Mystery growing backup size

David_Aston

Forgive me guys.
My pc use is just for shopping, banking, general browsing. You know, looking endlessly at expensive hifi, I will never be able to afford, etc.
After each session I get CC Cleaner to do it's thing.
Why is it that the Simple Save hp external drive is just about full now?
Back in the day, it did show a number of individually dated back ups. Eventually I deleted all but the most recent, probably six months or more ago.
The drive claims to back up every time I switch on, but no longer differentiates between each back up.
So, 28 gig of 500, left free.
The C drive is over half empty, and stands at 168 free of 222.
Any ideas, I know you will! Also, what do you think I could safely delete from the swollen back up?
Thanks.

dan958

That really depends on how much you want your files to be backed up.
I always have my backups on a rolling system (i.e. Monday backup will overright the previus monday) and also have 1 no delete backup.

If you have backups on there from yonks ago and you don't need it anymore, you can delete it.

David_Aston

Thanks dan. In fact there is only one back up showing at all times so I'm assuming it is overwriting. I appreciate that I must be missing something, because I am not understanding how it needs to actually become larger with every back up, if I am not actually doing anything to add to the memory?

David_Aston

To add. In the existing back up I see Windows.old and Windows.old.000. These probably date from a Windows 7 update. They look similar. Could I delete one to make space do you think?

that

windows version?
backup software?
How is is the external drive?
Is a usb key also generated?
do you not call each backup something like c_full_2019-03-26 ?

Tried looking at the usb disk using file explorer?

To be fair, backups tend to grow. MS keep pushing updates, and a volume shadow copy plus the update files may also attribute to this

David_Aston

Windows 7
HP Simplesave
I don't understand what you mean re external drive or USB key?
The single backup which shows in the Simplesave screen is dated with the current date.
I take your point about MS updates etc.
Thank you for your comments

debitcardmayhem

How do you delete the old backups ? Where are these backups stored on say the D drive or an external drive? If you delete them from file explorer then they will probably be left in the recycle bin.
Just re-read your OP and you say the

Simple Save hp external drive is just about full now?

So how did you delete them?

that

David_Aston wrote: »

Windows 7
HP Simplesave
I don't understand what you mean re external drive or USB key?
The single backup which shows in the Simplesave screen is dated with the current date.
I take your point about MS updates etc.

Most backup software allows you to select the file name you are saving, making it easy for you to see the different versions

Windows 10 backup give you an opportunity to make a recovery usb in addition to a disk image, from which you can boot from the usb and fully restore the disk image.

I have never heard of HP Simplesave till now.

I would be looking into wiping the whole backup except for the newest in that drive and let it do a full backup if it a large files type (compressed) backup or time stamped directories. If it is one lump of singular files then I would delete the whole lot. Then either way let it do a full backup over night.

What ever you delete, just make sure you are not deleting the actual Simplesave program files

esuhl

that wrote: »

I have never heard of HP Simplesave till now.

Me neither. I've seen a lot of PC and HDD manufacturers come up with their own branded back-up solutions... and people don't always understand how they work... because some of them are insane.

David_Aston wrote: »

The C drive is over half empty, and stands at 168 free of 222.
Any ideas, I know you will! Also, what do you think I could safely delete from the swollen back up?

If you don't understand how your backup systems work... Would you actually be able to recover your files if you needed to...?

If not, I'd start looking for a "simpler" setup that makes sense to you.
---

To keep things simple, I store all the data I want to back up separately from the OS. And then use mirroring software FreeFileSync to backup important folders to another drive.

It only updates modified files, so it's really quick after the first run. And the files are readable from any PC without any special software.

https://freefilesync.org/

Tom99

esuhl wrote: »

Me neither. I've seen a lot of PC and HDD manufacturers come up with their own branded back-up solutions... and people don't always understand how they work... because some of them are insane.

If you don't understand how your backup systems work... Would you actually be able to recover your files if you needed to...?

If not, I'd start looking for a "simpler" setup that makes sense to you.

To keep things simple, I store all the data I want to back up separately from the OS. And then use mirroring software FreeFileSync to backup important folders to another drive.

It only updates modified files, so it's really quick after the first run. And the files are readable from any PC without any special software.

https://freefilesync.org/

I also use FreeFileSync to take a mirror copy of 'My Files' not the OS or programs. It only takes a few seconds. I also have a 2nd back-up I call 'history' where nothing is ever deleted on the back-up copy so there will be multiple copies of the files I update regularly plus a copy of any file deleted. I doubt I will ever need the 'history' back-up but if ever I wanted to look at the past version of a file or a deleted file that is where I would find it.
Obviously the size of the 'history' back-up only ever increases.

dipsomaniac

firstly, i would do a 'disk clean up' > 'clean up system files' on c drive (make sure all options ticked). i personal don't bother with backing up windows as its so easy to reinstall or repair these days and i have never had to reinstall windows from a backup image. i just back up my personal data/files/media.

you could install onedrive (cloud storage/backup also) folder on pc to store files, format external drive and use as a second weekly/monthly backup for contents of onedrive folder using something like synctoy.