My understanding is that the automatic backups are supposed to delete
the oldest backup whenever there is not enough space on the external
drive to complete the next backup. My experience differs from that
statement. Backup of files does appear to remove older backups as needed
to make space. The Complete PC Backup and Restore Image does NOT appear
to automatically delete the oldest image to make space on a full or
nearly full drive. There appears to be a lot of discussion about this
flaw with no clear answers.
I cannot promise that I am correct, but here is what I have discovered
through experimentation, trial and error. This is the strategy that I
use for managing complete PC backups.
Assume that drive 'F' is your external backup device, 'Computer' is the
name of your computer and that your last backup was on 2008-06-15. There
will be only one image backup folder named,
'F:\WindowsImageBackup\Computer\Backup 2008-06-15 15134323' *note the
'15134323' is a time stamp tick that represents the time of your last
backup, yours will be some other number.
For your backup files and folders (not the complete PC backup, but
files and folders only), these would be found in 'F:\Computer\Backup Set
2007-10-07 093110' (in this case the date is the day the first set of
file backups was taken) inside of this folder will be individual folders
of the form 'Backup Files yyyy-mm-dd tttttttt'. My experience is that
these files do get deleted (oldest first) when your drive is full,
although I don't think you necessarily want to wait for that to happen.
Now, my backup strategy is as follows:
- automatic daily backups of files and folders (note these are
incremental)
- automatic weekly complete image backups (note these are
incremental)
- once a week, following the automatic complete image backup,
manually delete all but the current 'Backup Files yyyy-mm-dd tttttttt'
- once a month, delete the complete image backup and manually run a
new complete image backup
Is this backup strategy perfect? No, it is not, but it may meet your
needs as it does mine. It is an economic backup solution and has enabled
me to rescue myself upon occasion.
One might also want to consider a strategy for permanent archival of
certain files and folders that you wish to keep. If you move files off
your primary drive on to another archive drive (preferrably not the same
as your backup drive), then you should also consider a backup of the
archive drive. An alternative is to save those "permanent" files and
folders on your primary drive, which is already covered by the backup
strategy. In order to save space on my primary drive, I have gone to the
archive drive model.
Comments on improving my backup strategy are welcome, and... perhaps,
some might find this a strategy that works for them as well. One of
these days, I'm going to write a script that automates my once a week
and once a month manual interventions.
I hope this helps.
Also, there are some good tutorials on this site about both kinds of
backups.
--
solonfox
-solon fox
"Ancora imparo" (Still I am learning) - Michelangelo