TI2009, Daily Incremental, New Full after 30 days - CREATES FULL AFTER 6 DAYS!

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by cdldt, Aug 1, 2009.

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  1. cdldt

    cdldt Registered Member

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    I've tried to give this software (and Acronis) a break, but it seems that nothing works as expected in TI Home 2009. I'm now running the latest build, which I hoped would finally make this software work as I expected, but alas, no.

    All I want is for my documents to be backed up daily, with an incremental backup, so that I can store as many days backups as possible without wasting vast amounts of disk space. Am I really expecting too much from this software, because it seems that no matter what I try, it fails! I don't know how something as important as backup software can be so god damn flaky.

    I have a task which is an Incremental backup. It backs up my system partition daily to the Acronis Secure Zone. I set the target archive as asz:\HTPC Backup. That's what it's called, nothing else on the end.

    On Scheduling, it is set to daily at 6:00am. I have a wake-up task in Task Scheduler for 5:59am because the Acronis Scheduler is unable to do this by itself. Don't worry, I've come to expect that this will never work as it's meant to. I mean, why would I expect the Acronis Scheduler to be capable of scheduling backup tasks reliably.

    On Backup Method, it is set to Incremental (recommended) and Create a new full backup after 30 incremental.

    I save the task, it runs fine for a few days. Today, I go into True Image and notice that in Manage and Restore I have
    HTPC Backup
    --> HTPC Backup 26/07/2009 (Full)
    --> HTPC Backup 2 27/07/2009 (Incremental)
    --> HTPC Backup 3 28/07/2009 (Incremental)
    --> HTPC Backup 4 29/07/2009 (Incremental)
    --> HTPC Backup 5 30/07/2009 (Incremental)
    HTPC Backup(1)
    --> HTPC Backup(1) 31/07/2009 (Full)
    --> HTPC Backup(1) 2 01/08/2009 (Incremental)

    If I edit Task, I see that the backup archive name has been changed to HTPC Backup(1). Why the hell has it decided to pick a different name? I know for a fact that I've changed nothing. It has been this way since the very first build of 2009 that I installed and it's still not been fixed.

    I have lost all confidence in this software. It is a joke just how much is broken, and I'm sure that the 2010 release will just have a load of new broken features in it, meanwhile the core functions do not work.

    Sure, I could NOT use Secure Zone, I could NOT use Incremental, but they're hardly cutting-edge features and they've been in ATI long enough for them to actually work. Windows Home Server can do a hell of a lot smarter things than this and doesn't screw up at every opportunity. It's just one thing after another and I'm becoming pretty pissed off with the whole thing. This is ignoring the fact that the whole program performs like crap compared to TI8.
     
    Last edited: Aug 1, 2009
  2. DwnNdrty

    DwnNdrty Registered Member

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    You said, "All I want is for my documents to be backed up daily, with an incremental backup, so that I can store as many days backups as possible without wasting vast amounts of disk space."

    For this simple task, True Image is an unnecessarily complex way to go about it. Use something like Karen's Replicator (it's free). Once the initial backup is done it will then backup only changed or new files. And you can set it to do this at any time of the day, everyday, that you choose.

    True Image's strength lies in its basic functions - backup and restore an entire drive. The extra bells and whistles seem to give users a myriad of problems, as you've found out. Yet it works for some.
     
  3. cdldt

    cdldt Registered Member

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    Thanks for the reply, but I also want to be able to restore to a full disk image at any point - quickly. I don't know why I wrote "documents" - must be too early in the morning!

    There have been times that True Image has saved the day - Windows Media Center corrupted it's guide store during updates one morning, and rolling back to the previous day fixed it. Since I have no idea which files were damaged, I need a full image, or it could have been in the registry.

    But whilst I want the ability to return to a disk snapshot on any one day within the past month (for example), I want to do it with the minimum space possible, and this is why I need incremental backups.
     
    Last edited: Aug 1, 2009
  4. cdldt

    cdldt Registered Member

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    So I deleted todays and yesterday's backup (since they're part of a different backup set) and edited the task to be "HTPC Backup".

    Currently the backups in this set go up to 5, so logic follows that the next backup created should thus be named "HTPC Backup 6" but True Image's "maths for the insane" calls this "HTPC Backup 10".

    So in "Acronis maths":
    6 = 30
    Counting: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10

    It did manage to successfully append a new incremental onto the existing backup set, which is a surprise, so I still have no idea why this failed before!
     
  5. bodgy

    bodgy Registered Member

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    What is happening here is not quite what you think. TI numbers things like a 2 dimensional array so - first set = 1,2,3, etc, second set = (1,0); (1,1);(1,2); etc.

    There is an annoying 'feature' in TI 2009 in that if for some reason a task is unable to find the image location and an attempt is made to review the task by clicking 'edit' it makes up it's own path.

    Having said that, I don't see how this can happen if using the SZ unless you've installed the SZ to an external drive.

    Why are you needing to use MS Scheduler, what won't TI do that you need it to?
     
  6. cdldt

    cdldt Registered Member

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    Secure Zone is on a separate internal SATA disk, so there's no reason why it should have difficulty locating the backups.

    I know what you're saying about arrays, but in my case, it really does appear to have messed up the counting. I now have this:
    HTPC Backup
    --> HTPC Backup 26/07/2009 (Full)
    --> HTPC Backup 2 27/07/2009 (Incremental)
    --> HTPC Backup 3 28/07/2009 (Incremental)
    --> HTPC Backup 4 29/07/2009 (Incremental)
    --> HTPC Backup 5 30/07/2009 (Incremental)
    --> HTPC Backup 10 01/08/2009 (Incremental)
    --> HTPC Backup 11 02/08/2009 (Incremental)
    --> HTPC Backup 12 03/08/2009 (Incremental)
    They are all part of the same backup set, but where is 6, 7, 8, 9? It's not a big deal, but it doesn't give much confidence.

    Even if it was continuing the original count, the next backup should have been 8 because I only deleted two from the "other" backup set it had created. This is of course making the assumption that:
    HTPC Backup(1) = HTPC Backup 6
    HTPC Backup(1) 2 = HTPC Backup 7
    Which I don't think is correct anyway.

    I'm starting to think that Secure Zone is simply more trouble than it's worth.

    As for using MS scheduler, the Acronis scheduler service is unable to wake the PC from sleep to perform backups. I'm only using the MS scheduler to wake the PC, and the actual backup task is performed by the Acronis scheduler once the PC has been woken up (I tried to do the whole thing via the MS scheduler, but that too is broken in TI2009 and it creates full images every time).
     
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