Backup and Restore Question

Does Windows 7 Backup & Restore have a feature which will automatically delete older data file backups to clear space? It appears to have that functionality for system images but not data backups. Not sure why that would be as the result is a need to go in and physically delete older backups when space gets low.

Is there any inexpensive backup app that will work well with W7 and do that for me?

Hi there
for data you need a feature known as INCREMENTAL backups.
You start with a FULL backuo and then evry so often you take an INCREMENTAL backup -- this just copies the CHANGED data.

To restore of course you need to start from the FULL backup and then run restores from the Incremental backups.

Ever once in a while you need to take a FULL backup again other wise you will have too many Incremental backups and its easy to lose track of them.

Most decent commercial backups software will have these feature - notably Acronis and Paragon.

Macrium (Free ) *might* have it -- I don't know as incremental backup features are usually added into commercial products -- Frre ones just have a basic FULL backup / restore.

Cheers
jimbo

PRJ said:

Does Windows 7 Backup & Restore have a feature which will automatically delete older data file backups to clear space? It appears to have that functionality for system images but not data backups. Not sure why that would be as the result is a need to go in and physically delete older backups when space gets low.

Is there any inexpensive backup app that will work well with W7 and do that for me?

While some people use the built in others use acronis. In-expensive with all the flexibility you will ever need. And bullet proof.

Ken

Macrium (Free ) *might* have it -- I don't know as incremental backup features are usually added into commercial products -- Frre ones just have a basic FULL backup / restore.

Cheers
jimbo

Macrium incrementals are only in the pro version ( see comparison chart ).

Windows 7 Backup & Restore seems to do the incremental backups just fine, but I can't find a way for it to overwrite or delete older backups. My question is whether I should have to delete previous incrementals myself, I guess, in this or ANY backup app.

I checked Macrium's site and the $39.95 Reflect version does not list overwrite or delete of previous backups as a feature.

The way it works e.g. in Ghost is that you allocate an certain amount of disk space and it reuses that space when full. In Macrium Pro I am not sure because I only use the free version. But it says "Disk space management" on the chart for Pro. With Win7 imaging I have not seen such an option.