Norton 360

[cramil]

I have been using Norton 360 for a few years. I configured my Norton 360 Backup to automatically backup onto my external hardrive. I haven't been monitoring the backup over time, trusting that it was doing its job without my intervention. My files are always showing the little green check marks indicating they are successfully backed up. However, I just noticed my external hard drive was showing very little available space. It is twice the size of my internal hard drive and should have lots of room. When I checked the Norton 360 backup folder, the size was reported at 680 GB. The files being backed up only add up to191 GB. Why would the back up be so much larger than the original files?

I am only days away from renewing my 360 subscription. Satisfaction with rectifying this issue will help me decide whether or not to do so.

I tried the Norton virtual support option but the problem descriptions there were not specific enough to address my problem.

I need support.

[DistEd2 Super Bot Obliterator Mobile Master (Norton Mobile Users Discussion Forum)]

Hi, cramil,

Welcome to our community!

As you have always believed, it sounds like Norton has been doing exactly what you wanted it to do. Over time, due to changes you've made to the files being backed up, the size of your backup will increase. This is normal, because each time you delete or modify a file, and a backup runs, Norton has to save both the new version and the version you had previously backed up, in case you should find that the changes you made were bad/you didn't want to delete the file after all...or that the file had become corrupted and you wanted to revert to the previous version...or the version before that...or the version before that...or.... As you can see, after "a few years," this could easily grow in the manner you've described.

If you feel that you need to reclaim some of that drive space by deleting old backups, let us know, and someone will be able to help you.

[henryhoehn]

Please send me these instructions for paring down my backup files, also.  My backup folder is 918 GB, but the files I'm backing up are under 250 GB.  I wanted to delete the existing backup and simply create a new one while everything was working properly, but the system will not let me delete the backup.

Overall, I feel that this software needs improvement in how users can manage their backed up data.  There is no check and balance here.  These backup probably grow beyond the capacity of user's backup drives on a routine basis and they don't know what to do to clear it.

[henryhoehn]

The information at the below Symantec site shows you how to access and delete unwanted backup files in your backup set.

Delete unwanted backup files