I am a new user and would like to take advantage of the incremental clone feature because it takes almost 2 hours to do a full clone.
On my system disk there are 6 partitions. All are NTFS except Partition 2 which has no name but is identified as "FAT32 (LBA) Primary." I've inserted a screenshot of the partitions.....
 
I have not added or changed any partitions since the computer was purchased. The existing partitions were there from new.
Based on the Macrium User Manual information on page 79 it is not possible to make an incremental clone of anything other than an NTFS system so I think it is this single FAT32 Partition that is preventing me from doing an incremental clone.
I have done one full clone and when I follow the instructions from the user manual to do an incremental clone, that option does not exist.
Is there any way around this? For example, if the FAT32 Partition is something Windows 10 created (or maybe Toshiba, my laptop manufacturer) and is never altered, perhaps I can exclude this partition from my clone procedure.
Thanks in advance for any help.
JohnNP

Hi 

Thanks for posting. 

Your FAT32 partition is only 48MB in size, so a full clone will take around 1 second. All other NTFS partitons will be cloned incrementally using Rapid Delta Clone (RDC) if the target of the clone already contains the same file system(s). RDC is enabled by default:

Click the 'Advanced' link in the 'Clone' wizard


http://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW7/Clone+-+Avdanced+Options


http://knowledgebase.macrium.com/display/KNOW7/Rapid+Delta+Clone+-+RDC

Kind Regards

Nick

Macrium Support

See our reviews on

Thanks so much for the rapid response to my question Nick.

The Advanced Options in my Backup Definition File are as shown in your image. That is, they are the default options and the Rapid Delta Clone option is checked.

I think you are advising me to just right click on the existing Backup Definition File, choose "Run Now" then "Clone" and the software will automatically incrementally clone the NTFS partitions only and do nothing with the 48MB FAT32 partition. I did actually briefly do that, and the clone process began but I quickly cancelled it because I thought the software was going to do another full clone which takes almost 2 hours.

To update the FAT32 partition I suppose I should create another Backup Definition File to fully clone only the FAT32 partition only, which will take, as you say, only 1 second.

I hope I'm on the right track and thanks again for you help.

Regards,

JohnNP

You don't need another definition file. Just keep a single file for the whole disk, and RDC will be used for partitions where it can be used, and full clones will be performed for any other partition. Just because RDC can't be used on that FAT32 partition doesn't mean it won't still be used on other partitions in the same clone job or that the FAT32 partition will be skipped entirely. The checkbox means "Use RDC if possible", not "Use RDC and skip cloning the partition entirely if it can't be used".

It sounds like you haven't actually let a run second clone job run yet to see what will happen; you're just assuming what will happen. So before you configure other things to "outsmart" Reflect and potentially overcomplicate things in the process, I would suggest that when you have 2 hours available just in CASE it doesn't work, run the full-disk clone definition file and see what happens. I'm pretty sure that if RDC is used for any partitions it will be indicated in the logs for those partitions, so you can confirm its use that way even if the time difference didn't make it obvious. You'll also be able to verify that the FAT32 partition was cloned the standard way rather than skipped.

Thank you for your response,

You are correct, I haven't let the second clone run to completion and I guess I am "assuming what will happen."

I will try the second clone job as soon as I have some spare time.

Thanks again,
JohnNP

The second clone job completed in under 15 minutes and performed exactly as you said it would.
Thank you for the responding so promptly and pointing me in the right direction.

JohnNP

In my last post on 16 May I noted that Macrium completed a second clone job in15 minutes.

The clone before that one which took 2hrs 27min was completed only 3 hours prior and there weren't many changes made to the source disk in that time.
On 3 June I did another clone which took 2hrs 20min and then on 19 June another clone took 2hrs 27min.

I thought that using the incremental cloning capabilities of Macrium, the incremental clones would not take a long period of time and I had hoped that if I did an incremental clone every fortnight, it would take substantially less time that 2hrs 27min.

I backup my data every day (not using Macrium) but only planned to clone the C: drive every fortnight.
To confirm, I have set the Advanced Options of the Clone Wizard set as Nick recommended in his post on 16 May.

Am I doing something wrong, or are the clone times experienced above what should be expected for an incremental clone. BTW, the source disk has almost 450GB of information to clone, so it's quite large.

I don't think it's possible to attach a txt file copy of my latest log, but I can send to support if necessary.

Thanks in advance for any help,
John

At a guess, it would seem as if the scheduled task that ran on June 19th was a full clone operation rather than an incremental.  Would be worth taking at least a quick look at the log to be sure about that.  If that is, in fact, what happened one would need to look more closely at the task scheduling.

__
P.S.: When posting here, you should see an "Add File" option when you hover over "+ Insert" on the bottom line of the input form.  But you don't really need to attach the entire log showing all of the details here unless you want to.  Just the relevant operational part of it will do.

Regards, Richard V. ("Arvy")

Thanks for the prompt response Richard,

I'll attach the complete log file so that you can see it for yourself. It's operation 4 of 6 that takes the time as it's the partition which is 447GB in size. My interpretation of the log file is that operation 4 was an incremental clone because when the other partitions were cloned (non incrementally), the words "performing full copy" are used in the file.

I should clarify exactly how I perform the clone. When the very first clone was done back in May I created a Backup Definition File, so to perform additional clones I right click on that backup definition file, then click on "Run Now" and finally "Clone" which is the only option. The Advanced Properties for that file are set to enable Rapid Delta Clone which is the default.

As I understand it, Incremental Clone is the default operation once the Advanced Properties are set up correctly, I don't have to do anything in addition to pressing "Clone."

Thanks,
John

I see the following:
  Clone Type: Intelligent sector copy
   Verify: Y
   Delta: Y
   SSD Trim: Y

So it does appear that it was commanded to use delta cloning and everything else just says "Clone completed successfully".  I was a little uncertain about your references to "incremental" clone scheduling and so though it might be worth a look.  Strange that a delta should take the same time as the original full, but I can't think of any other "theory" to offer at the moment.  I wonder, however, if drive "optimization" might be involved.

Regards, Richard V. ("Arvy")