Incrimental Verify Takes a Long TIme

I am testing TI vs. Symantec Ghost to deploy to a group of mobile laptop users. The backup process is fine, but the verify function is very different between the products.

It seems that when Ghost verifies after a small incremental backup, the verification process only takes a few minutes, like the backup did.

The TI verification at the end of a small incremental backup, takes a long time. It seems like TI verifies the entire backup each time (including all subsequent incremental backups).

If this is the case, is there a reason you would need to verify each incremental and the full backup over and over again? It would seem that the Symantec method it more efficient, only verify what it backs up at a given time.

Thanks for your help.

 

This multiple verification is something that TI users have lived with for years.

The subject has been raised with Acronis by many people many times yet this daft practice continues.

The situation is worse still if you use a Secure Zone or one of the new backup locations in Version 10. Not only is the current full image and its increments validated each time a new increment is added but the whole Archive location/zone with all its contents is re-validated again and again.

I have found my own solution to this problem. I never run any validations !
This is not in fact a method which carries any extra risk at all. I prove the validity of the images by making frequent restores. Risk is removed by always restoring to a spare hard drive.


Xpilot

 

Merely daft? Xpilot, you are just too kind. -CF

 

Thanks for the quick response.

As a mobile user, I will typically run an incremental at my hotel in the morning having worked late the night before. Bad idea if I am running late and using TI?

So, if that is the case, why not use Symantec Ghost? Are there merits to this software that negate the long verification process?

 

Hi bigolbug,

No discussion on alternative imaging software in the Official Acronis True Image forum please. If you wish to pursue your question can I suggest you raise it in our Software and Services forum. Thank's for your understanding.

Menorcaman

 

Menorcaman:

No problem.

Perhaps you can address my question about why the program has to re-validate old archive files at the end of each incremental backup.

The TI verification at the end of a small incremental backup, takes a long time. It seems like TI verifies the entire backup each time (including all subsequent incremental backups).

If this is the case, is there a reason you would need to verify each incremental and the full backup over and over again?

Thanks!

 

The only reason I can think of is that it does offer a bit of extra confidence. If one of the incrementals accidently were deleted then the backup beyond the deleted incremental is useless. Perhaps a defrag gets run for some reason and screws up a sector in an old part of the archive - this would not be obvious until you go to use the archive.

 

I used to use both Ghost 10 and TI 9 on the same system.

Ghost was always much faster for the backup phase. What took 2 hours with Ghost, took 3 hours with TI. And the Ghost time included the verify. Wit htI, the verify is added on and is always a verify of the total archive.

Not only is the Ghost method more efficient, it is more robust as each drive is archived to a separate file. With TI, it's all one file, so if the fil gets correct, you lose everything.

Most importantly, see http://forums.hardwareguys.com/ikonboard.cgi?s=4492619c5fa1ffff;act=ST;f=13;t=4573.

Despite the above, I would still use TI 9 over Ghost 10.

Note that I stopped using GHost 10 on 3 Nov 2006, as Ghost 10 seems to have had problems on Windows 2000 in recent months.

And Symantec kept getting worse. The night of 19 FEb 2007, I bit the bullet and got rid of Ghost 10, Live Update and NAV 2006 (even tho I had 6 months lleft in the subscription) and installed Kaspersky AV 6. Not sorry yet!

 

Hi bigolbug,

For the reasons stated by seekforever.

It's not unknown for data on a hard drive to become corrupted, even more so if the images were saved to DVD. Surely it's worth the extra wait whilst TI validates all parts of the image than risk ending up during a restore with deleted partitions and the infamous "Image is corrupt" error message? After all, it would take a heck of a lot longer to reinstall your OS and applications, let alone recover your personal data files.

Regards

 

Menorcaman:

While I agree with your statement about it being "worth the extra wait" under normal circumstances, it would be nice to be able (when mobile with a portable HD) to only verify the incremental archive created that day.

Is there a reason that this it not a feature on TI?

While in my office, I don't mind it it verifies all night, but on the road, it would be nice if selective verification was a feature.

Thanks to everyone for responding so quickly and with such insight. I really appreciate that!!

 

Like XPilot, I never do validations because even if the Image passes validation, there is a chance the Image is still bad. (There have been many reports of this). Likewise if the validation fails, the Image may be good. So the best practice is to do an actual Restore. After you gain the confidence that your Restores will be good you only have to test a Restore occasionally.

 

You can put your issue in the True Image Wish List sticky post at the top of the forum.

I don't know if this would help (or even work, I don't use the scheduled tasks option) but you could schedule a One Time job that would backup and validate when you shutdown your machine. This way you could let it run and then the machine will turn off. Your external drive will still be powered on though.

 

I don't think it is fair to say XPilot doesn't do validations and give the impression he creates an image, doesn't validate it, leaves it on his backup media and is confident that all is well. He immediately restores the image to his other drive in a caddy and then uses the restored disk until he repeats the process to another drive. This is the ultimate validation.

I am also a bit on the fence about saying there are a lot of false negatives and positives in the validation process. I certainly don't doubt there are some cases of this happening but is it really epidemic?

My take on the situation is that many users make their images and then validate within Windows and all is well. They then, when disaster strikes, startup the recovery CD for the first time and the restore fails. I am more inclined to put this down to the Linux program/driver issue than the archive was improperly validated. If a subsequent validate under Windows of this same archive now fails then it is likely something got changed on the disk or a RAM problem has developed.

A better validation than the Windows one is to get into the recovery environment and validate using it since this is what you run when you restore. (This is for others reading the post, I know you are well aware of this Ralphie.)

There is always the chance that some corrupted disk data, faithfully copied by TI to the archive, might preclude a successful restore but I have no way of knowing how common this is and if so, is it really TI's fault, after all it did what it should. This is why I run the occasional chkdsk before backing up.

I agree that once you do a successful restore or two or three with the recovery CD you can be quite confident you have a reliable backup/restore mechanism and if the hardware remains at 100% then the succeding validations and restores will be fine.