Add to Backup?

I recently backed up my computer using Acronis 10 and now want to backup the files that I have used in the the last 2 months, mainly photos which are kept in My Pictures in C:\
Is this a differential or incremental backup or am I getting confused.
I use Windows XP desktop and find this all a bit confusing

Any help appreciated

 

Grumbles - it would be incremental, as it would keep adding the new files to the existing initla back up you did.

Personally I do not like incremental backups because it is a pain if you ever did need to do a full restore. I do a full back up each time, but so the drive does not get over full, I just keep a son, father, grandfather approach to backups. Each time I make a new full back up with Acronis I remove the oldest from my external hard drive.

Hope this helps.

 

Thank you Lev for that answer Should I delete the existing back up on external drive before doing another full back up? Like format the drive?

G

 

Absolutely not! If you deleted it and your machine screwed up during the next back up you would be left with no back ups.

What I meant with the son, father, grandfather approach is that you always keep 3 backups on the external drive. The family relationship just correlates with the generational age of the back ups, son being your most recent, father being the second most recent and grandfather the oldest. So when you make a fourth back up, that will be come the youngest and so you go ahead and delete the oldest (grandfather) one from your external drive. This way you always keep 3 copies should any of those screw up. It's the safe way to store data.

 

Thank you for the explanation Lev. As I am new to using an external hard drive, I thought that I had better ask to be sure.

Much appreciated

G

 

Lev, how much of a pain is restoring with incremental backups with Acronis? I, too, have been leery of using them but never investigated the disadvantages. I don't need a lot of explanation just a quick response. Thank you.

 

Incremental backups are great to do as they are quick and take up only a small amount of HD space.

However, they take longer to restore because the backup has to be reconstituted from the last full backup and all the incremental backups taken since the full backup.

If you have the patience to go through this process in the event you need to restore then go for it, espeically if you like the quick back up system incremental backups provide for those who back up very frequently (more than once a week, say).

 

Thanks, Lev. I'm still going to continue with the Grandfather>Father>Son system as my ideal but I want to be sure that the incremental backup system is automatic even if time intensive. In other words, if I restore with a backup and a couple of incremental backups, is it a one step process from my user point of view? I know I should have done a test run at some point to familiarize myself with the process but haven't gotten around to it. I appreciate the information.

 

You would need to restore the last full backup first, followed by each of the subsequent incremental backups to the present day in the correct order. This is not a one-hit restore. Should any one of your incremental backup copies be damaged (particularly the full backup), the restore would be incomplete.

 

Thanks so much! "Nuff said! Incremental backups are OUT. I appreciate the advice and am adjusting my backups accordingly. I'm glad I didn't have to figure this out when I needed it most.

 

Lev, I may be mistaken but I don't believe the user has to do the individual incremental restores in the proper order. I'm pretty sure all the user has to do is select from the list of available restore dates and times and the Acronis software will then automatically begin the restore with the full "base" backup and then restore each incremental backup in the proper sequence in order to recreate/restore the hard drive's state to that of the date and time selected.

It's certainly true that the longer the chain of incremental backups is the more likely the chain may be broken by a single corrupt incremental backup thus preventing a successful restore operation. But I don't believe the user has to worry about what backups to restore in which order. Acronis takes care of that once the user selects the date and time to which he wishes to restore his hard drive.

I prefer differential backups myself, as they use far less space than full backups (though, like an incremental backup they require a full backup as a starting point) and to do a successful restore requires only the full original backup and a single differential backup for the particular date and time the user chooses to restore to.

But certainly, if the user has sufficient space on his backup hard drive, the son/father/grandfather model of deleting the oldest backup and doing a new full backup each time should also work fine.

 

I should have also mentioned in my previous post that when doing a restore using differential backups the user only has to select the date and time from a list of available backups/restore points and the Acronis software will then restore the correct full backup and the one differential backup needed to recreate the hard drive as it was on the date and time the user selected. The user doesn't have to worry about the details of which full backup and which differential backup to restore nor worry about in which order he should do the restores. The user has only to choose the date and time he wishes to restore his hard drive to and Acronis takes care of the details.

And as I mentioned above, I believe restoring from incremental backups using Acronis works similarly so that the user doens't have to fret over the details of which restores have to be done or what sequence they must follow.

 

Maybe you are correct, dependant on what version of Acronis is being used. I have not used the latest version. Good point...thanks for raising it!

 

Thanks Eezak for explaining the difference between incremental and differential backups. I've been reading them as two names for the same thing. I see now that they are different and differential is what I want to use. In True Image 10, the wizard doesn't make it clear how to select differential. It looks like as long as you select the last full backup as the starting point you will get a differential each time so this is what I will do.

I'm still going to keep two full backups but am going to use the differential in between. Thanks again Lev and Eezak.