Incremental backup

[QueBert]

I bought Acronic True Image off Ebay, set it to do a full backup of the drives, than changed the task to do Incremental. The full backup took somewhere around 4-5 hours. The incremental is showing 2 hours remaining. been running for about 2 hours already. Very few if any files had been changed since the first update. I don't expect an Incremental to take seconds, but shouldn't it be a lot quicker then 4 hours? Yes I have a lot of files, but this is almost the same time as a full. Ideas??

 

[nova2]

if you're doing it from a CD, try doing the backup inside windows instead, perhaps that'll help.

however i'd suggest using xxcopy or rsync instead, if possible.

backup guide:
http://vampteam.com/u=backupguide

 

[Navid]

Two conditions could make an incremental backup take as long as a full backup:

1- You have changed all your files since the last full backup.
2- The backup software has no access to the full backup file. So, it creates another one.

 

[QueBert]

well I'm backing up to an external HD, USB 2.0. I noticed True Image seemed to be making a 2nd backup file, I had it set for backup.tib but I saw backup1.tib. I deleted the TIB and started over, I selected "full backup" it finished about 5 hours later. Going to edit the task and change the backup type to incremental and see what happens. I have it run at 3AM so I guess I don't care if it takes 4-5 hours every time, but my issue is that it should be like super fast. the files that are changed would be very minimal, and stuff added would be about the same, almost nothing there. I've read True Image is one of the better backup proggies that's why I went with it. So far I'm not too impressed with it. Not sure why it decided to create a 2nd backup file when I told it incremental and the full backup was already there.

 

[Navid]

It is possible that you have set up the schedule wrong. For example, you may have set it up for a full backup every day!
Or may be your external drive was disconnected when the time came for the incremental backup. True image must see the full backup. otherwise, it will have to create another.

You don't have to change the schedule.
What you need to do is to have a schedule for a full backup for example once every 3 months. And have a second schedule for a differential backup every month.
And have a third schedule for an incrememntal backup every day.

I do not use the True Image backup. I only use it for making images. I use a different program for my regular file backups.
But, the scheduling is something basic and True Image should have no problem with it whatsoever.

An incremental backup file, if you have not changed many files since your last full backup, will take much less and will be much smaller. If you always make full backups, your external hard drive will be full in a few days!

 

[QueBert]

so you're saying if I create a task for a full backup, run it then edit it to do incremental it's not going to work, and I need to create a 2nd task for incrementals? I don't want it to write a bunch of files, one .TIB for all my partitions is fine.

 

[Navid]

The whole idea of an incremental backup is that you create a separate file (incremental) from the full backup. The result is that you don't have to create a full backup every time.

When the time comes to recover, you restore the last full backup first. Then, you restore the last differential backup. Then, you will have to restore every incremental backup since the last differential backup.

It is possible that True Image takes care of all this itself so you don't have to create multiple files; I don't know one way or another.

But, the whole point of different types of backup is to address the trade-off between the ease of restore (Full) and the speed of backup creation and small size (incremental). The differential is in the middle with respect to the two aspects of the trade-off.

Edit:
http://www.microsoft.com/techn...str_xcdw.mspx?mfr=true
http://www.geekgirls.com/windo...p_strategies_table.htm

Edit 2:
http://www.acronis.com/enterpr...cremental-backups.html

 

[SoulAssassin]

It's also possible that your disk is the limiting factor as it still has to scan for new files.

 

[MerlinRML]

OP, you seem to be expecting more from your backup software than it's got.

The incremental backup is designed to be a series of events. The first backup is a full, and then every additional backup beyond that is an incremental. Each incremental is a separate entity from the full, as the software cannot determine for you which version of the changed files you want to restore. It cannot merge the changes into the first backup image, because then you lose the ability to restore the original file.

However, you seem to be more concerned with the restore aspect. The limitation of incremental backups is that they focus on the backup window and data movement, not the restore. When you need to restore an incremental, you have to restore the full backup, and then every incremental inbetween the last full and the incremental you restore. It's an iterative process to add all the changes back in and can take a whole lot of time depending on how many images you have to go through.

What you seem to be asking for with a single file to restore is something I've heard referred to as a synthetic backup. In this case, you take a full backup and then a month's worth of incrementals. At the end of the month, you run a task that goes through and combines the full with all of the incrementals, creating a single image to restore from. You lose all of the versioning from the last month, but your restore time is now reduced since you don't have to restore a month's worth of backups, and you don't have to run a new full backup and can just keep running more incrementals all the time. It's a neat idea, but there are some risks associated with destroying old images and creating a synthetic new image.

Not sure if Acronis does synthetics.

 

[QueBert]

I expected more because Acronis makes great products man Right now it makes one file, if I click on it it opens in the Acronis viewer and has all my partitions. I haven't ran another incremental yet to see if it's speeding up. But, if the incremental's going to take just as long as the full backup I see no reason to use it. I guess I might have been stupid to assume the incremental would just update the one file, I don't care if it creates 1 every day just as long as they are small. Will let it run tonight and see what happens.

 

[Navid]

Let's try just one sentence! Read it!

If you have not made any significant changes to any files since the last full backup, and if you have not deleted or moved the last full backup, an incremental backup takes only a few seconds.

 

[kevnich2]

Any updates on this, how'd Acronis go?