Mystery growing backup size

googler

David_Aston wrote: »

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.

So what, in terms of actual data, are you backing up?

that

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.

This device is listed on youtube, but is either an unboxing guide, or a cheap hdd source.

What is interesting is that the video for using this device for a cheap hdd source shows that it has an extra card in there into which the hdd slots into. This card acts as a cd emulator so then booted from this device it possibly looks like a recovery cd? Suspect when the pc is running it looks like one or two usb drives?


To be honest I am not a fan of FreeFileSync for backups. It will backup your data, but does not deal well with locked system files and registry, plus you will have to rebuild your machine manually, and only then possibly copy the data back yourself. Though it is fine if you are a techie, think acronis, Macrium or Redo Backup (favourite noob product as it only has 2 buttons - backup/restore) may be best for some

Think if the op gave us a listing of the drives other than c: we would have a better idea. like form a command prompt type dir d: (of e:, or f:... ) though a file explorer screenshot would be better

David_Aston

Thank you all for your further comments.
I was able to delete a number of listed back ups in the Simplesave programme by selecting them, and deleting them, until, as I have stated there is only one which changes it's date as Simplesave backs up.
googler I suppose that is my exact query, what does Simplesave think it needs to add with each backup?
"that" has mentioned updates etc as being the need for any backup to grow in size.
Perhaps I will take a chance on removing one of the windows.old folders.
You guys have certainly given me plenty of tips.

David_Aston

Just noticed your last post that. I appreciate I either do need to give you more info, which I have no objection to doing, or accept "as is".
Thank you again.

googler

David_Aston wrote: »

googler I suppose that is my exact query, what does Simplesave think it needs to add with each backup?

I don't know, but if you're only doing what you said in the OP, and you're not saving any data (documents, spreadsheets, PDFs, music files, photos, etc), then I don't see what you need to back up .....

esuhl

that wrote: »

To be honest I am not a fan of FreeFileSync for backups. It will backup your data, but does not deal well with locked system files and registry...

But no-one's data would include system files or registry hives!

that wrote: »

...think acronis, Macrium or Redo Backup (favourite noob product as it only has 2 buttons - backup/restore) may be best for some

Macrium (et al) would be good if you need to clone a system drive, but it's easy enough to reinstall the OS, saving a lot of time (running unnecessary backups) and disk space.

that

esuhl wrote: »

But no-one's data would include system files or registry hives!

Macrium (et al) would be good if you need to clone a system drive, but it's easy enough to reinstall the OS, saving a lot of time (running unnecessary backups) and disk space.

I'm lazy, want stuff back as it was, rather than a fresh install and it takes day to get it set up the way I want it.

I suspected that it clones the whole disk? If the os messes up, update goes awry etc. Must do something that the updates keep filling that disk? Because it keep filling the disk, it is possibly not overwriting the deleted files, especially as its the owner keeps his drive clean?

Reading further, looks like what I suspected could be wrong, and it only does a file sync function. They could have made it better than that?
https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebooks-Archive-Read-Only/Restoring-Files-from-Simplesave/td-p/4492774

There is an online User Manual which tells you how to plug it in, problem solving, but no restore details. The above link tell you to press a button or look for an application file called HPSimpleSave to restore.

An odd product

dipsomaniac

Classic example where a fresh install of Windows (ideally win10) would make a huge difference and provide a good opportunity to dump some of those old programs like hp simplesave, ccleaner etc.

David_Aston

Just coming back to thank you guys again.
An odd product indeed "that".
Anyway, it is possible to explore the backups. I did attempt to find out if windows.old predates windows .old ooo but could find no dates.
Whatever I have done has allegedly got me from 5 gigs space, to 60 or 70!
I imagine that you will all advise me not to have too much faith in this product. Absolutely fair enough.