macrium echo

[149047]

hi all!
i have a macrium full c:/ drive backup scheduled for sundays. i thought that after the initial backup macrium would later only backup changes on the drive. but, my backup folder shows an entire new backup archive. is there a chance i can tell macrium to only go for the changes, or how do you guys avoid gradual data accumulation?
regards,
markus

 

[Night Hawk]

Unfortunately one image won't overwrite another. The built-in tool for creating a full system image in 7 will automatically overwrite any previous image unless renamed slightly like adding the name of the month at the end. With other imaging softwares like Macrium's Reflect, Acronis True image, and other each new image is provided a new name.

Reflect uses a dating method for naming each image seen. The best option is to manually create a new image when needed and use the option for custom naming to manually overwrite or delete the previous image once you rename that until the new one is seen.

Acronis allows you to mount an image as a second C drive listed in any WE window and open it up to add files manually as an incremental backup option there. You would have to look at Reflect to see if that also has this option for adding to one rather then seeing multiple images.

 

[Wishmaster]

Are you using the free version of Macrium?

As far as I am aware, the only way you can get Incremental or Differntial updates is with Paid Software.
Either Macriums Paid version, Acronis etc ..

Perhaps I am Mistaken, I am not that familiar with Macrium, but Im not aware of any Free version Back Up software that offers these features.


You can then make a Full back up, and then schedule Incremental Backup at whatever intervals you choose.

You can also Consolodate at certain Intervals as well. (Which is taking all the small change only section and Consolodating into 1 Image)

For Example Incremental Daily, and weekly Consolodate it all into 1.

 

[Night Hawk]

For the free version that would depend on who provides it. If you go to WD or Seagate for example they provide the Disk Director suite free but of their own version which allows mounting the image you create. The option for read only or add/remove files allowing you to edit a present image is presented when firs going to mount the image for the first time.

The alternative that will save on hard drive space once a good working image is made would be scheduling not a full image but using the Windows Easy Transfer tool for much smaller in size backups. If you should need to restore a basic image with all your programs restoring the latest backup will restore the new files added since plus all of your program settings.

Images can grow in size as well as in numbers over time! This is another item you want to take note of. A July image here ran 131gb and the September image saw 211gb here showing a perpetual growth. If you are not working with large capacity drives or several smaller ones.... ut oh big problem soon to come with multiple full images!

 

[Phone Man]

hi all!
i have a macrium full c:/ drive backup scheduled for sundays. i thought that after the initial backup macrium would later only backup changes on the drive. but, my backup folder shows an entire new backup archive. is there a chance i can tell macrium to only go for the changes, or how do you guys avoid gradual data accumulation?
regards,
markus

Check out the Tutorials at Macrium Website.

It looks like you need to create each type of backup and save as a XML backup definition file and then schedule each one when you want.

Full backup
http://www.macrium.com/KB/KnowledgebaseArticle50039.aspx

Incremental Backup
http://www.macrium.com/KB/KnowledgebaseArticle50021.aspx

Schedule Backups
http://www.macrium.com/KB/KnowledgebaseArticle50036.aspx

NOTE: Only available in the full paid version. The free version only does FULL images.

Jim

 

[CGA1]

This is the main reason I bought the full version. And yes, you have to create two different schedules, one for the full and one for the incrementals. E g full backup Monday and incrementals Tuesday-Sunday.

 

[whs]

Before you get all excited about incremental backups I like to draw your attention to the fact that full backups are a lot safer. Imagine you make incrementals for several weeks and then you loose one of the incrementals due to a disk error or whatever - then you lost the whole chain and cannot restore. If the same thing happens with full backups, you only lost one of the backups but all the others are intact.

All it takes is a little bit more space on the disk which at todays disk prices should not be a problem. It is anyhow recommended to keep a few images at each time so that you have recovery options. E.g. a virus on your system can be 1 day old or 3 weeks old. And I always keep the first image after I installed the system and I store it on a disk that is normally disconnected (you can even burn it to DVD). That is the ultimate fallback. The other images I manage manually - e.g. each month I take at least one image that I store on the disk that is normally disconnected whilst my daily images go on an internal HDD.

For all of this I use the free Macrium. But if you want differentials (slightly different to incrementals), you could try free Paragon ( Free Backup Software: Paragon Backup & Recovery Free Advanced Edition - Overview ).

 

[CGA1]

There's a big difference between differential and incremental backups. Differentials does not need every backup in the backup set in order to do a restore. From the Macrium help file:

Incremental
Copy only Partition/Disk sectors that have changed since the last backup.
Requires a previous backup to be present on a locally attached drive. Greatly reduces backup time and reduces backup image size. When restoring from incremental backup, you need the most recent full backup as well as EVERY incremental backup you've made since the last full backup.

Differential
Copy only Partition/Disk sectors that have changed since the last full backup.
Requires a previous backup to be present on a locally attached drive. Restoring a differential backup is a faster process than restoring an incremental backup because only two backup container files are needed: the latest full backup and the latest differential.

And yes, letting several weeks pass between full backup is a really bad idea.

 

[whs]

There's a big difference between differential and incremental backups. Differentials does not need every backup in the backup set in order to do a restore. From the Macrium help file:

Incremental
Copy only Partition/Disk sectors that have changed since the last backup.
Requires a previous backup to be present on a locally attached drive. Greatly reduces backup time and reduces backup image size. When restoring from incremental backup, you need the most recent full backup as well as EVERY incremental backup you've made since the last full backup.

Differential
Copy only Partition/Disk sectors that have changed since the last full backup.
Requires a previous backup to be present on a locally attached drive. Restoring a differential backup is a faster process than restoring an incremental backup because only two backup container files are needed: the latest full backup and the latest differential.

And yes, letting several weeks pass between full backup is a really bad idea.

Absolutely right. My bad - I corrected my post accordingly.

 

[Night Hawk]

With the prices on drives lower then ever I have full disk images on more then one drive. The oldest made in late June sits on an external drive. That won't be sitting alone for very long once the next image is created.

That is from adding a few more programs on compared to the basic image created from the clean install seen in May due to a hardware change requirement. With the exception of one or two paid for programs added on since everything could simply be downloaded again if needed.

What program or "Option" will be used once again? For the latest the "create a system image" option found in Control Panel>Backup & Restore which will be a bit larger in size going from 131gb to the latest at 249gb in size. So I won't need another image for another 3 months?