Scheduling Automatic Backups with Acronis TrueImage

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Now that we've created our first full backup, it's time to let Acronis do it's job automatically - we'll schedule an automatic backup task.

So far we’ve manually created a single, full backup of our machine.

While that’s useful for various purposes, our next step will be to automate the process so we don’t have to think about it. We’ll
use Acronis to schedule an automatic, daily backup.

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Transcript

Now that we’ve created our first full backup of our machine, it’s time to let Acronis do its job every night, automatically, so that we actually don’t have to think about it.

We do that with Acronis’s Task Management.

We’re going to create a backup task.

We’re going to have it backup everything on the computer, in this particular case, the C drive.

It’s going to add to an existing backup archive, the backup that we created in the previous example.

Making sure that it is stored on the correct drive.

This is going to be a daily backup which I am going to have happen at 1:00 in the morning.

Everyday.

If, for whatever reason, the machine is not turned on at the time that the backup would happen, this option allows it to happen as soon as the machine boots first thing in the morning.

It does need my credentials, so that, if you are not logged in when the time happens, the process can still run.

This is an incremental backup, it actually only backs up changes since the prior backup. If there is no prior backup then, by definition, everything’s changed and it creates a full backup.

We’re not going to exclude any files.

The one option that I always change is to increase the compression level to maximum.

We’re not going to consolidate, I’m not going to add any comments. This is a summary of what I’ve created.

And now the backup has been scheduled.

1:00 everyday.

If you like, you can now run the backup immediately.

Since this is against an existing backup that we took in the previous example, it’ll perform an incremental backup and create an additional file alongside that other, original backup.

Now, if we take a look at the backup that was created, you’ll see that there’s the original backup that we took a while back.

The full backup that’s a little over four gigabytes.

And then here’s the incremental backup we just added to that, taken today, that’s significantly smaller because it only had to include those files that changed.

To use these backups, well, we’ll look at that in our next video.

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5 comments on “Scheduling Automatic Backups with Acronis TrueImage”

  1. Acronis says that if you defrag the drive being backed up, your next backup should be a full backup. How do you handle that in the automated task procedures? I would think that you would have to delete previous backup and start fresh with a new full backup after a defrag. Then renew the automated tasks with the new full backup file. Kind of cumbersome. Is there an easier way?

    The only reason to perform a full backup after a defrag I can think of is if you’d been performing sector-by-sector backups. Normal backups simply backup all files, and are independant of disk locations. The best way to force a full backup is to rename, or move, the existing backup files to another folder.

    Leo
    02-Sep-2009

    Reply

  3. Acronis is a fiasco.

    Please read :
    http://kb.acronis.com/content/1747

    This article applies to:

    * Acronis True Image 10.0 Home
    * Acronis True Image 11 Home
    * Acronis True Image Echo Server for Windows
    * Acronis True Image Echo Workstation
    * Acronis True Image Echo Enterprise Server

    Symptoms

    * With Acronis True Image you are trying to do file backup by running the Backup wizard and selecting My Data;
    * You select one or several folders to back up. The amount of files in the selected folders is tens of thousands;
    * During the backup process Acronis True Image fails.

    Cause

    Acronis True Image runs out of system resources on the machine when backing up thousands of files (in one or several folders).

    Solution

    There is an issue with the compression algorithm. To avoid this, in the task options, set the compression level to none.

    Try running separate backup tasks, so that the amount of files in a onetime backup will be reduced.

    But they won’t give your money back.

    Reply

  4. Hi!

    Thank you for this good video. But I have a few comments: What about the full backup? If it is not redone on a weekly or at least monthly basis the incremental backups get larger and larger. And the bigger problem is that these backups depend on each other during restore, i.e. the backups are incremental, not differential. If one of them gets corrupted for some reason, you will never be able to restore your images. So I strongly recommend to add another task that reruns the full backup weekly or at least monthly.

    I also warn people that one should never rely on a single backup software. So do your backups at least once in a month or so using a different backup software, e.g. Norton Ghost from a bootable CD. Acronis and Ghost have more problems as one might expect, and one should NEVER rely that a backup image is 100% restorable. If you don’t believe me, have a look at the Acronis and Symantec forums where customers are complaining.

    Greetings,
    Anguel

    Reply

  5. Leo, Many thanks for this article, but I have one complaint, it is an old version you have used in your video, and therefore the screenshots are out of date.
    Would it be possible and not too much bother for you
    to update the screenshots for this tutorial, for us newbies. Many thanks Alison

    Reply

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