# Acronis True Image Home 2009 (v.12)



## Elvandil

This is a nice application. Those who had tried to use the "Backup Locations" feature of v.11, with the limits on age, size, or number of backups, and discovered not only how difficult this was to configure, but realized fairly quickly that it never worked right, will be happy to know it is gone.

In its place is a new feature whereby full images and their incremental backups can now be consolidated together to form a single, new full backup. So completely clearing out a "Backup Location" is no longer necessary, and periodic full backups are not necessary, either.

It is now very easy to set up a regular schedule that creates one full backup and then only incremental ones. When the number of backups exceeds a chosen number (or age, or space used), the whole bunch can be consolidated and a new, full backup is formed. Very efficient and a much simpler implementation than the old method.

The installer is also quite a bit smaller, and includes drive cleansing, new drive installation, and the ability to make a second backup to a different location. Finally, a new version that is really a great improvement. I even like the GUI much better.

(Try&Decide is still there and works even better. You can run your system in "virtual mode" so that nothing can hurt or infect you, and the state even is maintained between boots, until you turn it off and decide what system changes to keep.)


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## jdean

Elvandil said:


> This is a nice application. Those who had tried to use the "Backup Locations" feature of v.11, with the limits on age, size, or number of backups, and discovered not only how difficult this was to configure, but realized fairly quickly that it never worked right, will be happy to know it is gone.
> 
> In its place is a new feature whereby full images and their incremental backups can now be consolidated together to form a single, new full backup. So completely clearing out a "Backup Location" is no longer necessary, and periodic full backups are not necessary, either.
> 
> It is now very easy to set up a regular schedule that creates one full backup and then only incremental ones. When the number of backups exceeds a chosen number (or age, or space used), the whole bunch can be consolidated and a new, full backup is formed. Very efficient and a much simpler implementation than the old method.


Thanks for the info. I'm still using v10 and I will probably upgrade.

From your description of how backup locations and full + incrementals are managed, it sounds to me like the underlying mechanism is the same, but Acronis has figured out how to properly explain it and presumably fixed the user interface. I can do the things that you described as being new in the older version (at least I think I can ;-) but it took me quite a while to figure how because the options are scattered and not well explained.


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## Elvandil

Actually, the underlying mechanism is completely different. The new idea is "consolidation". Instead of the mess of trying to decide what incremental or differential backups to remove when a limit is reached, or whether a new, full backup needs to be made, consolidating the current backups eliminates the problems. The most recent backup and the last full backup and simply converted into a single, full backup that can then be itself added to incrementally. Really a good solution to this problem and one that I expect others, like Paragon and ShadowProtect, to follow (unless they were first!). it completely eliminates any manual actions for automated backups. You really can just set it and forget it.


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## jdean

But the old version was already using consolidation!

Let me tell you how it works and please tell me if the new way is different/better. Let's say that I tell TrueImage to max out at 3 incrementals (for a backup location) and let's say I do a backup each day. After 4 days, I will have 4 files (1 full and 3 incremental). On the fifth day, TI will do a consolidation, so I will still have 4 files, but when I browse the backup, I'll see only the most recent 4 days.

So it doesn't create a single file, but it allows incrementals to be added indefinitely (until there's not enough disk space). No manual action is needed.

I'm using v10. Is it possible that they took consolidation out of v11 and then added back into v12??


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## Elvandil

jdean said:


> But the old version was already using consolidation!
> 
> Let me tell you how it works and please tell me if the new way is different/better. Let's say that I tell TrueImage to max out at 3 incrementals (for a backup location) and let's say I do a backup each day. After 4 days, I will have 4 files (1 full and 3 incremental). On the fifth day, TI will do a consolidation, so I will still have 4 files, but when I browse the backup, I'll see only the most recent 4 days.
> 
> So it doesn't create a single file, but it allows incrementals to be added indefinitely (until there's not enough disk space). No manual action is needed.
> 
> I'm using v10. Is it possible that they took consolidation out of v11 and then added back into v12??


I don't see anything being consolidated in your example. And you can't keep adding inrementals because you will run out of space.

With consolidation, those 4 backups that you had would be turned into a single, full backup, releasing the space used by the incrementals and allowing new ones to be created.


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## jdean

In the example I gave, there will never be more than 4 files. Once I've reached the maximum number of incrementals, each following day that I do a backup, TI will consolidate the backup files so that there will always be the same number of backup files.

The consolidation releases unused space and allows new ones to be created. The only difference that I can see, based on your explanation, is that the newer version consolidates to a single file. In either case (1 file or 4 files), each subsequent backup will be followed by a consolidation that gets rid of older files.


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## Elvandil

In the version 11 backup, older files are deleted, but not consolidated. That is why incremental backups lead to such a mess and varying results. Incremental backups need to all be saved in order to restore, while the differentials require only the last backup and the original full backup.

I have never seen any evidence that any files were consolidated in my backup cache, but maybe I just haven't watched it carefully enough. It was my impression that there were only deletions, and that sometimes after backups had far exceeded the space allotted for them since Acronis was sometimes at a loss about what to delete.


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## jdean

I suspect that you didn't dig deep enough. If you look at the log files, you'll see that when the backup location quota is reached, TI does a consolidation. The log will show that the quota was exceeded and then you'll see that TI spends a whole bunch of time doing something (I don't think they use the word "consolidation" in the log, but that's what's happening).

Anyway, thanks again for the info, I'm sure the new method of consolidation provides advantages over the old, and one of these days I'll get around to updating.


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## Elvandil

jdean said:


> I suspect that you didn't dig deep enough. If you look at the log files, you'll see that when the backup location quota is reached, TI does a consolidation. The log will show that the quota was exceeded and then you'll see that TI spends a whole bunch of time doing something (I don't think they use the word "consolidation" in the log, but that's what's happening).
> 
> Anyway, thanks again for the info, I'm sure the new method of consolidation provides advantages over the old, and one of these days I'll get around to updating.


I suspect that the new method is superior to the old, regardless of the semantics involved. I know that the application didn't behave the way I wanted it to behave when quotas were reached, and they were sometimes greatly exceeded until a new image was created and TI decided what to delete. This doesn't happen any more.


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## jdean

The old scheme worked but it did have some shortcomings. I'm please to hear that they've improved the software and I'll be looking forward to upgrading. Thanks again.


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