Solved Backup Problem/Questions

I've just run into an out-of-space backup problem that I've never seen before, even though for other reasons I recently switched around backup HDDS and enlarged the backup partition from 120gb to 180gb. Looking at the backup partition for my main drive (Win 8x64, 120gb SSD), I find two relevant folders: 1) a WindowsImageBackup folder with the last backup of yesterday (55gb), and 2) a folder with my Administrator name and a set of a dozen or more folders labeled "Backup Set," going back every 10 days for several months. What are the latter and how do these fit together with the system image, if they do? While I don't look very often, I haven't run into this out-of-space issue before, although my main drive has grown less than 1 GB since the changeover. For the moment, I've deleted all but a couple of the Backup Sets, because the out of space problem was effectively locking up the entire computer. Thanks,

Hello highstream,

The drive letter:\WindowsImageBackup\computer name\Backup YYYY-MM-DD HHMMSS folder is where your system images are saved.


The drive letter:\computer name\Backup Set YYYY-MM-DD HHMMSS folder is where your Windows Backups are saved to.


Do you happen to have Windows Backup set to run automatically on a schedule with a system image set to be included?


You could delete any old Windows Backups that you do not want.
Older System Images will automatically be deleted as needed to make room for new ones, but you can delete any Backup YYYY-MM-DD HHMMSS folder that you do not want the system image from.

Hope his helps,
Shawn

Brink said:

Hello highstream,

Do you happen to have Windows Backup set to run automatically on a schedule with a system image set to be included?
Hope his helps,
Shawn

Click to expand...

I think this is the key question. Windows Backup is set under "Windows 7 Recovery" in the CP - that's what it's called - to run automatically everyday at 9am. I assumed that would be an image only, with previous images deleted per Windows determination. Where are these other backups coming from, and is there any way to control how many are kept except by manual deletion? I've been backing up daily for some time, but never encountered this until today, about two weeks since I swapped one of my HDDs and changed the partition size.

The scheduled Windows Backup will include both the backups and separate system image (if checked).

For Windows Backups, about all you can do is step 4 in the tutorial below to change the settings to add or remove folders to be included in it, and for how often you want them to be created with the schedule. Backups will continue to be created until you run out of hard drive space, then it will give you a low space error to let you know that you need to manually delete some.
In step 5 of the tutorial below, you can adjust for how much space you want allowed for system images.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/8930-backups-view-manage-space-windows-8-a.html

Thanks.

You're most welcome.