details on quotas on backup locations?

I would love a concrete answer to that question, too. I think ATI is going to count that as 7 backups, and I've set up my backup place to test this, but have a little ways to go before I get to my limit.

Just to throw a wrench into it, what happens when backups are consolidated? How does that affect the backup count?

Regards,

Gary

 

Yeah, so here it is - still not working. I have all the settings the way it sounds like they should be and it's still blowing past the max 7 backups that I've specified.

At this point I'm going to create 7 separate jobs - one for each night and have 6 of them do differentials and the other one do a full. This headache is certainly not worth it and since Acronis has not provided documentation and/or a fix, it's just as well to manage it all myself. I think I should get some sort of partial refund for not being able to use this feature!

 

I believe this feature in TI10 is broken. If you search the forum I'm sure you will find the reference. I tried this with the TI10 trial version and it did not work as advertised.

 

I went to TI10 because of problems with the 'Secure Zone'. I'll spare you the details. If you're interested, do a search on my ID. Fascinating stuff. <yawn>

Anyway, a few months later and here I am in the boat with you guys having the same problems you are having with the 'Backup Locations'. Sheesh. Can't Acronis understand that end users want a solution that is truly able to deliver 'set it and forget it'? This is completely ridiculous. The worst part is that the larger your backups, the worse your problem with having to waste more and more of a hard drive on what is essentially unusable space just so you can have room to do a backup and then fail the tests so that TI can do a cleanup. I understand their point, too, about making sure you have a backup but put me down also on the list of people who will accept the risk of having the cleanup happen before the backup. At the very LEAST, give us a checkbox option for this and pop up a warning.

Acronis, this needs to be fixed! Don't bother to answer in the forums. It's clear that we're only being patronized. You're aware of the problem. Put out a patch. Let that be your answer.

 

It's amazing we can't have this "erase old back up first" option. As I look back on some of the tape backup software I've used over the years, they always had an option of whether to ask first if it was okay to erase the old edition. It was perfectly fine to do this because you had multiple tapes and there was always an expectation that one of the tapes could crash. If the backup was that critical, you backed up twice for that matter.

Why the "presumption" we might not otherwise purchase a second, third and fourth external hard drive for multiple backups which would negate any concerns for a corrupted backup along the way?

My sincerest apologies in saying this, but I am starting to relate with a previous poster who mused Acronis was being arrogant by not addressing this problem. Is it the dumb sheep can't be trusted with this kind of a simple option? Too hard to explain how it works? How bad can it be... The current operation isn't explained worth a darn.

I guess I'm supposed to buy a hard drive that's 2-3 times the size I need to do the job.

I'm going to keep monitoring this thread... It will be interesting to see whether Acronis will ever step up and answer why they can't relate to this problem or why we're so wrong or stupid for wanting this or why it's so difficult for them to add this one extra option to the current version.

 

I see that you all have upgraded to version 10. I have version 9.0 (build 3,854) and according to the help file it should allow these quota rules.

Create incremental backups - having chosen this parameter, check the Create a new full backup after ... parameter and specify number of incremental backups, after which a new full backup will be created. The first time a full backup will be created. Next backups will be incremental until the specified number of incremental backups is reached. Then, again a full backup and a set of subsequent incremental backups is created, then again a full backup and so on.

Create differential backups - having chosen this parameter, check the Create a new full backup after ... parameter and specify number of differential backups, after which a new full backup will be created. The first time a full backup will be created. Next backups will be differential until the specified number of differential backups is reached. Then, again a full backup and a set of subsequent differential backups is created, then again a full backup and so on.

There is no options like this on my software. If someone could shed some light I would appreciate it.
Thank you
Craig

 

That's another "underdocumented" feature I got stuck with too.

You need to "Create Backup Location" (found in "Backup Locations") and subsequently specify that "Backup Location" for the option you're talking about to appear. In other words, you can't just pick a drive and a folder to backup to; it has to be this predefined "backup location" created by Acronis.

 

I do not see Backup Locations anywhere. Which menu is this under? Here is a screenshot.

 

Backup Locations were added in version 10.

 

That is what I was suspecting. It is odd though that my help files include this option.

With the problems I am reading about here, I will not be upgrading. Thanks for the help.

 

So, I'm not the only one that's completely lost with backup locations.
I have set Number of Backups to 15 and Max Size to 30GB. I’m doing differential backup with a full backup after 7 backups.
So far I have ended up with 2 Backup sets: the first Full with 8 differentials (?), the second started with a full backup and has come to 12 differentials now, totaling 96GB! Just expand the volume. You never know when and where it will stop…. I'm a newbie to TI but I'm thinking of using my 30 day money back guarantee. (I wonder if any of these backups can be put back successfully??)

 

I left a 70gb buffer on an entire 300gb disk that was entirely dedicated to backups. In other words, the Location Size Quota was 230gb. Last night the disk filled up because it didn't have enough room to do the clone process for the cleanup. This is ridiculous.

I'm convinced this process is not fixable. It needs to be something the average Joe can do. I'm not the average Joe. I work in technology. Sheesh.

I see there's yet another version of TI available and it says something about 'set it and forget it'. I'll check it out, but I'll believe it when I see it.

 

Most of us have since moved on to ShadowProtect3 buddy. Try the trial version and you'll - never - go back to ATI. In fact, I'm only posting in this thread because I had a subscription to it. Now that I've deleted it, this will be my last post here since I no longer use Acronis products.

 

Does it do unique autonaming and autodeleting of old backups per user-set limits?

 

has any of this been changed/fixed in TI 11?
specifically looking for the logic on managing differentials to have been simplfied to not "merging" like incrementals, but simply deleteing excess differentials keeping the newest ones.

 

I continue to check back on this thread every so many weeks.

I have the same question asked previously... Does V11 fix any of these problems? If not, why not?

If you have found this thread because you're not happy with the issues being discussed in this thread, please do us all a favor and at least post a short message saying you're in the same boat.

 

Hello all,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup software

We'd like to inform you that currently Acronis True Image 10.0 Home and Acronis True Image 11 Home have the following Backup Location Management algorithm:

The program checks for quota violations after creating a backup. This is indeed done for the security purposes, as if the backup creation fails after the old backup is already deleted, user won't be able to recover anything.

The backup management is performed by either consolidating incremental/differential backups that belong to the same backup chain or deleting the archives that violate quota limit if the consolidation is not possible.

During the consolidation process the program does the following:
- Creates a new archive, which will contain the data stored in the original ones
- Associates the new archive with the chain of archives
- Then it simply deletes the old ones

You can also see the picture with the algorithm scheme:



We would also like to inform you that the described information will be added to the product documentation as soon as possible. We are now working on improving this algorithm and it is most likely that the changes will be implemented in our future releases.

If you have any further questions concerning our software, please submit a request for technical support or post any of them on this forum. We will do our best to help you as soon as possible.

Thank you

--
Eugene Bogdanov

 

>> This is indeed done for the security purposes, as if the backup creation fails after the old backup is already deleted, user won't be able to recover anything.

This insistence on not allowing the user to command the routine to first delete the existing backup IF there are quota violations is really obtuse. In some terms, it's tacit to saying "the user can't be trusted" and / or "we know better than the user."

I'd have to repeat a number of messages in this thread that generally make the point that it's the user who should have the final say and take responsibility for operations; not Acronis. What would I do otherwise? Sue Acronis because I didn't use the software properly?

If you want to add a really big "We told you so" warning for those who wish to enable "if there is a quota violation, erase what's on the backup media first and I won't hold Acronis responsible", then so be it! Again, if the backup were to fail, the likelihood of the primary media failing at the same time is slim to none. All one needs to see is the backup failed, as we do now with the difference in the Acronis toolbar icon, so they can remedy the problem.

In the history of backup software, at least dating back to the days of Colorado tape backup drives, this "override" function of erasing the media automatically was always available. One understood the implications of using it -- the risk was quite clear. And that's one of the reasons why one had multiple tapes and rotated them. That's the same reason I use multiple external hard disk drives. Just because the Acronis software says the backup was successful doesn't necessarily mean I can use the media for restoration -- the backup drive could fail the next time I turn the power on.

I could go on, but there are a number of excellent points that have been made through out this thread and they should be addressed rather than ignored as they seem to be. Whether it's real or not, there's a perception of arrogance on the part of Acronis based on their silence for these specifics.

Bottom line for me: I'm not buying Acronis V11. And if you fix this issue in V12, I should be getting a discount because V10 is / was a booger.

If others find this thread for the obvious reasons (searching the net for answers which should have been in the documentation), please at least post a note saying "ditto" so the folks at Acronis don't make a snap judgement call "it's just a couple of users." They need to hear there's more than just a handful of people who are not happy about this.

Please note, I don't have a personal grudge with Acronis. I'm simply upset because I paid better than average money for what I have always perceived to be a somewhat simple task, and having paid a premium, I expected a more thorough response to what otherwise seems to have been a very obvious oversight.

I guess you can't fix stupid.

 

I would add a couple of additional complaints:

- when the backups fails because it ran out of room, it ought to pop up, and leave up, a big error screen saying "backup failed.!" Same is true if consolidation failed. As it is, I have TI email me the error log every day, and I check it manually - since there is no indication in the subject (for example) saying 'we had an error."
- incidentally, viewing the log within TI is useless - not enough detail. The emailed log is good - but thats no justification for the bad internal log viewer.
- expecting the user to cleanup the files that are left behind when consolidation fails is unreasonable. What good do the large left-behind files do anyone? If you are not a geek, the file names are really intimidating.

I ended up doing full backups only - less recovery available, but less corrective actions needed to deal with random space problems.

I might add that doing sector level incrementals for file backups makes no sense - defrag drives up the size, making the whole space calculation impossible.

Acronis True Image is like democracy:it's bad - it's just better than everything else.

Dan

 

I also have my backup set for 1 Full, 6 differentials, and then another Full. I backup to a 500GB external USB drive. I'm using the Backup Location, set as shown in this screenshot:



Also, my backup task set up appears correct:


My backup happen when they're supposed to (I use Windows Task Scheduler to "wake up" the computer at 2AM every night and it goes back to sleep after the backup.

This is a screenshot of my backup archive:
.

It's obviously exceeded the 6 differentials and I still don't have a new Full backup and everything appears correct to me.

 

I recently purchased True Image 11 Home, and the included help file and PDF manual still do not explain this well enough. Also, the flow chart provided by Eugene Bogdanov is not adequate either. Many questions still remain, for example:

1- The "consolidation" process is not really explained anywhere. How does this work? They only say that "the oldest backup is consolidated with the next backup in chain". This sort of makes sense if one is doing incremental backups, but it makes no sense at all when doing differential backups since the files do not form a chain.

2- When "consolidating" differential backups, maybe TI simply deletes the oldest differential backup file? If so, please say so.

3- When TI checks to see if consolidation is possible, what might prevent it?

4- Consolidation should ONLY be done if the Location Size quota is violated, or if incremental backups are being done. What happens if only the Maximum Backups quota is exceeded and differential backups are being done? In this case, TI should simply delete the oldest diff backup file. Is that what happens?

5- When the set number of incremental or differential backups is reached and a new full backup is performed, why is the previous backup set not deleted? It should no longer be needed after doing a new full backup, and deleting the previous set would certainly free up a lot of disk space to help alleviate problems. Instead, the drive fills up and this "consolidation" process has to be done??

Can Acronis Support please answer these questions?

It makes sense to me that checking for size quota violations is done AFTER creating a backup regardless of the security reasons. It would be difficult to do this BEFORE creating the next backup like some people want because you don't know how big the file will be yet. Maybe another backup will put you over the quota and maybe it won't.

Also, Linesides states "if the backup were to fail, the likelihood of the primary media failing at the same time is slim to none." This is faulty logic because if your only backup was deleted first before making a new one, the primary media (not the backup drive) could fail in the middle of the new backup. If that happened, both your primary media and your backup would be gone.

 

It looks like Acronis Support isn't going to answer my questions, but I believe I've figured out some of the answers myself. Maybe this will help someone else.

Consolidation is basically "merging" files together to reduce the number of files and the space they take. TI does consolidation on differential backups too, instead of simply deleting the oldest differential backup file like you would think. I'm guessing this is done in order to keep a maximum number of the most recent "restore points" while limiting the total number of files.

Consolidating a differential backup set probably requires changing ALL of the files in the backup set. With incremental backups, only the full backup and the oldest incremental need to be merged.

If there is a quota violation I think TI always tries to consolidate, and only decides it isn't possible if it runs out of disk space. If this happens, it simply deletes the oldest backup instead.

The problem with all of this is that there is no way to prevent backups from building up to the point that a quota is violated and consolidation takes place. This requires leaving a lot of unused disk space for use in the consolidation process. I would much prefer an option to have TI automatically delete outdated differential backups, plus older backup sets when a new full is done. That way consolidating files could be avoided entirely. As it is now, I'm going to have to manually delete outdated backup files when a new full is done. This defeats the purpose of backup locations, which is to automatically manage the backup files.

 

My experience is that, if TI runs out of space during consolidation, it just stops - it does not recover, and delete the oldest backup. I am running V10 - perhaps V11 does a better job?

You don't say WHY you want to avoid consolidation.

I will say that I ended up going to all full backups. I got tired of dealing with consolidation failures manually.

Dan

 

I haven't run out of space yet, so I can't say. However, V11 does seem to maintain the proper number of files according to the "Maximum number of backups" quota. Some people were having problems with that on V10.

For several reasons:

1- Consolidation requires considerable extra disk space that you must calculate and leave free at all times to avoid running out of space.

2- I'm using differential backups and don't care about keeping multiple restore points, so there's no reason to have to keep older diff backup files or to keep entire outdated backup sets and consolidate them when new backups are made.

3- I just don't like TI running intensive processing operations like this on my backup files when it should not be necessary. There should be an option to simply delete outdated backup files that are no longer needed. Consolidation should only be done as a last resort.

 

Yet another V10 user, software engineer of 15 years so have some experience with arcane user interfaces. I have been forced to come to this thread out of total frustration with Acronis True Image Home Backup locations.

I can't add much to the conversation that has not already been said, other than I am sharing the pain of this poorly documented, badly implemented feature.

My main problem has been incemental backups are never deleted... backups to a location with "10GB location size quota" eventually fill the 200GB drive.
I have not seen much "end-users-guessing-at-the-purpose-of" type discussion of the "Storage period limits" option. Sounds simple enough, I always uncheck it since I want my backups to last forever... BUT I still have to have older backups deleted to make way for the new ones of course... but now I am suspecting that just perhaps this option is my problem. I don't know but have been running an experiment for a few days on one of my backup locations to see if I end up with correctly pruned backups, OR no backups at all by setting the limit to 1 day - but no results yet, its like the option is ignored. [its not in the above flow chart, either. No surprise.]

As for the help file description:

is that a sick joke? It was obviously written by someone who did not know what the features are for. Simply restating the option title in a sentence does not constitute help. Specific, concrete and clearly written use case examples would be help, but I guess the document writer was in the same boat as the users and could not get this feature to work as expected, either, so resorted to restating the programmers title.

So, does Version 11 fix the problem? From what I have read - NO it does not. Simply adding a flow chart of a badly implemented feature to the help file. To Acronis's credit they have stated they are working on an improved algorithm. I just hope they get the message from this thread that the feature and documentation provided so far has been _very_ amateurish, and should never have passed even basic quality controls. They need to work on an improved algorithm, testing, quality control AND end user documentation.

I certainly will not be upgrading, or more importantly for Acronis recommending through word-of-blog to any of my clients to use Acronis true image until I see a definitive solution to this serious problem - for example through glowing reports from end users here that Acronis has learned from their mistake and listened to their front line end users (only a very small percent of users will take the time to give feedback like that given here, and just look at the size of this thread, one of many on the same topic!).