Operation Manual

On the other hand, incremental versions require more work for the program to provide recovery. In

the example above, to recover the entire work from 4.tib file, Acronis True Image reads data from all

backup versions. Therefore, if you lose an incremental backup version or it becomes corrupted, all

later incremental versions are unusable.

Differential method

The result of a differential method backup operation (also known as differential backup version)

contains only those files which have been changed since the LAST FULL BACKUP.

Example: Every day, you write one page of your document and back it up using the differential

method. Acronis True Image saves the entire document except the first page stored in the full backup

version.

Note: The first backup version you create always uses full method.

 1.tib - full backup version.

 2.tib, 3.tib, 4.tib - differential backup versions.

Additional information

Differential method is an intermediate between the first two approaches. It takes less time and space

than "Full", but more than "Incremental". To recover data from a differential backup version, Acronis

True Image needs only the differential version and the last full version. Therefore, recovery from a

differential version is simpler and more reliable than recovery from an incremental one.

An incremental or differential backup created after a disk is defragmented might be considerably larger than

usual. This is because the defragmentation program changes file locations on the disk and the backups reflect

these changes. Therefore, it is recommended that you re-create a full backup after disk defragmentation.

To choose a desired backup method, you usually need to configure a custom backup scheme. For

more information see Custom schemes (p. 46).

3.4 FAQ about backup, recovery and cloning

 I have a 150GB system partition, but the occupied space on that partition is only 80GB. What

will Acronis True Image 2016 include in a backup? - By default, Acronis True Image 2016 copies

only the hard disk sectors that contain data, so it will include only 80GB in a backup. You can also

choose the sector-by-sector mode. Note than such a backup mode is required only in special

cases. For more information see Image creation mode (p. 52). While creating a sector-by-sector