How to set Multiple Full and Incremental Backups

I'm using TI9.2337 on my XP Pro SP2 machine.

I'd appreciate assistance on how to set up a procedure to set up a full backup with daily incremental in multiple sets.

I start by making an image backup of a partition with incrementals daily for a week. This part I can do.

What I would like to add to the above is to have it so that I can maintain two weeks worth of data. That is, do a full backup, run incremental for the first week. Then in the second week do a full backup with daily incremental but keep the first week's data intact. However, when I get to the third week and it does the full backup now the first week's data is overwritten.

To summarize:

• Week 1: Full back and daily incremental.
• Week 2: Full back and daily incremental but Week 1 stays.
• Week 3: Full back up and daily incremental but week 1 is now overwritten with new data,
• The loop continues with always having the most recent two weeks worth of data.

Is this possible?

Thank you for your help.

 

Hello Manny,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

Yes, it is possible. Please take a look at this previous post of mine describing the issue.

You can find more information on how to use Acronis True Image 9.0 in the respective User's Guide.

You may also find Acronis True Image 9.0 FAQ page helpful.

If you have any further questions concerning Acronis software, please feel free to submit a request for technical support or post any of them on this forum. We will certainly try to help you in resolving any issues.

Thank you.
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Alexey Popov

 

Thank you very much Alexey.

Do I understand correctly then that this can not be done with a single image file for the full backup? As I understand it there will be two sets of files one being done every week and another every two weeks. Wouldn't this cause one week to be duplicated twice?

 

Hello Manny,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

There should be 2 full backups to perform the scenario described above.

Both full backups will be done every two weeks. If you use the scenario described in the post of Alexey Popov mentioned above, your full images can't be duplicated.

Thank you.
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Tatyana Tsyngaeva

 

Thank you for your comments. I'll give it a try.

Well, one more question from Alexey's post. He says

I don't see how to "start from next week." What option do I use to wait a week before starting a task?

 

Hello Manny,

I'm afraid that Acronis True Image 9.0 embedded Scheduling Service does not have such option yet. In order to accomplish your goal you should schedule one task on this week and another on the next one.

Please note that the task "start date" parameter will most likely be implemented in the future versions of a particular product. However, the exact time frame for this is not decided yet.

If you want us to change the behaviour of Acronis True Image in any way or add some new features to this product, please feel free to post any of your suggestions in Acronis True Image WISH-LIST thread.

Thank you.
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Alexey Popov

 

Thank you all very much. I appreciate your comments and I'll give your suggestions a try. I'll come back in a month or so and tell you how it's working out.

Thanks again. I appreciate your support.

 

I wanted to come back and tell you that I was able to perform my backups using the scenario (two sets of weekly backups) I described when I started the thread. With the four tasks, 30 files are created of which two are full backups the rest incremental. I was also able to Recover the same file modified on different dates. So everything that I wanted to do was achievable. Thank you all very much.

I have one further question. When recovering my files things worked just fine when using that function. However, when I tried to plug an image it said that "specified archive can not be plugged because it contains no partitions." I tried several of the full as well as the incremental backups but always received the same message.

What's odd about this is that the backup happens to be of my full data partition making it difficult to understand why it says the image has no partitions. Although - now that I think of it - I did select files and folder when creating the task to image my document partition. Is that it?

 

Not sure how to answer your most recent issue other than to check your task settings, although I do want to chime in on something you may want to consider. I personally like to write stuff in the command prompt and through this, you may be able to achieve more flexibility than what you have:

Week 1: Full back and daily incremental.
Pre-Week 2: Write a small command to move week 1 data into folder "week1"
Week 2: Full back and daily incremental but Week 1 stays.
Pre-weel 3: Write a small command to erase the old week 1 and then copy the new week 2 over it.
Week 3: Full back up and daily incremental but week 1 is now overwritten with new data,
The loop continues with always having the most recent two weeks worth of data.

 

Thank you for your reply. I'll consider doing as you suggest since that would eliminate some of the duplication that occurs by having two incremental task running but offset by a week. It would seem that some simple programming by Acronis could add how many sets of full backups a user wants rather then having so many tasks running. However, it does work.

Thank you for your suggestion.

 

Plugging refers to mounting an image of a partition (or whole drive) with it's own drive letter. Since you had made a file backup and not an image backup, I believe that's why you couldn't plug/mount the image.

 

I think that's right. Even though I actually choose the full partition I selected the "files and folders" option. I'm not sure why now. I wonder what the difference TI sees when you actually select the same thing - the full partition. More to read.

Thanks for your comments.

 

Hello Manny,

Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

I'm really glad to hear that your backup scenario worked perfectly.

As for another issue you reported, I confirm what jmk94903 said. The current Acronis True Image version does not allow mounting file-based backups. You can mount disk\partition images only. The point is that two quite different approaches are used to create file-based backups and disk partition images (please read more in section 3.1 of Acronis True Image 9.0 User's Guide and this previous thread). Please also note that you can restore individual files and folders from a file-based backups using Data Recovery Wizard (see section 6.2 of the above mentioned User's Guide for further details).

If you have any further questions concerning Acronis software, please feel free to submit a request for technical support or post any of them on this forum. We will certainly try to help you in resolving any issues.

Thank you.
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Alexey Popov

 

Thank you Alexey. That was interesting reading.

I appreciate your help.

One last thing. In my case I'm backing up my whole data partition. Which backup type would be the better choice for my incremental back scenario: to use a partition image or selecting files and folder. Does it really matter?

 

Hello Manny Carvalho,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please note that if you create a backup using The enire disk contents or individual partition option, you are not able to create an incremental image to this backup using Files and folders option.

So, if you have created the image of the partition using The enire disk contents or individual partition option, you should use the same option when you create the incremental image.

Thank you.
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Tatyana Tsyngaeva

 

Thank you but I realize that one should perform incremental backups using the same option. What I was wondering is which option is best 1. an individual partition image or 2. using files and folders to backup one single partition. Is there any particular advantage of one option over the other when backing up all files on one partition only.

 

Hello Manny Carvalho,

Please note that partition image and file-based backups in Acronis True Image 9.0 Home use different approaches. When you creates disk/partition image Acronis True Image creates sector-by-sector snapshot of the disk, which includes the operating system, registry, drivers, software applications and data files, as well as system areas hidden from the user. This procedure is called “creating a disk image,” and the resulting backup archive is often called a disk/partition image. Therefore, if you would like to be able to restore your system we may recommend that you use disk/partition image. File-based backup option can be used to backup and restore individual files and folders, like your My Documents folder or a specific file/folders.

Please also have a look at this previous thread.

Thank you.
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Aleksandr Isakov

 

Thanks my question referred solely to data backups. Here I'm not interested in restoring my system just my data files.

Thank you all I appreciate your guidance very much.