a max of 10 backups. I have a hunch this might work. It is so incredibly non-intuitive I can't almost believe it. And I doubt I would have found this myself. And Acronis support never made this suggestion to me in all our email exchanges.

So, I'll report after a month of testing. I appreciate that someone took the time to analyze this one.

~Bob

 

Thanks CatFan. Good information contained in the text file attached to your Post #13 in that thread. I've therefore placed a link to the thread titled "BACKUP LOCATIONS don't work" in the forum sticky titled <Product Links, FAQs & Useful Forum Threads>.

Regards

 

Thanks, Menorcaman. I feel as if I've been awarded a gold star from my favorite instructor.

Regards, CatFan

 

You can test this faster, but simply hand starting the differentials one after the other 11 times in a row to see what happens. Better to find out now.