Basic Acronis 2013 ?'s

markg2 · 25 Jan 2013

I took the plunge along with the new machine and purchased 2 new 2013 Acronis Home licenses. The immediate benefit--the backup email status notification that I could not get to work in either of the 2 existing, previous versions now works on both machines.

Here are a few questions that I posted a week ago on the Acronis forum and as yet have not received a reply.

1. Since both 2013 licenses are purchased under my name, the 'from' on the notification emails are both Mark.com. Is there way way within the software to change one of these (e.g. Connie.com)?

2. The default backup program is something called 'Version Chain' that runs what appears to be a mix of differential and incremental backups and then starts deleting after 6 months. Since I've got tons of space on the second (target) drive, any reason not to use the routine?

3. There's an option to make the target bootable. Again, any reason not to?

Mark

fireberd · 25 Jan 2013

I have Acronis 2013 with the "plus pack" (I needed that to create a WinPE Acronis bootable recovery disc). I can't answer question #1.

2. I only do full backups, not incremental or differential. I have the disc space (I alternate between two separate hard drives) and its easier if you have to restore from backups as you only need the one backup. With the other types of backups you need the basic (full) backup plus all the incrementals and that can get confusing. Where I used to work (before I retired) for our file servers, we initially did a full backup on Monday night and then incrementals on Tuesday through Friday. That was OK except that if a server needed to be restored there were five backups that needed to be run. They took a long look at it and decided to do a full backup every night. If a server needed restored it was actually less time and less chance of error since everything was in one backup.

3. I've never made the "target" bootable. I have never had a reason to do that. If its bootable and all you have is Acronis backups on that drive and not an OS and the Acronis program it will not do you any good.

My 2cents.

markg2 · 25 Jan 2013

I agree on the differential/incremental thing but that was the default so I went with it pending...

Do you mind me asking what scheduling plan you've settled on? Now that I have space and 2 quick machines I can really afford the luxury of a proper imaging scheme.

Mark

fireberd · 26 Jan 2013

I changed the default method to full (Acoronis will show it as "custom" after its changed).

I don't have a regular schedule, I do it as needed but at a minimum weekly. I do it at a time that does not interfere with anything, such as in the evening after I'm done for the day. I set Acronis to power off the PC after the backup completes.

markg2 · 26 Jan 2013

Previously I ran a full image from both our computers every night (next night overwrote the prior) and then manually copied a daily to an intermediate (3 month) file and a long term (6 month) file.

Following Murphy's Law--I generally needed to recapture information that was missing from the mix.

I'm now thinking of running 2 schedules/machine. A complete daily that will start to overwrite beginning the new week. A once/week that will overwrite beginning the new month.

fireberd · 26 Jan 2013

Its good to have more than one copy of backups. e.g. I keep the two previous backups plus the current backup. Its for Murphy's Law. If you deleted all the backups before you did a backup, if something were to happen during the backup all is lost. I also alternate between backup hard drives and thus if one of the backup hard drives fails (and other Murphy's Law) I still have the backup from the other drive.

I have a (home) recording studio and it would be a disaster to lose a recording session.