Solved Why is this happening with Macrium Reflect ?

MR is set for automatic whole (OS) disk Incremental backup every every day at 10AM but its making all kinds sizes and more than specified 3 last backups to keep. Green is original full backup and red are large ones although there were not many, in fact very little added content to disk.

Meanwhile same but for 9AM was set for second disk containing insider windows and it does this which I think should be about normal but on both of then there were 2 backups today

It's really cluttering and filling up disk. I'm going to delete all backups today and start a new one as disk is getting short on space.

CountMike said:

MR is set for automatic whole (OS) disk Incremental backup every every day at 10AM but its making all kinds sizes and more than specified 3 last backups to keep.

Click to expand...

As you have specified the number of incrementals to keep, but still need all of then to do a restore, then the earlier ones are not deleted. They are consolidated into a single incremental. These are the large ones.

Incremental retention Specify the number of incremental backups to retain. If by deleting an incremental the backup chain is broken this causes consolidation of the oldest retained Incremental....
For example, Retain 4 incremental backups.
After retention, the most recent 4 incremental backups are retained. The oldest retained incremental is not be valid on its own as it requires the previous 2 incremental backups to complete the chain. To ensure backup integrity the 2 older incremental backups are consolidated with it to create a new incremental backup.

Click to expand...

Bree said:

As you have specified the number of incrementals to keep, but still need all of then to do a restore, then the earlier ones are not deleted. They are consolidated into a single incremental. These are the large ones.

Retention and consolidation - Knowledgebase 8.0 - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

knowledgebase.macrium.com

Click to expand...

Ok, but what about 2 different ones done today, that's first time i have seen that happen ?

CountMike said:

Ok, but what about 2 different ones done today, that's first time i have seen that happen ?

Click to expand...

The -xx-yy.mrimg number at the end of each file name indicates its order in the backup set. Your -08-08.mrimg is the oldest of the set, but it is a consolidation of the incrementals before it. That consolidation took place today when your retention rules were applied, so it has today's date and time too. Seems the retention rules also touched -09-09 as it has today's timestamp as well.

The end of the image file contains a number pair? 'xx-yy.mrimg'

'xx' is the increment number.
00 - Full image
01 - first incremental/differential
02 - Second incremental/differential

'yy' is the file number and is always sequential. 00, 01, 02, 03... . This will be different from the increment number only if files have been split. This can happen if files larger than 4GB are saved to a FAT32 file system or you are saving an image to multiple DVDs.

Click to expand...

Bree said:

The -xx-yy.mrimg number at the end of each file name indicates its order in the backup set. Your -08-08.mrimg is the oldest of the set, but it is a consolidation of the incrementals before it. That consolidation took place today when your retention rules were applied, so it has today's date and time too.

How backup sets are created and maintained - Knowledgebase 8.0 - Macrium Reflect Knowledgebase

knowledgebase.macrium.com

Click to expand...

Thank you. So nothing unusual .

CountMike said:

Thank you. So nothing unusual .

Click to expand...

No, it appears to be working as Macrium intend it to.

Bree said:

No, it appears to be working as Macrium intend it to.

Click to expand...

I had an aborted backup few days ago. Power was cut due to bad thunderstorm just as backup was started and after that I deleted .temp and .error files but everything continued next day. Right now I have brand new full backup only. other files I deleted thru MR.