Differential, incremental, and stability questions about v9

This incremental/differential thing is really confusing Can someone please explain exactly what the difference is? I'm a perfectly happy TI8 user, but if there is some value in differential backups over incremental backups perhaps the upgrade would be worth it.

hen v9 came out there was post after post of people wanting refunds, downgrades, etc. Is V9 stable enough now"

Thanks

David

 

Probably not to clear, but …
Differential will back up ALL changes since the FULL b/u, even changes already included in a previous DIFF b/u. It’s cumulative.
Incremental will back up only the changes since the last backup, be it FULL or INC.
With DIFFs you only need the FULL and latest DIFF for a complete restore, but each DIFF b/u gets bigger than the previous one. This means they will take longer to create each time.
With INC, you need the FULL and all the INCs for a full restore. The benefit is that each INC is usually smaller than a corresponding DIFF and takes less time to create.
Using files as an example, if you change 1 different file each day, each daily INC will contain only the file changed that day. The first daily DIFF will contain 1 file; the second will contain 2 files and so on. Eventually, the DIFF b/u will be as large as the FULL.

 

Hello D Killeen,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

In addition to what TheWeaz has said, I would like to suggest you to take a look at section 1.4 of Acronis True Image 9.0 User's Guide explaining the difference between full, incremental and differential backups.

As for the stability of the current build of Acronis True Image 9.0, I recommend you to download and install the free trial version of Acronis True Image 9.0 to see how the software works on your computer.

If you will be satisfied with the work of the free trial version of Acronis True Image 9.0 then please visit Acronis online store to purchase the upgrade.

In case you will encounter any problems while using the free trial version of Acronis True Image 9.0, please report them on this forum starting the new thread for each issue or submit a request for technical support. We will do our best in order to investigate and resolve any problems as soon as possible.

Thank you.
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Alexey Popov

 

Ok, I think I see the difference, but another question. My backup strategy using TI8 is to make a full backup, and then 3 incrementals. So I have one main file, the a "2", "3", and "4" file. If after the "4" file is created, I need to do a complete restore, I need to have all 4 files available to do the full restore. I do my backups on a hard drive so room is not a problem. I always have all four files to work with. If I understand TI8 correctly, when I'm setting up the restore, I click on the "4" file, TI8 will automatically work it's way through ALL the files to do the complete restore. If I click on the "2", or "3" file, it will start there and automatically use all the files it needs to do the restore back to that point. Surely I don't have to manually restore first the full backup file, and THEN each of the incremental files to get a full restore. Is this correct?


Alexey - You say: "As for the stability of the current build of Acronis True Image 9.0, I recommend you to download and install the free trial version of Acronis True Image 9.0 to see how the software works on your computer."

This is just not acceptable to me. We're talking about a program that backs up critical data, not Madden NFL 2006. What happens if I don't find out until crunch time that the restore fucntion doesn't work on my machine? With all due respect, no thank you. I'll wait until v9 is truly stable before I'll trust my data to it.

David Killeen

 

Somebody help me here, but I think it works like this:
Selecting either the Full or #4 will restore everything.
Selecting #2 will retore everything except what's on #3 & #4.
Same with selecting #3 - changes stored in the #4 image will not be restored.

 

You got it; with incremental backups you can choose the starting point. It worked very well for me this week. I have a full backup and # 2,3,4,5 incrementals with TI8. I recently installed Nero. All was fine, this at incremental #3. Then I installed Nero’s InCD this caused a program conflict that I didn’t discover for 2 days.. I had done incremental #4 and #5 in the meantime (after InCD, but before I discovered the conflict).

I was able to recover starting with incremental #3. Because I have a different backup program for data file backups I was able to recover my current files, so all was well in the end. Nero 7 apparently has its problems as well as, TI9.

 

Hello D Killeen,

If I understand you correctly, the so-called "stable" build should work perfectly on absolutely any imaginable software\hardware configuration which is obviously can not be reached.

The point is that each new build fixes particular problems reported by Acronis customers. If you encounter a problem with Acronis software, please report it on this forum or submit a request for technical support. By doing this you will ensure that your particular problem is known by Acronis and we'll do our best to analyze and fix it as soon as possible.

As for restoring the set of images which consists of one full and several subsequent incremental images, please note that if all of them are residing in one folder then it does not matter what image (file) you will select, Acronis True Image 9.0 will automatically detect all other images and suggest you several "restore points" according to the dates when your images have been created.

Thank you.
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Alexey Popov