New User - Creating Incremental BackUps

Hi,

I'm lost and looking for help because I'm apparently not understanding things in the Help files.

I have created my first full backup. I need to schedule several automatic daily incremental backups 2 hours apart with a weekly full backup for my entire hard drive and having trouble figuring out how to do this. That may seem excessive to some but with what I do, I need to have very current files available in case I experience computer problems.

I select the Tasks option and then Create, click through to Select What You Want to Backup and select My Computer. Next window I have C drive selected. Next window is Backup Archive Location and here's where it is confusing for me. I believe I have to select an original backup and I have a total of 6 to choose from. I don't want to overwrite these originals. Must I create an incremental backup for each of the 6 files individually? In the Files of Type drop down what do I select - All Files or BackupArchives?

I thought I had this original backup set to just save to my external in the "root" of my external drive I guess you'd call it but it made it's own folder called System Volume Information and these 6 backup files are inside that folder.

Thanks for any and all help.

DebC

 

The nice thing about PCs is that you can have it your way. If you feel the need for backups every two hours or more frequently, no problem.

Unless your system is changing very frequently in terms of the operating system and installed applications and hardware, making incrementals of the entire computer is overkill. Weekly full system backups should be adequate for restoring the system and data (file and folder) backups should do for everything in between.

Incrementals on a full system image are quite large since Windows changes lots of files constantly. Incrementals or Differentials on data only are fast and small since only the new and changed data files are backed up.

TrueImage can handle both the entire computer and the files and folders backups for you, but you might want to consider a folder syncronization program instead for the data backup. Some of these work in real time so that every time you change a file it is copied to the second location within a few minutes.

 

I would imagine that it is ONLY your data that is changing for you to want to make backups every 2 hours. In that case after your Full backup (with True Image), I would simply backup that changing data and I would also not use True Image to do so. XCopy with the right switches would backup data in its native format and after the first use it will copy only changed files in subsequent runs. Some users here like Karen's Replicator which does essentially the same thing, and is probably easier to setup, if you don't know to use XCopy and to create a batch file with it.

 

Ok, first question - for what reason(s) would you not use TI for frequent incremental backups? I am finding it's quite clumsy for this purpose - at least for setting it up. I can't create more than one at a time and I can't schedule more than one backup at a time - like setting it for 2 hour intervals kind of thing. Yes, you're right - it's data that changes frequently I'm most concerned about ref these incrementals.

Secondly - thanks so much for the tip on Karen's Replicator. I'm trying it out right now and I do like it! It seems to do what I need it to do and it's nice that things are transferred over as real files instead of funky encrypted names etc.

 

You have, in fact, stated the reasons for not using TI for incremental backups (of data): clumsy, encrypted (proprietary compressed format). And since there is a simpler alternative, why not use it.

 

Hello DebC,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please be aware that Acronis scheduler currently does not have an option to create backups hourly. However, you can use method described here to get the desired result.

Please notice that Acronis True Image recognizes all parts of the backup, and to create incremental backup you can select any part as the original.

You can find the detailed instructions on how to use Acronis True Image in the respective User's Guide.

Thank you.
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Marat Setdikov