How to Limit Number of Backup Files ATI 11

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by jabbax, Dec 2, 2007.

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  1. jabbax

    jabbax Registered Member

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    Hi All,
    Been using ATI since ver 7 and have recently upgraded to ATI 11. I did so because I want to make 1 full backup followed by 5 daily incremental backups. After the 5th daily incremental backup, I wanted ATI to make new full backup, wipe out the older backups and start making the incrementals again. I have ATI set up to backup to a backup location with no restrictions set. I also set it to make a daily backup and save the last 5 incremental backups. What I am getting: ATI does a great job of running the full and following 5 incrementals, but then just starts over keeping all old full and incrementals and repeats process until disk is full. I've read the documentation but still not getting it. Do I need to set rules for the backup location, number of backups? Appreciate if you someone could give me a steer here. Thanks!
     
  2. Ray Clare

    Ray Clare Registered Member

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    Coming from V 8 to V 11, I never bothered to pick up all the new features, and simply set up what I'd done in V 8.

    I made one task for each day, and named it for the day it runs. I set up seven of them, and named each backup file with that same day.

    Every day it makes a backup, and when the week is complete, it just starts overwriting. No need to define "Backup locations"! I just put all the backups in the same folder, and I always have a week of backups.

    By the way, disk space is pretty cheap, so I don't bother with incrementals. I just do full backups. If you are using incrementals, you no longer have the ability to go back partway into the week and restore from there, once the full backup occurs, and untill new incrementals are formed. I avoid all that. I can always restore any time up to one week back.

    I keep that folder sorted by file date, and it's really easy to see the pattern.

    I suppose it's not very elegant, but it worked from the moment I installed and has for months since.
     
  3. shieber

    shieber Registered Member

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    I think you want to set the Backup Location to have a limit on number of files. Files will get deleted automatically when the limit is reached. If doing incs, first they a set is consolidated into a full to make room.

    Howeer, some have reported that doing schedeled inc backups doens't work properly in ATI 11.
     
  4. rwt325

    rwt325 Registered Member

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    I do weekly manual full backups of C:\ onto an external hard disk. If the disk is too full the backup fails. There is no automatic deleting of older files to make room for the new backup. I have v11.
     
  5. jabbax

    jabbax Registered Member

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    Many thanks to all. I will try to set a limit in the backup locations, but if there is a problem as some have suggested, I'll just go with Ray Clare's no nonsense method. Thanks Gang!
     
  6. shieber

    shieber Registered Member

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    I've only heard of the problems with incs/diffs and then only with verison 11 -- the problem being that 11 apparently fails to consolidate and or delete excess files.

    But without the backup location limit, ATI won't have any instruction to limit the number fo backups at all.
     
  7. John Liebson

    John Liebson Registered Member

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    The problems with consolidation and deletion in TI 11 are so severe that I moved back to TI 10 after a quite lengthy exchange of messages with Acronis Support, downloading and running various files for them, etc.

    I gave up on TI 11 the day that, after two hours and thirty minutes, TI 11 had still not managed to consolidate and delete excess files for some rather small-sized data backup files; during that incredibly long period of attempted consolidation and removal on the part of TI 11, my computer would not even work properly at times.

    (So, I removed 11, installed 10, and after two days, the full-disk/differential backups started a new series, instead of creating nine differentials first. I'm watching the backup series to see what transpires; so far, I have the full backup plus three differentials in the second set, with the first set still on the disk.)
     
  8. jabbax

    jabbax Registered Member

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    Guess I can ask Acronis Support to provide me a copy of ATI 10 since I seem to have purchased a defective product. I'll let you know what they say. Thanks for the reply.
     
  9. AKAJohnDoe

    AKAJohnDoe Registered Member

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    I have number of backups set to 5 in ATI 11 and it seems to be working. However, the listing of the backups seems to follow the D-M-Y sort order rather than Y-M-D or M-D-Y, and cannot be changed, so it looks a little odd.
     
  10. shieber

    shieber Registered Member

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    Are you doing incs and diffs or only full backups? The prob apparently only occurs when there are incs or diffs in the directory.

     
  11. foghorne

    foghorne Registered Member

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    Only if you work under your regime.

    It is possible to use incrementals on a daily basis going back for a fixed number of days, without using v11 features. My backups are incremental, and rolling over 28 days.

    You mention disk space being cheap, which is a fair point, but for me the real advantage of full backups over incremental is validation/restoration speed.

    F.
     
  12. Ray Clare

    Ray Clare Registered Member

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    You raise good points, but you missed my point.

    You can go back up to 28 days until you start your cycle over again with a full backup, then you have one day, and add more with each increments. Unless, of course you maintain a dual set of backups, which comes to much the same thing I am doing.

    Do whatever works for you!
     
  13. foghorne

    foghorne Registered Member

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    No, I am using four incrementally schedules which backup everyday. Each set has its own subdirectory. I also have four full schedules, each of which writes into one of the directories. The full are scheduled to run on the 1st, 8th, 15th and 22nd of each month. So I have a perpetual set of daily incrementals going back for a month.

    So,
    this is not necessarily true.

    F.
     
  14. Ray Clare

    Ray Clare Registered Member

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    As I said, you get to do it the way you want to. I get to do it my way.

    What happens when incremental #2 of your set is corrupt? Do you still have 28 days?

    We were talking to a guy who was going to make one backup and a weeks worth of incrmentals. It wasn't working for him. My system works fine for me. Your system is both vulnerable and complex. Welcome to it! I don't care. Do what works for you.

    By the way sir, no statement is absolutely true under all concievable circumstances. It only needs to be true in the context of the poster's question.

    I'm gone!
     
  15. foghorne

    foghorne Registered Member

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    I will have between 22 and 27 days dependending on which day of the 7 day cycle this happens. This will eventually stretch back to 28 days once files are overwritten by new backups and assuming the corruption has a transient cause. It might be even better than that as I take regular snapshots of all backups to optical media. It really depends at what point the file is deemed to be corrupt.

    Actually it is not complex, but you are right that setting up eight schedules is a bit of a pain - but this normally only done once per machine.
    As far as vulnerable goes, I think you may have to substantiate that claim a bit. All I can say is that I have used this technique, running every single day on multiple machines for over 4 years. I have done plenty of restorations and never had a problem. That's a pretty good soak test IMHO ;)

    You are absolutely correct here. Having reread the original post I think I jumped in a bit early :D

    F.
     
    Last edited: Dec 4, 2007
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