I manually backup my Quicken files after each use to an external harddrive (I'm aware of the problems with Quicken 2010 not overwriting the previous backups - and that it is be worked on by Intuit personnel).
My question is with the automatic backups created by Quicken upon exiting the program. I have it set to keep 3 copies. But when I updated to Q2010, it creates one file per backup vs. the individual filenames that it created in past versions (I think!). In looking in the Quicken Backup Folder on my internal harddrive, where the automatic backups are stored, I see two versions of the backup files.
It appears Q2010 did not delete the backups from the previous version (with filetypes of eml, idx, npc, qdf, qel, qph, otx). The backups after installing Q2010 have the filetype of (filename-date-13-01-47 (these numbers change in backups).qdf-backup. Is it safe to go ahead and delete the pre-Q2010 backup files -or- are they used for something in Q2010.
I have had Q2010 installed for over a month and don't know if I really need the files from prior to the installation (I would guess not, but wanted to check here with the experts prior to taking action).
I left it at the default, 5 copies. But now BACKUP has 8 copies of the new-style backups, plus all the old-style ones. Since I still have plenty of disk space, I'm kind of waiting to see how all this plays out before deleting the excess copies.
In the BACKUP folder, my 5 weekly old-style backup sets are about 40 MB each for 200 MB total. The latest set is dated 19/16/09; I installed Q2010 on
10/20/09. There are 5 new-stile files, named QDATA-26Oct2009-14-34-14.QDF-backup, plus *28Oct*, *31Oct*, *02Nov* and
*03Nov*; each is about 45 MB for a total of about 226 MB. Then there are 3 more sets named QDATA-58-05Nov2009-20-02-28.QDF-backup, plus *58-08Nov* and
*58-11Nov*, 45 MB each, total about 136 MB. So, in 3 weeks time, I've accumulated nearly 400 MB in 8 automatic backups! The timing pattern is inscrutable; it used to be every seven days (9/18/09, 9/25/09, 10/2/09,
10/9/09 and 10/16/09), but now it started 26Oct, 28Oct, 31Oct, 02Nov,
03Nov - and THEN it added the "-58-" before the dates 05Nov, 08Nov and
11Nov. The "14-34-14" part of each backup filename is apparently the time-of-day, indicating 2:34:14 pm for that first one and 8:02:28 pm for the
58-05Nov file. I have no idea as to the significance of the "58" and "58-1" numbering system. MAYBE the new pattern is something like "every seventh time that Quicken is closed", and since I often run it more than once a day, this creates a new backup file about every 3rd day - but I'm guessing about that.
Meanwhile, the other folder where I keep my manual backups is growing even faster! My last manual backup fileset for Q2009 was QDATA.* on 10/20/09; the 4 files in the set (QDF, QEL. QPH and IDX) total about 40 MB. The first Q2010 manual backup, also on 10/20, was QDATA.QDF-backup and was 45 MB. The second new manual backup, also on 10/20, was QDATA-1.QDF-backup; another 45 MB. Backups 2.QDF, 3.QDF, 4.QDF, 5.QDF and 6.QDF were all also on 10/20/09 and were 45 MB EACH! So a single day's manual backups under Q2010 took over
300 MB for 7 individual backup files! From there on, there have been multiple backup files each day.
The manual backup numbering system continued predictably until QDATA-58.QDF-backup on 11/4/2009, still growing slowly from just over 45 MB each for the 59 files. The next manual backup, on 11/5/09, got a new numbering scheme; it is QDATA-58-1.QDF.backup; it was up to 45,308 KB. The numbering scheme continued with files 58-2 and 58-3 also on 11/5/09; my latest as of now is QDATA-58-29.QDF-backup, dated 4:13 pm 11/12/09, my 5th manual backup of the day, at 45,420 KB.
Whew! That's a lot of backups, both automatic and manual! Obviously, I can delete most of them, but why should I have to do that manually? In almost
20 years of using Quicken, I never had to police these manually before.
I haven't yet done a One Step Update today. I see a couple of posts here suggesting that I probably will find Release R 3 in my OSU, which changes the backup system once again. I hope the new system is an improvement.
The OSU Wizard downloaded some transactions, but did not offer me R3 - or anything else from Quicken. I even ran it twice. So I still haven't seen the new backup system that Andrew mentioned.
Re file sizes: I noticed yesterday that my ~20MB data file (in Q2010) had grown to 29MB! When I copied it, the new file was only 19MB. It appears that packaging all data in one file causes significant wasted space. It's not that disk space is an issue, as I have *far* more than I'll use for quite a while. But ... I wonder how that bloat may affect possible of data corruption....
My current file size is about 828 MB - but I do use the Attachment functionality extensively. My last 2009 back-up was 802 MB (October 13) with 765 MB being attachments files within Quicken (3,002 files). My automatic back-up's are dated Oct 25, 29, Nov 5, 9 and 11th. It does look like it is only keeping the five most recent copies. I do not do manual backups and I create a Quicken Online Backup file once per week. I also keep my session open almost all day.
The only account that I really have some performance issues (opens slowly from Portfolio) is my 401(k) which has about 5500 transactions going back to September 1981. Even so it eventually opens at 32 seconds...but that is a different topic.
Oilcan
-----Orig> OK, I'm back already.
Me either.
Re file sizes: I noticed yesterday that my ~20MB data file (in Q2010) had grown to 29MB! When I copied it, the new file was only 19MB. It appears that packaging all data in one file causes significant wasted space. It's not that disk space is an issue, as I have *far* more than I'll use for quite a while. But ... I wonder how that bloat may affect possible of data corruption....
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