I have Ghost 15.0. Either I don't really understand the Ghost incremental backup process or this product has ( what I consider) some serious issues.
I created a clean fresh installation of Windows 7 (x86) on this machine. Installed Ghost and created an initial recovery point / backup. The file is 14.2 GB. Okay fine. Two days later I create a Incremental recovery point which as I understand is suppose to include "recent changes". For heaven sakes....the "incremental" backup file is 12.2 GB in size.
First off, there's no way in hell I had 12.2GB of "recent changes". I compared the backups, both backups have folders identical in nature. For example, there's this i386 folder that's in both backups. There's others as well. I understand why the initial backup would have it, but why would it be contained in the second "recent changes / incremental" backup as well? As mentioned, there's a whole score of duplicated folders and files as well. In fact the complete systems file structure is duplicated in both backups.
It was my understanding that incremental backups are suppose to ONLY have files that have changed since the last backup. Well it surely doesn't seem so in this case or my setup. Am I doing something wrong? Or is this how this Ghost product is suppose to work????
turfnsurf4me wrote:
I have Ghost 15.0. Either I don't really understand the Ghost incremental backup process or this product has ( what I consider) some serious issues.
I created a clean fresh installation of Windows 7 (x86) on this machine. Installed Ghost and created an initial recovery point / backup. The file is 14.2 GB. Okay fine. Two days later I create a Incremental recovery point which as I understand is suppose to include "recent changes". For heaven sakes....the "incremental" backup file is 12.2 GB in size.
First off, there's no way in hell I had 12.2GB of "recent changes". I compared the backups, both backups have folders identical in nature. For example, there's this i386 folder that's in both backups. There's others as well. I understand why the initial backup would have it, but why would it be contained in the second "recent changes / incremental" backup as well? As mentioned, there's a whole score of duplicated folders and files as well. In fact the complete systems file structure is duplicated in both backups.
It was my understanding that incremental backups are suppose to ONLY have files that have changed since the last backup. Well it surely doesn't seem so in this case or my setup. Am I doing something wrong? Or is this how this Ghost product is suppose to work????
Are you running a disk defragmenter program (Diskkeeper, etc.) between the base and incremental backup? Ghost is tracking changed HDD sectors, not files. If data gets moved around on the disk, it will cause a larger incremental like you are experiencing.
redk9258 wrote:
Are you running a disk defragmenter program (Diskkeeper, etc.) between the base and incremental backup? Ghost is tracking changed HDD sectors, not files. If data gets moved around on the disk, it will cause a larger incremental like you are experiencing.
I haven't run any defragger. Unless win7 OS is doing something behind the scenes I don't know about. But I haven't run any disk management tools since I've installed the base OS a couple days ago.
The incremental wasn't larger, but waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than I expected and care for. I mean what's the point of doing incremental if the darn thing is just shy of the original backup?
Do you think running a virus scan would cause this? I have McAfee Anti-virus software running. I did run a complete full level scan of the disk between Ghost backups.
Maybe Windows is doing a defrag automatically. Or maybe Windows update ran after your first backup.
Click the Windows flag (start button) and in the Search programs and files box type "Disk Defragmenter". Now check to see the schedule. Mine is set to off, so I can control when to defrag. I defrag before I start a new base set.
BTW, my incrementals are usually around 200MB, but sometimes as much as 1GB, depending on how much I've used the PC, Windows update, etc. My base is about 31GB.
redk9258 wrote:
Maybe Windows is doing a defrag automatically.
That was it for heaven sakes. It ran the other night...geez. I turned off the schedule. Thanks!
Glad you got it sorted out. Happy Ghosting!