Are my backups over my limit?
If you’re not sure if you’ve reached your backup quota, the first thing to do is to log into the Online Backup and Recovery Manager. This can normally be found on your desktop, but if not, a simple search from the start menu should bring it up. Once you’ve opened up the Backup and Recovery Manager and logged in, you should see how much storage space is available for your backups and how much of it you have used.
The “Used Space” progress bar is helpfully colour coded to let you know the health of your backups. If the bar is green, then you still have plenty of space remaining. A yellow bar indicates that your backups are almost full and it might be time to do a quick audit
. And if the bar is red, it means that your backups are over your allocated quota, they cannot be guaranteed to be completing correctly and it is definitely time to do an audit.
What is a backup audit and how do I do one?
A backup audit is simply looking through your backups and determining whether or not the correct files and folders are being backed up and if there are any files in the cloud storage that no longer need to be there.
The first step is to take a look at what is being backed up and decide whether or not all of the files and folders selected still need to be backed up on a regular basis. Those
files and folders that do not need to be backed up regularly and are not mission critical, can always be backed up onto an external hard drive to save on space in the cloud. Although you may be backing up some files to an external hard drive IN2Tech cannot guarantee any backups done to an external hard drive as we can with backups done through our cloud storage.
Changing what gets backed up
To look at what is being backed up, select the spanner for the “File and Folder Backup” option.
Select “Next” and you will be taken to a screen with all of your drive that are available for backup. A tick next to a folder or drive indicates that all files and sub-folders are being backed up. A filled in square indicates that only some of the contents are being backed up and an empty square indicates that nothing from that folder or drive is being backed up.
At the bottom of the screen, you will see a progress bar that shows the size of all the files and folders that are set to be backed up. The vertical red line shows you your current backup quota, if the green progress bar passes this line, it turns red, indicating that your selected files and folders contain more data than your online allocation allows.
Once you have ensured that all files and folders that need to be backed up are selected, and that you’re not backing up any extraneous data, proceed through to the end of the backup manager by selecting “Next” and the “Finish”. On the final page, there are options to modify your current backup schedule, however this will not have any affect on the amount of data being stored in the cloud. There is also the option to initiate a backup of all your data immediately should you wish to do so.
Removing duplicates
If you are finding that you are still over your limit, even though you are backing up less than your allocated storage space, it may be due to files that have been backed up previously and are still sitting in the cloud.
To see what files are currently backed up in the cloud, select the “View / Restore” button from the home page of the IN2Tech Online Backup and Recovery Manager to open the cloud manager.
After opening the cloud manager, you can see all the data stored on the cloud. It is organised by the device from which it was backed up and stored in the same file structure as the original device when it was backed up. The first thing to look for is folder duplication.
As can be seen in the image to the right, the “My Restores” folder has been duplicated in the cloud. The most common cause for this type of issue is that a folder has been moved from one location to another. When the backup runs next, the folder will be backed up in the new location but the old copy will remain untouched in the cloud. This can be hard to spot if you have a complicated file structure and can cause massive blow outs of your backups if left unchecked.
Thankfully, once you have determined that nothing will be lost if you remove the old version, you can delete the folder from its old location on the cloud and free up some space for the rest of your backups.
Once that’s done, close the Online Backup and Recovery Manager and open it again to refresh the “Used Space” progress bar to see how much is currently being backed up.
If you are still over your quota, or want to continue auditing your backups to create more free space, the next thing to do is to either remove some files from your online storage or to upgrade your backup quota.
Removing unnecessary files
If you wish to remove files from your cloud backups, simply open up the cloud manager through the “View / Restore” button again and remove any files or folders that you no longer wish to be backed up. Any files or folders removed in this way are deleted permanently and will no longer be recoverable under any circumstances.
Once you are done, you will need to close and reopen the Online Backup and Recovery Manager to refresh the “Used Space” progress bar once more.
If you have already checked what’s being backed up, ensured there are no duplicates on the cloud and removed any unneeded files, then all that’s left is to give us a call about increasing the size of your backup quota.
Need a hand doing your audit or want us to do it for you?
That’s fine, we’re here to help.
If you would like us to give you a hand and audit your backups with you, just give us a call and we’ll be happy to help you out!