Delete files to reclaim disk space?

Ghost 15 (and before that, Save & Restore) files are stored on a separate internal drive -- all in the same directory.  S&R backups were created under Vista and now I have Windows 7 Home Premium.  Ghost is still working on its first recovery point set and two sets were saved earlier by Save & Restore.  My question is -- can the intermediate backups for older S&R sets be deleted, leaving the base set in each case?  The program does not list S&R recovery points.

 

A related question -- I am surprised by the amount of space the incremental backups take.  Last night the incremental backup stored 5.3G of information from my system drive.  I wasn't aware of any updates (other than for NIS 2010) and I didn't download anything.  My 1TB drive is getting eaten up at a pretty good clip.  I am using "standard" compression. I am using whole drive backup, no folder and files backups.  Is there a lot of overhead?  Is there a log somewhere that details what is being updated?  Should I do less frequent whole drive backups and set up a folder and file backup to be done more frequently?

 

 

 

Hi PoulsboGuy,

 

Welcome to the forum. I am not sure what you mean by "deleting the intermediate backups". Can you clarify this a bit more?

 

The S&R restore points can be used by Ghost 15 even though they are not listed in the history of backups performed.

 

With Standard compression I would expect (on average) no better than about 20-25% reduction in overall size. I would suggest using High compression which will give you a much better rate. On average on my system for example (I use high compression) my backups take about 25 G for about 80 G of data. The trade-off is it runs a bit slower but if you schedule unattented backups this should not be a bid deal.

 

Regarding your question about doing less frequent whole drive backups and more file and folder backups. First, this would not be recommended on your system drive. Secondly I don't think this will gain you very much in size either. Bear in mind that the image backup (backup my computer) creates a large initial image snapshop of your entire drive, but similar to file and folder backups the incrementals will only include sectors which have changed since the last full backup.

 

Related to the 5.3 GB for your incremental. How long had it been since the last full backup? What is the size of the last full backup? Also do you have Windows set to automatically download and install updates? Any computer restarts, or improper shutdowns since your last full backup? Have you run (either scheduled or manual) any defragmenting utility on your hard drive? One test you can do here is to perform a full backup, followed just after by an incremental to confirm that the incremental image is very small.

 

Allen

Message Edited by AllenM on 11-26-2009 11:22 AM
Message Edited by AllenM on 11-26-2009 11:35 AM

Within recovery points sets there are intermediate recovery points.  My understanding is that with Ghost you can choose to delete these intermediate points leaving just the base set.  That’s going from the documentation, I’m not going to do that with recent recovery point sets.  Anyway, you can’t do this with the Save & Restore sets using the Ghost program.  Hence the question whether one can manually delete the files.


PoulsboGuy wrote:
Within recovery points sets there are intermediate recovery points.  My understanding is that with Ghost you can choose to delete these intermediate points leaving just the base set.  That's going from the documentation, I'm not going to do that with recent recovery point sets.  Anyway, you can't do this with the Save & Restore sets using the Ghost program.  Hence the question whether one can manually delete the files.

 

 

 

Hi PoulsboGuy,

 

You can delete intermediate recovery points, however you need to be careful because each incremental builds on the previous one. So for example let's say you have base + 10 incrementals and you delete incremental number 5. You have now broken the chain and anything after incremental 4 is now unusable. So if you are comfortable with having just the base for your S&R recovery points, then yes you can do that.

 

I also added a few other questions to address something else you said in your initial post.

 

Thanks

Allen

Message Edited by AllenM on 11-26-2009 11:40 AM
Message Edited by AllenM on 11-26-2009 11:41 AM

AllenM wrote:

PoulsboGuy wrote:
Within recovery points sets there are intermediate recovery points.  My understanding is that with Ghost you can choose to delete these intermediate points leaving just the base set.  That's going from the documentation, I'm not going to do that with recent recovery point sets.  Anyway, you can't do this with the Save & Restore sets using the Ghost program.  Hence the question whether one can manually delete the files.

 Hi PoulsboGuy,

 

You can delete intermediate recovery points, however you need to be careful because each incremental builds on the previous one. So for example let's say you have base + 10 incrementals and you delete incremental number 5. You have now broken the chain and anything after incremental 4 is now unusable. So if you are comfortable with having just the base for your S&R recovery points, then yes you can do that.

 

I also added a few other questions to address something else you said in your initial post.

 

Thanks


Hi PoulsboGuy,

 

Yes, Ghost does have the ability to delete intermediate incrementals from within a recovery point set. The important point here is that you cannot simply delete those incrementals. As Allen has quite correctly noted, to do so would break the continuity of the set.

 

When Ghost does it, it's through a process of consolidation. If you have a base + 10 incrementals and choose to delete the first nine incrementals, all of the change that has occurred from the base through the 10th incremental is consolidated in a replacement 10th incremental. Since most of the change is duplicative (daily changes to a .pst file for example), the space savings can be significant.

 

 


 

 

 

Hi PoulsboGuy,

 

This is a quite useful feature in Ghost. For your old S&R recovery points, since they are not maintained in Ghost history you can delete all the incrementals, leaving only the base if you choose. The base recovery point from S&R will still be fully usable.

 

I find High compression works great and a full backup for me (about 80 G currently) takes ~1 hour to complete and this is with verify. Particularly if you run scheduled backups while you are sleeping or away from your computer I think high compression will give you significant savings in terms of disk space.

 

Allen


AllenM wrote:

Hi PoulsboGuy,

 

<snip>

Related to the 5.3 GB for your incremental. How long had it been since the last full backup? What is the size of the last full backup? Also do you have Windows set to automatically download and install updates? Any computer restarts, or improper shutdowns since your last full backup? Have you run (either scheduled or manual) any defragmenting utility on your hard drive? One test you can do here is to perform a full backup, followed just after by an incremental to confirm that the incremental image is very small.

 

Allen


Sorry I didn't immediately answer the other questions.  The 5.2G incremetal was 3 days after the full backup which was 78G.  Windows automatically updated on the day of the 5.2G incremental.  No unusual shutdowns; I do a full shutdown daily.  I haven't run a defrag since installing Ghost.

 

Thanks for the help.  I'm beginning to get some understanding of the process.

 


PoulsboGuy wrote:

AllenM wrote:

Hi PoulsboGuy,

 

<snip>

Related to the 5.3 GB for your incremental. How long had it been since the last full backup? What is the size of the last full backup? Also do you have Windows set to automatically download and install updates? Any computer restarts, or improper shutdowns since your last full backup? Have you run (either scheduled or manual) any defragmenting utility on your hard drive? One test you can do here is to perform a full backup, followed just after by an incremental to confirm that the incremental image is very small.

 

Allen


Sorry I didn't immediately answer the other questions.  The 5.2G incremetal was 3 days after the full backup which was 78G.  Windows automatically updated on the day of the 5.2G incremental.  No unusual shutdowns; I do a full shutdown daily.  I haven't run a defrag since installing Ghost.

 

Thanks for the help.  I'm beginning to get some understanding of the process.

 


 

Hi PoulsboGuy,

 

This sounds normal then. It sounds like the WIndows update ran before the incremental and probably changed more data than you might be aware of. The ultimate test is to do a full backup followed pretty quickly by an incremental where you have more certainty that not much data has changed. In this case the incremental should be very small.

 

Allen


AllenM wrote:

 

Hi PoulsboGuy,

 

This sounds normal then. It sounds like the WIndows update ran before the incremental and probably changed more data than you might be aware of. The ultimate test is to do a full backup followed pretty quickly by an incremental where you have more certainty that not much data has changed. In this case the incremental should be very small.

 

Allen


OK' I'll give that a try.  Thank You.

Hi PoulsboGuy,

 

You are very welcome. Happy Ghosting. I'm not sure where you are located but I'll risk saying Happy Thanksgiving as well! :smileyhappy:

 

Edit: One thing I thought I would add. I have 3 internal HD's (not counting backup drive) and each has anywhere from 60-90 GB in use. I find that with using high compression rate I am able to keep almost 3 months worth of backups for each drive, on a 1TB backup RAID array. And I do incrementals 2-3 times per week with a new base twice a month.

 

Please mark the relevant post which you believe contained the solution by clicking on the green Solution button that only you can see. This will allow others to know the problem is solved and quickly get to the solution when they search the forums.

 

Allen

Message Edited by AllenM on 11-26-2009 12:27 PM