But then you end up storing more data. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages, so like most things in life, there's always a trade off. Full backups take up more storage space and take longer to perform. Incremental backups are much faster to perform but are somewhat vulnerable in as much as if one gets corrupted, or goes missing then the chain back to the full backup is lost.
My personal take on that (as I said in my post above) is to make full backups more frequently thus reducing the number of incrementals between them. You don't need to do anything more than that. You don't need to start taking backups to a new ID to reduce the chain length.
But if I get you correctly, you want to 'start again' without all of the old data, but most of the config stuff? That should be doable, but will involve a bit of work. Creating a new ID is as simple as migrating your data to a new server and doing a full backup - a new ID is automatically created. But if you wished to purge all old info, then you would have to manually do that prior to running your first backup. If you document the steps you take, you may be able turn this into a script. So this is the workflow I would suggest to acheive what (I think) you're after:
Run a full backup of Server A (your current primary appliance).
Restore the backup to Server B (your new appliance).
Manually remove all data that is no longer needed. Document this step carefully.
Run a full backup of Server B (which now your new current primary appliance) - the new backup ID is automatically created.
As a final step I would recommend changing the name of the old backup so it is clear what it is (eg add the financial year that it applies to).
To shorten the chain you just take more regular full backups
But then you end up storing more data. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages, so like most things in life, there's always a trade off. Full backups take up more storage space and take longer to perform. Incremental backups are much faster to perform but are somewhat vulnerable in as much as if one gets corrupted, or goes missing then the chain back to the full backup is lost.
My personal take on that (as I said in my post above) is to make full backups more frequently thus reducing the number of incrementals between them. You don't need to do anything more than that. You don't need to start taking backups to a new ID to reduce the chain length.
But if I get you correctly, you want to 'start again' without all of the old data, but most of the config stuff? That should be doable, but will involve a bit of work. Creating a new ID is as simple as migrating your data to a new server and doing a full backup - a new ID is automatically created. But if you wished to purge all old info, then you would have to manually do that prior to running your first backup. If you document the steps you take, you may be able turn this into a script. So this is the workflow I would suggest to acheive what (I think) you're after: