Backup schemes

Location: Options > Backup scheme

Backup schemes along with the scheduler help you set up your backup strategy. The schemes allow you to optimize backup storage space usage, improve data storage reliability, and automatically delete the obsolete backup versions.

For online backups, the backup scheme is preset and cannot be changed. After the initial full backup, only incremental versions are created.

The backup scheme defines the following parameters:

  • Backup methods that will be used to create backup versions (full, differential or incremental)
  • Sequence of the backup versions created using different methods
  • Version cleanup rules

Acronis True Image allows you to choose from the following backup schemes:

  • Single version scheme—Select this scheme if you want to use the smallest backup storage.
  • Version chain scheme—This may be the optimal scheme in many cases.
  • Incremental scheme — Select to create a full version after every five incremental versions. This is the default scheme.
  • Differential scheme — Select to create only differential backups after an initial full backup.
  • Custom scheme—Select to set up a backup scheme manually.

You can easily change the backup scheme for a pre-existing backup. This will not affect the integrity of the backup chains, so you will be able to recover your data from any previous backup version.

You cannot change the backup scheme when backing up to optical media such as a DVD/BD. In this case, Acronis True Image by default uses a custom scheme with only full backups. This is because the program cannot consolidate backups stored on optical media.