User manual
Table Of Contents
- 1 Introducing Acronis Backup
- 2 Getting started
- 3 Understanding Acronis Backup
- 3.1 Owners
- 3.2 Credentials used in backup plans and tasks
- 3.3 User privileges on a managed machine
- 3.4 List of Acronis services
- 3.5 Full, incremental and differential backups
- 3.6 What does a disk or volume backup store?
- 3.7 Backup and recovery of dynamic volumes (Windows)
- 3.8 Support for Advanced Format (4K-sector) hard disks
- 3.9 Support for UEFI-based machines
- 3.10 Support for Windows 8
- 3.11 Compatibility with encryption software
- 3.12 Support for SNMP
- 4 Backup
- 4.1 Back up now
- 4.2 Creating a backup plan
- 4.2.1 Selecting data to back up
- 4.2.2 Access credentials for source
- 4.2.3 Source files exclusion
- 4.2.4 Backup location selection
- 4.2.5 Access credentials for archive location
- 4.2.6 Backup schemes
- 4.2.7 Archive validation
- 4.2.8 Backup plan's credentials
- 4.2.9 Label (Preserving machine properties in a backup)
- 4.2.10 Sequence of operations in a backup plan
- 4.2.11 Why is the program asking for the password?
- 4.3 Simplified naming of backup files
- 4.3.1 The [DATE] variable
- 4.3.2 Backup splitting and simplified file naming
- 4.3.3 Usage examples
- 4.3.3.1 Example 1. Daily backup replacing the old one
- 4.3.3.2 Example 2. Daily full backups with a date stamp
- 4.3.3.3 Example 3. Hourly backups within a day
- 4.3.3.4 Example 4. Daily full backups with daily drive swaps
- 4.3.3.5 Example 5. Daily backups with weekly drive swaps
- 4.3.3.6 Example 6. Backups within working hours
- 4.4 Scheduling
- 4.5 Replication and retention of backups
- 4.6 How to disable backup cataloging
- 4.7 Default backup options
- 4.7.1 Additional settings
- 4.7.2 Archive protection
- 4.7.3 Backup cataloging
- 4.7.4 Backup performance
- 4.7.5 Backup splitting
- 4.7.6 Compression level
- 4.7.7 Disaster recovery plan (DRP)
- 4.7.8 E-mail notifications
- 4.7.9 Error handling
- 4.7.10 Event tracing
- 4.7.11 Fast incremental/differential backup
- 4.7.12 File-level backup snapshot
- 4.7.13 File-level security
- 4.7.14 Media components
- 4.7.15 Mount points
- 4.7.16 Multi-volume snapshot
- 4.7.17 Pre/Post commands
- 4.7.18 Pre/Post data capture commands
- 4.7.19 Replication/cleanup inactivity time
- 4.7.20 Sector-by-sector backup
- 4.7.21 Task failure handling
- 4.7.22 Task start conditions
- 4.7.23 Volume Shadow Copy Service
- 5 Recovery
- 5.1 Creating a recovery task
- 5.2 Acronis Universal Restore
- 5.3 Recovering BIOS-based systems to UEFI-based and vice versa
- 5.4 Acronis Active Restore
- 5.5 Bootability troubleshooting
- 5.6 Reverting a Windows system to its factory settings
- 5.7 Default recovery options
- 6 Conversion to a virtual machine
- 7 Storing the backed up data
- 8 Operations with archives and backups
- 9 Bootable media
- 10 Disk management
- 10.1 Supported file systems
- 10.2 Basic precautions
- 10.3 Running Acronis Disk Director Lite
- 10.4 Choosing the operating system for disk management
- 10.5 "Disk management" view
- 10.6 Disk operations
- 10.7 Volume operations
- 10.8 Pending operations
- 11 Administering a managed machine
- 11.1 Backup plans and tasks
- 11.2 Log
- 11.3 Alerts
- 11.4 Changing a license
- 11.5 Collecting system information
- 11.6 Adjusting machine options
- 12 Cloud backup
- 12.1 Introduction to Acronis Cloud Backup
- 12.1.1 What is Acronis Cloud Backup?
- 12.1.2 What data can I back up and recover?
- 12.1.3 How long will my backups be kept in the cloud storage?
- 12.1.4 How do I secure my data?
- 12.1.5 Supported operating systems and virtualization products
- 12.1.6 Backup and recovery FAQ
- 12.1.6.1 What backup methods are available?
- 12.1.6.2 What recovery methods are available?
- 12.1.6.3 Is the cloud storage available under Acronis bootable media?
- 12.1.6.4 Can I use Acronis Universal Restore when recovering a system from the cloud storage?
- 12.1.6.5 What if a network connection is lost during cloud backup or recovery?
- 12.1.6.6 What happens if I run out of space?
- 12.1.6.7 What is the cleanup task for?
- 12.1.6.8 How do I make a recovered machine recognize its subscription?
- 12.1.7 Initial Seeding FAQ
- 12.1.7.1 What is Initial Seeding?
- 12.1.7.2 Why would I want to use Initial Seeding?
- 12.1.7.3 Is Initial Seeding a paid service?
- 12.1.7.4 What types of hard drive can I use for Initial Seeding?
- 12.1.7.5 Can I send more than one backup under a single Initial Seeding license?
- 12.1.7.6 Can I send backups taken from a number of machines on a single hard drive?
- 12.1.7.7 How to buy an Initial Seeding license?
- 12.1.7.8 How do I perform initial seeding?
- 12.1.7.9 How to package a hard drive for shipment?
- 12.1.7.10 How do I track an Initial Seeding order status?
- 12.1.8 Large Scale Recovery FAQ
- 12.1.8.1 What is Large Scale Recovery?
- 12.1.8.2 Why would I use Large Scale Recovery?
- 12.1.8.3 Do I need to perform initial seeding to be able to use Large Scale Recovery?
- 12.1.8.4 Is Large Scale Recovery a paid service?
- 12.1.8.5 Can I perform large scale recovery on a different machine?
- 12.1.8.6 Can I obtain backups taken from a number of machines on a single hard drive?
- 12.1.8.7 How to buy a Large Scale Recovery license?
- 12.1.8.8 How do I track a Large Scale Recovery order status?
- 12.1.8.9 How to perform large scale recovery?
- 12.1.9 Subscription lifecycle FAQ
- 12.1.9.1 How do I access my account management webpage?
- 12.1.9.2 Where do I find the subscriptions that I purchased?
- 12.1.9.3 When does my subscription begin?
- 12.1.9.4 What happens when my subscription expires?
- 12.1.9.5 How do I renew a subscription?
- 12.1.9.6 What is the “Group” column for?
- 12.1.9.7 Can I revoke a subscription from a machine?
- 12.1.9.8 Can I cancel my subscription?
- 12.2 Where do I start?
- 12.3 Choosing a subscription
- 12.4 Activating cloud backup subscriptions
- 12.5 Configuring proxy settings
- 12.6 Retrieving files from the cloud storage by using a web browser
- 12.7 Limitations of the cloud storage
- 12.8 Terminology reference
- 12.1 Introduction to Acronis Cloud Backup
- 13 Glossary
- Acronis Active Restore
- Acronis Plug-in for WinPE
- Acronis Secure Zone
- Acronis Startup Recovery Manager (ASRM)
- Acronis Universal Restore
- Activity
- Agent (Acronis Backup Agent)
- Archive
- Backup
- Backup archive (Archive)
- Backup operation
- Backup options
- Backup plan (Plan)
- Backup scheme
- Bootable agent
- Bootable media
- Built-in group
- Cataloging
- Centralized backup plan
- Centralized management
- Centralized task
- Centralized vault
- Cleanup
- Console (Acronis Backup Management Console)
- Consolidation
- Data catalog
- Deduplicating vault
- Deduplication
- Differential backup
- Direct management
- Disaster recovery plan (DRP)
- Disk backup (Image)
- Disk group
- Dynamic disk
- Dynamic group
- Dynamic volume
- Encrypted archive
- Encrypted vault
- Export
- Full backup
- GFS (Grandfather-Father-Son)
- Image
- Incremental backup
- Indexing
- Local backup plan
- Local task
- Logical volume
- Machine
- Managed machine
- Managed vault
- Management server (Acronis Backup Management Server)
- Media builder
- Personal vault
- Plan
- Recovery point
- Registered machine
- Registration
- Replenishable pool
- Replication
- Retention rules
- Single-pass backup
- Static group
- Storage node (Acronis Backup Storage Node)
- Task
- Tower of Hanoi
- Unmanaged vault
- Validation
- Vault
- Virtual machine
- WinPE (Windows Preinstallation Environment)
29 Copyright © Acronis International GmbH, 2002-2014
Preparing disk groups and volumes
Before recovering dynamic volumes to bare metal you should create a disk group on the target
hardware.
You also might need to create or increase unallocated space on an existing disk group. This can be
done by deleting volumes or converting basic disks to dynamic.
You might want to change the target volume type (basic, simple/spanned, striped, mirrored, RAID
0+1, RAID 5). This can be done by deleting the target volume and creating a new volume on the
resulting unallocated space.
Acronis Backup includes a handy disk management utility which enables you to perform the above
operations both under the operating system and on bare metal. To find out more about Acronis Disk
Director Lite, see the Disk management (p. 181) section.
3.8 Support for Advanced Format (4K-sector) hard disks
Acronis Backup can back up hard disks with a sector size of 4 KB (known as Advanced Format disks),
as well as traditional hard disks that have 512-byte sectors.
Acronis Backup can recover data from one disk to another as long as both disks have the same logical
sector size. (This is the sector size presented to the operating system.) Acronis Backup automatically
aligns the disk’s volumes (p. 112) if necessary. This way, the start of a cluster in the file system always
matches the start of a physical sector on the disk.
The disk management (p. 181) functionality of Acronis Backup is not available for disks with a 4-KB
logical sector size.
Determining the logical sector size
By disk specification
Development of the Advanced Format technology is coordinated by the International Disk Drive
Equipment and Materials Association (IDEMA). For more details, see
http://www.idema.org/?page_id=2.
In terms of the logical sector size, IDEMA specifies two types of Advanced Format disks:
512 Byte emulation (512e) disks have a 512-byte logical sector size. These disks are supported in
Windows starting with Windows Vista, and in modern Linux distributions. Microsoft and Western
Digital use the term “Advanced Format” exclusively for this type of disk.
4K native (4Kn) disks have a 4-KB logical sector size. Modern operating systems can store data on
these disks, but generally cannot boot from these disks. These disks are commonly external
drives with USB connection.
By running the appropriate command
To find out the logical sector size of a disk, do the following.
1. Make sure that the disk contains an NTFS volume.
2. Run the following command as an administrator, specifying the drive letter of the NTFS volume:
fsutil fsinfo ntfsinfo D:
3. Examine the value in the Bytes Per Sector line. For example, the output may be the following:
Bytes Per Sector : 512