How many Ghost 12 incremental recovery points?

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Tony_Weiss wrote:
Vincenzo wrote:
...Is there some compelling reason not to have more incremental recovery points?

 

And what is a guideline for determining when to stop making incrementall backups, and to make a new base image...

Hi Vincenzo,
 
You can set your own guidelines for how many incremental recovery points are created for a Recover Point Set, and I find that if you have the storage disk space to support more incremental images, you may wish to use that space for the backups. Depending on how frequently you update your system with new data (documents, photos, programs, etc.) you may wish to have a month's worth of incremental recovery points, so you can choose from several different points in the history. It all depends on how you use your system and your data. I'm sure other people on the forums have different settings for their Norton ghost 14.0 backups. Does anyone want to share his/her preferences?
New data enters this system daily, so I run Ghost backup sets with daily scheduled increments.  If something especially important changes after a scheduled increment, I sometimes run additional manual increments.  At present, because of target disk size, I'm automatically limiting the base/increment sets to two (i.e., between one and two weeks worth at any time).
 
-- Jim 
3

Thanks for the information.

 

I'm still unclear on one point.  If I am making an incremental backup every week, after three months I would have the base image files, and then 11 more increment files.  Is there any problem having that many increment files?  Would I be better off if every month I started a new recovery point set (base), so there would not be more than three incremental files added on to each base file? 

 

It seems quicker, easier and more storage efficient to just keep to doing the incremental files, rather than starting fresh with a new recovery point set (base).  But I am wondering if there is some problem with having too many incremental files attached to a full backup.

 

Thanks

Message Edited by Vincenzo on 04-23-2008 06:41 PM
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Vincenzo wrote:
...If I am making an incremental backup every week, after three months I would have the base image files, and then 11 more increment files.  Is there any problem having that many increment files?  Would I be better off if every month I started a new recovery point set (base), so there would not be more than three incremental files added on to each base file? 

 

It seems quicker, easier and more storage efficient to just keep to doing the incremental files, rather than starting fresh with a new recovery point set (base).  But I am wondering if there is some problem with having too many incremental files attached to a full backup...

A reason to have several recovery points (incremental images) in a Recovery Point Set is to restore your system to point in history that far back. If you think you would restore your system to a specific state 3 months ago, then you may want to use this method. Otherwise, more frequent base images might be a better method. Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns. Thanks!
Message Edited by Tony_Weiss on 04-24-2008 02:26 PM
5

I'm using Ghost 12 with Vista.  I notice that by default it wants to limit the number of incremental recovery points that the program will create to three. 

 

Is there some compelling reason not to have more incremental recovery points?

 

And what is a guideline for determining when to stop making incrementall backups, and to make a new base image.

 

Thanks

Message Edited by Vincenzo on 04-23-2008 01:34 PM
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Tony_Weiss wrote:
Otherwise, more frequent base images might be a better method.
What is the advantage that more frequent base images would provide?
Thanks
7
Vincenzo wrote:
 
What is the advantage that more frequent base images would provide?
Thanks
A more frequently created base image would provide more free space on that drive. I'm sorry I didn't clarify that point.
8

OK thanks. But concerning the integrity of the image, there is no problem having a base image with, say, 15 or 20 incremental image files associated with it?

 

Thanks

9
Vincenzo wrote:

OK thanks. But concerning the integrity of the image, there is no problem having a base image with, say, 15 or 20 incremental image files associated with it?

 

Thanks

If you were to encounter a problem with your system, and needed to restore a recovery point set with (for example) 15 incrementals, and you wanted to restore at #12, the integrity of this image would not be compromised. However, the whole point of the recovery points is to take a quick backup of sectors that have changed. So, you may wish to just schedule the Base image for the incremental image to be created when you schedule your drive defragmentation. Depending on the level of fragmentation, an incremental recovery point created after a defrag could be almost as large as a base image. Thanks!

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Vincenzo wrote:

Thanks for the information.

 

I'm still unclear on one point.  If I am making an incremental backup every week, after three months I would have the base image files, and then 11 more increment files.  Is there any problem having that many increment files?  Would I be better off if every month I started a new recovery point set (base), so there would not be more than three incremental files added on to each base file? 

 

It seems quicker, easier and more storage efficient to just keep to doing the incremental files, rather than starting fresh with a new recovery point set (base).  But I am wondering if there is some problem with having too many incremental files attached to a full backup.

 

Thanks

Message Edited by Vincenzo on 04-23-2008 06:41 PM

 

You can edit and manage your backups. You say your hard drive is backed up and you have 11 incremental backups?  I would probably toss (by date) the oldest ones and just keep the last few....If hard disk space is at a premium
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Tony said: 

Depending on the level of fragmentation, an incremental recovery point created after a defrag could be almost as large as a base image.

So, in other words, it's always a good idea to defrag before backing up?

 

I use NSR 2 and have it set for full backup twice a week with only one independent recovery point. That seems to work best for me.

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BrandonFL wrote:
So, in other words, it's always a good idea to defrag before backing up?

While you don't necessarily need to always defrag before a base image, but if you plan to defrag, don't do it before a recovery point (incremental) image. And if you do defrag, start a new base image. Since the imaging is sector-based, and defragmenting restructures the sectors, the recovery point will create an image of all sector changes on the disk. So depending on the fragmentation of the drive, you could have a very small recovery point created quickly, or a very large recovery point created that takes a while to complete.

13

If I understand your question correctly? I would advise the creation of a base point from time to time instead of creating one base followed by a infinite number of incremental backups.

 

One thing to consider with incremental backups:

If for instance you have 300 incremental's, for one reason or another incremental 100 gets corrupted, damaged or what ever.

This would render incremental 101 through 300 unusable and you would be force to restore to 100 or earlier. So in my opinion bases should be created periodically. In theory there is no limit to the number of incremental backups that can be created, however given the odd chance of file corruption base files are a good thing.

 

 

In fact from time to time I create stand alone base files and save them to a different location. My preference is to create a stand alone base when I set a system up for the first time. This is what I call a true base point. Then I create a schedule creating a base point once a week with daily incrementals. After the forth base is created (4th week), the oldest base is deleted along with its incrementals automatically and so on. This limits the actually storage space for my backups so I don't run out of space and I have a fall back option to restore to the original state of the system. This of course is my preference for scheduled backups.

 

Best regards,

 

 

 

 

 

14

OK I think I've got it now. 

 

Thanks to all for the help.

15
Vincenzo wrote:
...Is there some compelling reason not to have more incremental recovery points?

 

And what is a guideline for determining when to stop making incrementall backups, and to make a new base image...

Hi Vincenzo,
 
You can set your own guidelines for how many incremental recovery points are created for a Recover Point Set, and I find that if you have the storage disk space to support more incremental images, you may wish to use that space for the backups. Depending on how frequently you update your system with new data (documents, photos, programs, etc.) you may wish to have a month's worth of incremental recovery points, so you can choose from several different points in the history. It all depends on how you use your system and your data. I'm sure other people on the forums have different settings for their Norton ghost 14.0 backups. Does anyone want to share his/her preferences?