"Gary Mount" <> wrote in message
news:#...
> "If you defrag your drive/s before a backup you will undoubtedly get a
> much
> larger backup. An incremental or differential backup done after a defrag
> will be almost the same size as a full backup."
>
> I doubt that defragmenting alters the archive bit of files, and therefore
> your theory is incorrect.
>
>
>
> "C.B." <> wrote in message
> news:0F320D8D-9035-458E-B818-...
>>
>>
>> "Chris Ritter" <Chris > wrote in message
>> news:FC9C344D-9C78-4AAA-9632-...
>>> I'm using a 350gb external hard drive for backing up my documents, and
>>> it
>>> fills up every two weeks or so. I don't think it's working right, and
>>> I'm
>>> hoping someone can confirm or deny this theory for me.
>>>
>>> I use Vista's Backup and Restore function, and I have it scheduled to
>>> run
>>> daily. As I look over the folders created each day, I notice tremendous
>>> variation in the size of each day's backup file: some days, it's 4mb;
>>> others,
>>> it's 30gb; others, it's somewhere in between. I can't see a pattern. The
>>> real
>>> problem, though, is that there are a lot of those 30gb folders, and
>>> they're
>>> filling up the hard drive.
>>>
>>> It's my understanding that the first backup file that Backup and Restore
>>> creates will be large, since it contains all of the files I've told it
>>> to
>>> backup, but subsequent backups should only copy files that have changed.
>>> I'm
>>> backing up my documents, music, pictures, and videos folders... which
>>> are
>>> about 30gb total; therefore, the fact that there are ~30gb backup
>>> folders
>>> suggests that Backup and Restore is copying everything anew a lot of the
>>> time. I do not change all of my documents, music files, and video files
>>> every
>>> day, obviously.
>>>
>>> So: is Backup and Restore acting normally nor not?
>>
>>
>> If you defrag your drive/s before a backup you will undoubtedly get a
>> much larger backup. An incremental or differential backup done after a
>> defrag will be almost the same size as a full backup.
>>
>> C.B.
>>
>>
>> --
>> It is the responsibility and duty of everyone to help the underprivileged
>> and unfortunate among us.
Mr. Mount,
When you do an image backup your first backup is going to be a full
backup. If you defrag your hard drive/s before doing a subsequent
incremental or differential backup the files on your drive/s have either
changed locations or have been altered from the original image. Depending
upon the defrag utility you are using, these files may be transferred to a
completely different location on your drive. PerfectDisk "Smart Placement"
is just one example of this.
An incremental or differential backup is based upon differences, a
snapshot so to speak, between the original image and the subsequent image.
If the files are not in the same location as the original full backup, or if
they have been altered in any fashion your backup recognizes the differences
in the image and therefore creates a new image based upon the changed or
altered location of files. This causes the creation of a larger backup file.
Your image software is not going to take the changes made to a file in
the original location of your drive and transfer those changes to the same
file on a new, different location of your drive. An image backup is just
what the name implies, an image. Any image different from the original image
is going to cause a new image to be created. If the defrag causes a complete
change in your drive then the image software is going to create a completely
new image based upon all those changes.
This is not a "theory" of mine. It is simply the manner in which image
based backup software works. Personally, I don't use incremental or
differential backups due to the amount of drive space I have. My internal
disk is 320GB and I have two external drives with 500GB each, for a total of
1.32TB. I limit the drive space for each backup and/or limit the number of
backups to said drive space and create full backups only. When I have
accumulated the number of backups I desire I simply delete the previous
backups, provided my system is stable and I have decided I have no need for
the previous backups. Sometimes I will accumulate 100GB-150GB of backups
before deletion. I do this because a full backup will restore much quicker
than incremental or differential backups. I do a daily backup to three
different locations, the first backup location being my Acronis Secure Zone
and the second and third backup locations being my two external drives. The
three different backups are done an hour apart from each other. I do not
compress my backups since a compressed file takes longer to restore due to
the necessary decompression time. I also validate each backup upon
completion and before the restore, sometimes doing a restore (when not
necessary) just to make sure the restore will work properly.
I did incremental and differential backups before making the decision
to use only full backups. Whenever I did a defrag before doing the
incremental or differential backups this created a backup almost the size of
the full backup. I don't know what else to say. My experience is based upon
the actual use of the software and therefore I don't understand how you can
imply that my advice is based upon "theory". I get the same results
regardless of the image backup software used, whether the backups were done
using Windows software or using Acronis software. I also get the same
results using the backup software included with my external drives.
C.B.
--
It is the responsibility and duty of everyone to help the underprivileged
and unfortunate among us.
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