Which one to delete ?

Hi

I created about 4 incremental backup manually for the system drive but I only want to retain 3 in macrium reflect so I should delete the first one ?

I'd delete the oldest, it was made after the full backup.

I deleted the oldest but I got these files named under orphan . what is that mean ?

William654 said:

I deleted the oldest but I got these files named under orphan . what is that mean ?

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It means that your incremental backups are NOT linked to a full backup.

The safe, & best, way to get out of this is to do another full backup and then delete these 'orphans'.

@William654 ,

I only ever do full system images (all partitions), but my understanding is that if you break the chain of incremental backups, unlike differential backups, every incremental thereafter is orphaned because to restore, the software needs a full backup and every incremental thereafter to restore to the latest incremental.
You deleted the first incremental, so Macrium is only able to restore the full system backup. Incrementals 2, 3, and 4 were left orphaned when you deleted Incremental 1.

Time for another full system backup. If you only want to have three incrementals, then after you have done three incrementals, you must do a new full system image.

Techie Tuesday: Differential and incremental disk images

Have a great day.

Regards,
Phil

William654 said:

I deleted the oldest but I got these files named under orphan . what is that mean ?

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You can only delete the newest, by deleting the first in the chain of incrementals you have broken it. The remaining incrementals are useless without the first in the chain.

I did like @Berton said. So now I will create a full backup and delete the orphans

My apology, mind was elsewhere.

Berton said:

My apology, mind was elsewhere.

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My mind stays somewhere else, most of the time any more lol!