Retention rules not working

Hello Dan,

welcome to Acronis forums!

Could you please make a screenshot of your backup archive content (the series of full and incremental files) in File Manager (e.g. Explorer) and how it is presented in Acronis Management Console UI? Please share these pictures so we could compare and analyze the content of your backup archive. Please also export into a .json file your backup plan and share it here.

Hi Maria,

Please see the attached screen shots you requested. I could not figure out how to export the backup plan as json. The only option was XML, which I have attached as well.

The screen captures show the archive as it looked this morning. Last night, before the 2nd incremental backup ran, I had last weeks baseline backup and 5 incremental backups stored there. They were deleted after last nights incremental backup. They should not have been deleted until the next baseline backup runs this weekend.

This is just one example. I have seen this very same behavior on several servers.

Thanks,

Dan

Hello Dan.

I have reviewed your screenshots and a backup plan. There is no inconsistency.

The retention rules are set to delete the oldest backup volumes when the number of backups in the archive exceeds 2. 

This is how it is set now: 

<backup_count_upper_limit>
2
</backup_count_upper_limit>

This means that a new backup will be marked for deletion as soon as the third backup in a row is created: full, incremental1, incremental2 - a full backup is marked for deletion (as it is illustrated on a screenshot from Management Console UI). However, a full backup can't be deleted until a new full is created. That is why your full is now marked for deletion and waits for the next full one. 

I recommend that you change: Retention rules, select Delete backups older than…, and then specify the retention period (e.g. 2 weeks as you wrote in your original post). Otherwise, you can switch to a Grandfather-Father-Son scheme and select different periods for monthly (full), weekly (differentials) and daily (incrementals) backups.

Hi Maria,

These setting have worked for me for several years without a problem. Something definitely changed. It NEVER counted the incremental backups before.

Dan

Hello Dan.

According to the information you've shared, the software works as scheduled:

Number of backups in the archive exceeds...2

Where Archive is a set of backups created and managed by a backup plan. An archive can contain multiple full backups as well as incremental and differential backups. 

Perhaps, somebody has changed the scheduler settings if they had worked differently.