Which files to Exclude

[tosontsengel]

I'm using Retro Pro 7.6.123 and am backing up 8 Windows XP Pro PCs in a SOHO. Very little work is done on them daily but they do connect to windows update and AVG daily for updates. However I end up with 10-15gb of new backup material daily even though almost no user work is being generated.

 

Are there any suggestions for certain files/folders to exclude from the incremental backups to keep the size of daily backups down that aren't all that necessary if a restore was needed to be done in the future?

 

Thanks for any suggestions.

[dnpeters]

Most of your backup is the "System Volume Information" file, which is the Windows shadow copy. Unfortunately, it changes every time you use your computer, so it ends up having to be re-copied every time you do a backup. You don't need this file backed up, so just exclude it. You'll then find your backups end up being 2 gig or less. Good luck. - Dave

[mlts22]

I exclude as a matter of course the mentioned "System Volume Information" directory which contains NTFS stuff and volume snapshots.

 

I also exclude $Recycle.Bin which is where files are stored before being deleted, EFSTMPWP which is a temporary directory when Windows is told to wipe free space, and if you are using hard disk encryption like PGP, I exclude the PGPWDE01 file because a placeholder so PGP can access its second stage of a bootloader before asking for the passphrase and passing control to the OS. It can't be read by the OS, and it has nothing in it that is useful on a restore.