Making Up For Missed Backups

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by bulldog356, Jun 23, 2006.

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  1. bulldog356

    bulldog356 Registered Member

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    Because the good folks at Acronis still haven't endowed True Image Home with the ability to automatically name backup jobs with sequential numbers (as can Norton Ghost), in order to maintain a history of backups I had to create seven separate backup jobs, called System_01, System_02, etc. to run on each day of the week.

    The inconveniences of this workaround are many, and I recently came across another one:

    My backup jobs are set to run automatically at the next time I start my computer, if the computer was turned off at the scheduled time for a backup. Recently I was away for a 7 day vacation, and what do you think happened the next time I turned on my computer? That's right...7 backup jobs ran, one after the other.

    These overwrote the seven backup jobs already on my hard drive, so now I have seven backup jobs on my hard drive, each of which are identical.

    So here's my question: Is Acronis going to finally give True Image Home the ability to create sequentially numbered backup jobs, as so many other (and less capable) backup programs can, or is there some way for me to tell True Image not to make up for more than one missed backup?
     
  2. Howard Kaikow

    Howard Kaikow Registered Member

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    A useful option might be to allow the user to define a task that automatically generates ameaningful name.

    The name would consist of two parts.

    1. A base name selected by the user, or defaulting to the computer name.
    2. The second part would be automatically generated by TI, and the user could be given a choice of, say:

    a. Sequence numbers.
    b. Date and Time using the long date format specified for the computer.
     
  3. Xpilot

    Xpilot Registered Member

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    What you require could be managed if you had used the secure zone for your backups. Then only one daily task would be needed and if it were set to run when the computer was next switched on it would only run once on that day. Set up on a separate internal drive the SZ does a good job in providing automatic backups.

    Xpilot
     
  4. shieber

    shieber Registered Member

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    But you have to admit, that's a lot of duct tape for what should be a simple thing for the program to do.
     
  5. bulldog356

    bulldog356 Registered Member

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    "What you require could be managed if you had used the secure zone for your backups."

    The Secure Zone is a good (and original) idea, but it has its disadvantages. If Acronis can offer this capability inside the Secure Zone, why not also offer it outside the Secure Zone?
     
  6. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello bulldog356,

    Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

    Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

    You can limit the amount of backups created by the current Acronis True Image version in four different ways:

    - Use Backup Server feature (available in Acronis True Image 9.1 Workstation and Acronis True Image 9.1 Enterprise Server for Windows only, details can be found in section 3.5 of the corresponding User's Guides);

    - Use Acronis Secure Zone (see section 3.3 of Acronis True Image 9.0 Home User's Guide for further details);

    - Use batch file (script) which deletes or renames images as a pre\post-backup command (see section 5.3.3 of the above mentioned User's Guide);

    In the pre\post commands fields of the backup archive creation options you can specify commands or batch files to be automatically executed before and after the backup procedure. You can use any commands supported by Windows command line interface or enter a path to the batch file written in terms of standard Windows scripting rules (see this Microsoft Knowledge Base Article for details).

    Please also take a look at this previous post of mine providing the example of a batch file automatically renaming backups in accordance with the current date.

    - Schedule several pairs of tasks so that several sets of images covering several last weeks\months will be created (see these previous threads for details: Can TI9 control the number of backup sets?, differential back up Q's).

    As for giving backups specific names containing such parameters as date, time, numbers, etc., please note that at the moment it can only be done by using the corresponding scripts\batch files as a pre\post backup commands (see the example mentioned above).

    What concerns missed backups, I'm afraid that currently there is no way to "tell" Acronis True Image to not execute missed backups jobs or run only one of them. However, we have already received similar requests from other people and they have already been forwarded to our Development Team. Acronis True Image embedded scheduling service functionality will certainly be improved in the future builds\versions of a particular product, but exact time frame for this is not decided yet.

    Thank you.
    --
    Alexey Popov
     
  7. bulldog356

    bulldog356 Registered Member

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    Many thanks for your comprehensive and very helpful reply.

    I am now experimenting with the Secure Zone. So far, it's working well for me. It lets me maintain a history of backups with a single scheduled task.

    The backup task available in the Secure Zone is such a good idea that I wish the developers would make the same capability available outside the Secure Zone as well, for users who don't wish to take advantage of the 'invisible' partition, or who prefer not to use the Recovery Manager.

    To address your other suggestions:

    It seems unfortunate (to me, at least) that a home user should need to buy 9.1 Workstation just to gain flexibility in maintaining a history of backups, particularly when 9.0 Home contains the same flexibility albeit only in the Secure Zone.

    I have not yet had an opportunity to try out the scripting solution. For now the Secure Zone is effective and virtually effortless!

    Thanks again for your help. I never regret the day I said goodbye to Norton Ghost and hello to True Image. Acronis rocks.
     
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