acronis

[Baz]

heres a question about using this.If you do an incremental back up it overwrites the backup you select from the list already made and doesnt do a new one with all the changes included?  Is that right or have I done it wrong


I dont use this program enough as you can tell 


also can you schedule backups and just let it get on with it

[Rik]

Incremental backups should only backup the data that has changed from the last data backup, Baz. I never use it because you've then got to work through a series of restore actions if needed. Similarly, I prefer to watch a backup in case of errors.

[Steve]

That's why I prefer a differential backup or cumulative incremental backup .

[armadillo]

Incremental backups should only backup the data that has changed from the last data backup, Baz. I never use it because you've then got to work through a series of restore actions if needed. Similarly, I prefer to watch a backup in case of errors.

Sorry but this bit is not correct: "because you've then got to work through a series of restore actions if needed."

An incremental backup does indeed only backup the data that has changed from the last data backup. But to do a restore, you do NOT need to work through a series of actions. All you do is select the backup from which point you wish to make the restore. The software then applies all the changes recorded in all the incremental backups up to that point. So, from a user's perspective, you have just one action to perform. But you must have available the full backup and all incremental backups up to and including the one from which you want to restore.

And I can confirm that incremental backups do not overwrite anything at all. So you do not have to restore from the latest incremental backup but can restore from the last full backup or any incremental backup made since then.

At any time, you can check the validity of an incremental backup. Acronis then checks that the "chain" of incremental backups is consistent and complete. For example, if you were to delete one of the incremental backups, restore from a later incremental backup would not be possible.

I use incremental backups and I have restored from them well over 100 times, from the end of the chain and from points within the chain.

A differential backup records what has changed since the last full backup (rather than since the last incremental backup). So to do a restore you need only the full backup and the particular differential backup from which you want to restore.

Differential backups are larger than incremental backups and take longer to create. They might be a bit faster to restore from.

I also prefer to take backups when I want to rather than schedule them. In particular, I like to do them after a system restart when all the clunking and whirring has finished. I do not like an automatic backup to try to run while all that is still going on.

I take a routine incremental system backup every day, after a restart. I do not have any special notes within such routine backups.

If I am making some change that might cause problems, such as installing, updating or removing a program, I first take an ad hoc incremental backup in which I include a note to explain the point. For example "before installing Winamp". If the change was a lengthy and complex one (for example, uninstalling Comodo firewall took me about two days, including all the registry cleaning and testing) then I make an ad hoc incremental backup, with notes, immediately afterwards too. Those notes are extremely useful if you get a problem and need to restore from before or after you made certain changes.

When you restore, Acronis displays the dates of all the incremental backups and the notes within them. So you can then easily choose which one you want it to restore from.

[Rik]

Thanks, Dill, I guess my old Novell days were showing.

[armadillo]

Novell is going back a bit.

Acronis do change some of the details as they release new versions of the software. I started six years ago with True Image 8. With that, you could make two kinds of boot disc. One of them could not see my PC's DVD drives but was happy with the fact that one of my HDs is RAID. The other boot disc could see my DVDs but would not boot unless I first disabled RAID in the BIOS. (Took me a fair old while to work that out).

Four years later, I got a laptop to supplement my PC. True Image 8 could not see the laptop's HD at all. So I upgraded to TI 11. That saw my laptop HD fine. It also has two kinds of boot disc. But they can both see my PC's DVD drives and they are both happy with RAID.

I have not dared to "upgrade" past version 11. With something as low level and important as backup and restore, I believe in if it ain't broke don't fix it. 11 works perfectly on my machines. There are some bugs but not in anything that matters.

[Rik]

I stopped at 10 for the same reason.