Backup & Restore - external hard drive queries

[roghun]

For the last couple of years I've been using the Windows Backup & Restore program to automatically backup at 9pm every evening. I've been using a 300Gb Verbatim external hard drive.

In recent weeks, I've noticed that the amount of space available for backup is decreasing (and the reason for this is that I've been shooting a lot of photos using RAW & Jpeg formats).

So, I thought to myself that I'd purchase a second external hard drive, which I did last week, and it's a 500Gb Samsung.

Now the strange bit . . . . .

My backups to the 300Gb Verbatim have been running fine, until very recently as it now shows I only have 12 Gb free space and messages to say that there's now no longer enough space to run the backup. Ok, so I swap to the Samsung and set the backup to run with that. It's now showing, after having run the backup that there's only 32Gb left of the 500Gb disk.

I've certainly not added anything like 100+ gigabytes to my files in recent weeks . . . . . perhaps maybe 5Gb at the most.

So, bearing in mind that my entire C drive itself only uses 244Gb out of 1 Tb of space (and includes all my Libraries etc) I don't understand why I seem to be running out of space on both the 300Gb and the 500Gb external hard drives.

Please does anyone have an idea as to what might be going on, or what I'm missing here.

(I do understand that Backup takes an image copy also . . . but I've read that it will only take up so much space to ensure that there's enough space for the data etc).

Any comments and/or advice are welcome.

Thanks

 

[SpyderTracks]

Have you set the backup manually and selected which folders/drives to backup or have you set windows to determine what to backup? Have you detached the old external drive when running the new backup?

 

[roghun]

Have you set the backup manually and selected which folders/drives to backup or have you set windows to determine what to backup? Have you detached the old external drive when running the new backup?

Thanks for your reply . . . . .

I've always used the 'Let Windows Choose'.

Both external drives are connected via different USB ports. The backup to the Verbatim runs every night at 9.00pm.

When doing a backup to the Samsung drive, I did this manually by selecting it in the 'Change Settings' tab.

In fact, this afternoon I've just run a manual backup (using 'Let Windows Choose') to the Samsung 500Gb drive and I've just seen the message that 'it doesn't have enough space'.

3.5Mb free of 467Gb, backup size is 462.74!

So this has now really confused me. I thought that Backup just added any new files that had been created since the last backup?

In any case, the backup size is still a lot more than the total Gb used on the C drive . . . . . . or wait a minute . . . . is it trying to backup the data also held on the Verbatim external (i.e. the daily backup) ??

I think I may have answered my own question, have I? If so, how can I exclude the Verbatim from the Backup; or conversely, how do I know what files to include in a backup if I configure the settings manually?

Cheers

 

[SpyderTracks]

Thanks for your reply . . . . .

I've always used the 'Let Windows Choose'.

In any case, the backup size is still a lot more than the total Gb used on the C drive . . . . . . or wait a minute . . . . is it trying to backup the data also held on the Verbatim external (i.e. the daily backup) ??

I think I may have answered my own question, have I? If so, how can I exclude the Verbatim from the Backup; or conversely, how do I know what files to include in a backup if I configure the settings manually?

Cheers

Think you're right, windows is probably seeing the attached verbatim and including it in the backup set. If you create a new backup set and choose manual, if all your files are stored in c: you can just tick the c drive. As it's writing to a new volume it's possible it will do a full image rather than just adding newer files

 

[roghun]

Thanks Spyder . . . . I'm running another backup right now to the Samsung, after having disconnected the Verbatim . . . . mind you, it seems to be taking ages . . . . over two hours so far! . . . . but maybe that's because of the spec of the Samsung and the fact that I only support USB2 on my PC. I'll post tomorrow to let you know what the result was.
Cheers