File Backup method

[meyerj31]

My HTPC has an interal 2TB hdd thats just over half full of movies and shows. I recently bought a 4TB external seagate backup drive and i wish to use it to backup all my videos on the HTPC. I have installed Acronis True Image and set up a Incremental File Backup for my TV and Movie directory. It worked well for about 3 weeks, then i noticed the drive filling up more than it should have. I took a look and it showed that my backups totalled 1.9TB when in fact i only have about 1.2TB worth of video files. What gives? I have it set to do incremental backups twice a week and after approx 3 weeks, it's taking up 700GB more than it should!! what's going on here?

Has anybody else ran into problems with Incremental backups taking up more space than they should? What's the best option for something like this? What kind of backup scheme have you implemented? I really dont want to have to manually copy and paste all my new videos for a backup solution - i'd rather have everything automated with minimal maintenance.

any suggestions would be nice. Share your backup scheme opinions

 

[SPS]

Are you using the version chain scheme or the custom scheme (with incremental selected)?

 

[meyerj31]

Just Incremental. Not doing any versioning.

 

[SPS]

Incremental uses versioning. So are you expecting your backup to equal the same size as your original data? If so you want to be using single version scheme.

Incremental backups take a full backup at first so ~1.2TB and then the data changed since the last incremental backup, which in my opinion doesn't make sense for video files that you just watch, as you wont be regularly editing those files.

If you do want to keep incremental backup you can change the Automatic Consolidation settings to set the maximum number of versions to keep, keep versions that are only a number of days old or set a size limit, that once it is reached it will start to delete older versions.

 

[meyerj31]

If i do a single version scheme, wont it have to backup the whole 1.2TB library each time (once a week)? That sounds awfully taxing on both the main drive and backup drive.

I feel like Incremental is the way to go because once i have the initial full version, the incremental backups will just backup the files i've added since the week prior.

Would you recommend making changes to the "Automatic Consolidation Settings"?

 

[SPS]

Ok, well you have to know that incremental backups are only good if the full version or any other incremental version doesn't get corrupted, which I have had happen.

In the file backup options after selecting incremental, I would select to Create a full version after every 6 incremental versions, then click Turn on automatic cleanup and select Store no more than 4 recent version chains in the options.

That way you are not backing everything up on every scheduled backup, but you are keep relatively fresh full backups to reduce the risk of the backup being affected by corrupt files. Now you also have the automatic cleanup which will remove older versions for you and keep the backup size down, as you have no need for real versioning control you can tailor this to suit you.

 

[meyerj31]

Okay I'm starting over. I'm currently running a job with you suggestions. I cant believe the ETA on this backup is 5 days. we'll see how it goes.
Is there any other software you like to use other than Acronis trueimage?
Thank you!

 

[SPS]

I suppose it is a lot of data, I'm not 100% sure what the best solution is for very large files.

True image has a lot more functionality than it first appears and it may be worth going over to their forums to ask someone with a much more extensive knowledge.

I've just found this that might help you out a little to understand true image more:
http://forum.acronis.com/forum/28705

As for other products, I have yet to try any as true image suits me fine.