I need to delete some old backups becuase my backup drive is almost out of space. I am doing incremental backups. I tried to view the backups in Macrium but it is not showing any backups. But I can go to the backups via File Explorer and they are clearly there. This is a two part question. How to get Macrium to show the backups, and also is it safe to delete some of the older backups to free up space for newer backups, keeping in mind that I'm doing incremental backups. I've attached screenshots of Macrium, along with File explorer screenshots showing that the backups are visible in file explorer but not showing in Macrium.
Macrium Reflect Not Showing Backups?
- Thread starter Brandon Byrnes
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As far as deleting backups, I've always done it through file explorer, it's easier for me than scrambling through Reflect to do so.
If you wish to be able to do so from the app, try clicking the "Edit" button and adding the proper filepath (This PC > Drive Letter > Backup Folder), this worked for me when I attempted it.
As far as cleaning up old incremental backups, according to an article I found on Macrium's database: "Incrementals rely on having an unbroken chain of previous backups leading all the way back to the parent Full (or Differential, if your strategy uses them). So you can't just delete older backups. However, Macrium provides a utility called Consolidate.exe that allows you to purge older Incrementals without invalidating subsequent backups."
You could try some of the methods that poster suggested if you so wish.
forum.macrium.com
If you wish to be able to do so from the app, try clicking the "Edit" button and adding the proper filepath (This PC > Drive Letter > Backup Folder), this worked for me when I attempted it.
As far as cleaning up old incremental backups, according to an article I found on Macrium's database: "Incrementals rely on having an unbroken chain of previous backups leading all the way back to the parent Full (or Differential, if your strategy uses them). So you can't just delete older backups. However, Macrium provides a utility called Consolidate.exe that allows you to purge older Incrementals without invalidating subsequent backups."
You could try some of the methods that poster suggested if you so wish.
Incremental backup integrity
okay so hopefully I'm doing it right. I downlooaded the Consolidation program since i couldn't find it on my sytem. I chose the full backup and had it consolidate to my last incremental backup, I'm assuming after it's done consolidating then it will turn my last incremental backup into a updated full backup, so then I can delete the other older incremental backups along with the old full backup. So then I'll be left with one full backup. And I'll just repeat that process every month or so in order to save disk space on my backup drive. Is that correct?
It would be best for you to browse the backup after it has been consolidated to ensure everything has gone well (Macrium allows this to be done quite easily), verifying the backup doesn't hurt either (This as well).
Make sure all of your files are as they should be, then go from there.
Make sure all of your files are as they should be, then go from there.
I think I might have done something wrong, it said that it failed. To be honest I can't really find any easy to understand instructions on how to use the program. It gives you the option to add backups to a "From" tab, then to add a file to the "To" tab. So I don't know if I'm supposed to add the full backup and the incremental backups up to the last incremental backup, then select the last incremental backup as the "To" (you can select multiple backups to include in the "from" tab) I'll give it a try tonight when i get off work, also I wondering if maybe it's because i just don't have enough space on the drive to make the new consolidated backup. Here's the one article i found https://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW72/Standalone+backup+set+consolidation
okay nevermind, i have to do it one incremental backup at a time and consolidate each one, until i get to the last one.
I was able to consolidate all the incremental backups, but it didn't seem to free up any space. It maybe freed up 20GBs, which is strange considering some of those incremental backups were like 75GBs, 135GBs. So I still don't really have much room left for backups, also I have two 2 partitions on my backup drive and each have separate full and incremental backups on them and I can't remember why i did that, lol. I'm going to have to look at those full backups and see what they are. I did get the backups to show in Macrium and it looks like both full backups are for my main storage drive, but again I'm not reall sure why I made 2 separate backups for the same drive on 2 different partitions which are both located on the same external backup HDD. I'm thinking of just starting all over again, deleting both backups, making 1 partition and then doing a full backup with incremental backups.
Incrementals save changes, it makes sense that anything that changed would be added to the consolidated backup.
Starting fresh sounds like it might be a good idea if that's what you want to do. Make sure you browse through your old backup and copy any important files if you have not done so already.
Partition work is nice and easy through Disk Management, just remember that when you delete a partition, all data on the partition will be deleted as well.
Starting fresh sounds like it might be a good idea if that's what you want to do. Make sure you browse through your old backup and copy any important files if you have not done so already.
Partition work is nice and easy through Disk Management, just remember that when you delete a partition, all data on the partition will be deleted as well.
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