Why are incrementals so large?

When I used TI8, my full backup would be ~40GB and the daily incrementals <1GB. With TI9, the full backup is ~60GB the incrementals are ~20GB. I don't do an defragmenting between the weekly full and the daily incremental backups and eve if I did, why would the incrementals be so large? I don't have that much that changes on my system on a daily basis.

I used to keep 2 full weeks of backups on one 200GB drive, now I can barely get 1 week on the same drive. It's almost like the incrementals are really differentials except that they aren't successfully larger. Also, some days the incremental will only be ~250-400MB, what I would expect. Then the next day it's 20+GB.

I have compression set to Normal, but will try it at High for tonights backup, but I don't expect that to make much difference.

 

I know that Acronis' definition / handling of incremental backups is NOT what I expected. It is sector based, not file based.

 

If the files don't change, then the sectors shouldn't either unless the drives are defragged. Mine aren't.

 

Are you using build 2337? One of the problems a couple of builds ago was that the first incremental was the same size as the full.

Also, I seem to recall a post from a couple of months ago mentioning that normal compression on v8 was equivalent to high on v9.

 

Yes, I'm using build 2337. In fact, the problem is worse with each successive build of TI9.

 

Can anyone at Acronis help me with this? This is a regression in TI 9.

 

Hello nreiter,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please accept our apologies for the delay with the response.

Could you please provide us with the following information?

- Create Acronis Report and Windows System Information as it is described in Acronis Help Post;

- Where do you store your images?

- What is the exact size of the data that you are backing up?

- What is the exact size of the initial full image?

- What are the exact sizes of at least three subsequent incremental images?

Please also re-install Acronis True Image 8.0 and create new full and several incremental images in order to confirm that the problem appears only when using Acronis True Image 9.0. Let us know the result.

Please submit a request for technical support. Attach all the collected files and information to your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with the solution.

Thank you.
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Alexey Popov

 

I have noticed a similar problem. I am using the latest build. My full backups are ~6G. I get incrementals of a few hundred K, but then get one the size of a full backup. I have been having problems unrelated to TrueImage and have been restoring fairly often. Perhaps I am getting full backups after a restore, but it doesn't seem like that should happen.

 

I think that may well be what is happening based on my understanding. An image restore apparently does not put the sectors back exactly where they were so TI would see a restore as a significant change.

 

Alexey,

Report sent this morning. It's not possible at this time for me to reinstall TI8, but I don't recall ever having this problem with TI8. It started with TI9 and has happened with every release to date. One thing I didn't put in the report is that there was no defrag done between any of the images.

Thanks,

 

Following the directions in your (Acronis) email, I ran a chkdsk /r on all my drives and since then, all backups are behaving as expected.

Thanks,

 

Thanks for reporting the fix. From reading the reported problems and fixes, it is becoming more obvious to me that if you want to maximize the chance of your backups being good a run through chkdsk before backing up is a good idea.

 

Or at least periodically. I tend to not run chkdsk until I have a problem as NTFS is so good at self maintenance. I do defrag weekly before my full image backup of the week.

 

Although my problem is solved, when I manually run a backup, it still leaves the animated icon in the system tray when the operation is completed. I haven't been running any scheduled tasks this week, so I don't know if that would also occur with those, but every manual backup does leave the icon.

 

Hello nreiter,

Please be aware that this problem is known and will certainly be fixed in the future builds of a particular product, but exact time frame for this is not decided yet.

Please accept our apologies for the current inconvenience.

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