View File Properties in Secure Zone

[TI 9.0 Home, build 3666, on Windows XP Home SP 2]

I'd like to be able to see what backups are being stored in the Secure Zone along with their files sizes and dates of creation. How do I do this? I can't use Windows Explorer, obviously.

I've discovered that I can do this if I start the Recovery Wizard. But there's gotta be another way...right?

 

It has to be done from within TI, as you noted. You might try the Validate Backup Archive and see if it’s any different. I can’t try it as I don’t have an ASZ.

 

I haven't found a direct way to view file properties of backup images in the Secure Zone. If I start the Restore wizard or the Mount wizard I can see the total amount of space occupied by images in the Secure Zone, but I can't tell the size of any one image. If I start the Restore wizard or the Mount wizard I can also see the date and time of creation for each image.

Shouldn't Acronis offer a straightforward way to see this information? The advanced features of True Image are really excellent...it's the basic features that are lacking.

 

Hi buldog356,
It used to annoy me just as it does you, however as the date and time of each .tib is available and the free space of the zone is shown I decided that that is all I really need to know. The size of your next image can be found by noting the decrease in free space after its creation. If the zone is full or nearly so you could enlarge it on a temporary basis. The size of a .Tib depends on the volume of your original data,which level of compression you have chosen and just how compressible you actual data is.
While it would be nice to know the size of individual .tibs in the zone I can see no value in this information. The important thing for me is that the zone is big enough to take the number of backups that I require and the fact that it can be resized with ease to achieve this.

Xpilot

 

But how do you know the zone is big enough for the number of backups you require if you don't know how much space a single backup occupies?

In my case, I used to backup outside the zone -- full backups of my system partition -- so I knew how large an image file was. With that information I was able to setup a secure zone that was big enough to maintain a history of seven backups (with some added padding.)

Over time my system partition may grow and thus the backups of my system partition will also grow. If I can see that the size of the .tibs is growing I can expand the secure zone to hold the number of backups I require.

On the other hand, if all I know is how much unused space remains in the zone, I don't know whether it will contain my next backup without deleting the earliest backup.

 

Hello bulldog356,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please note that Acronis Secure Zone is hidden, protected disk partition on the hard disk drive. Since this partition is inaccessible by the operating system and applications, the user can be sure that the disk images stored are secure and cannot be altered.

If there is not enough free space in Acronis Secure Zone to create an image, then Acronis True Image deletes the oldest full image with all subsequent incremental backup images.

If there is only one full image (with subsequent incremental backup images) left and full backup is in progress, then this only full image (with subsequent incremental backup images) is deleted.

Otherwise (only one full image left, and incremental backup is in progress) then you will get out of space error. In this case you will have to either create full image or increase the Acronis Secure Zone size.

You can always check how much free space left in Acronis Secure Zone on the second page of the Manage Acronis Secure Zone wizard.

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.
--
Tatyana Tsyngaeva

 

This does not provide any assurance that the Secure Zone has enough free space for my next full backup without having to erase the earliest backup, since I do not know how much space my most recent full backup used.

The only way to get an idea of how much space my next full backup needs is to manually run a full backup outside the Secure Zone and then check how much space that backup used.

With that information, I'll know whether I need to add more space to the Secure Zone, so my next full backup will not cause the earliest backup in the Zone to be erased. Thus, I will be assured that the Secure Zone will continue to hold the number of backups that I wish it to hold.

All of this can be avoided by simply having the programmers list the file sizes of backups in the Secure Zone along with the date and time each backup was created.

Apparently, no one at Acronis thought that users would want to maintain a history of backups, since True Image makes it very awkward to do this.

I will follow your suggestion and post to the Wish List.