Disk image and File backup Archive Management |
|
Applies to: Standard, Professional and Server Editions of Macrium Reflect only. |
Backup sets can accumulate many files over a period of time if the backup strategy does not employ any form of Disk Space Management. By managing your backup set you can reclaim valuable disk space while maintaining the integrity of the backup set. Select the Delete File option from the either the Image Restore or File and Folder Restore views.
Once the Delete File link has been selected, the following screen will be displayed showing the structure of the backup set along with the files that will be affected by the delete operation. To the right, the current selection and projected reclaimed disk space will be shown. This area is updated as selection is changed.
Selection of files is automatically updated to ensure that the integrity of the backup set(s) are retained. e.g.
If you select a Full image, then all subsequent differentials and incrementals will become invalid and automatically selected.
If you select a differential then all subsequent incrementals will become invalid and selected.
Should you already have a differential selected and choose to not delete a child increment then that 'owning' differential and increments prior to the selection will also not be deleted,
You can safely delete any differential from a backup set if no incrementals have been taken from it, since differentials always reference the full copy. You can safely delete the latest incremental in a chain of incrementals if you no longer wish to keep it - however, you can not safely delete the source of the incremental (a full, differential or other incremental) as incrementals require the full chain to exist.
As an example, in the diagram above a full backup has been taken, followed by a differential, then an incremental. Deleting the full backup would make the differential based on it invalid, and the subsequent incremental also invalid. Deleting the differential would invalidate the incremental based on it. So in this case, there are no backups that can safely be deleted.As another example, if we had a full, three differentials then two incrementals based on the last differential, the two earlier differentials could be deleted without affecting the latest differential, or subsequent incremental backups.