PAGEFILE.SYS and 8.0

Has anyone made an image that excluded Pagefile.sys and Hiberfil.sys? The only image I've made so far included them. Is there something special I need to do?

 

I wish someone would hurry up and answer this question! Have seen it twice now and the suspense and curiousity are absolutely killing me! I've got 7 but I just have to know because excluding the pagefile/hiberfil files were one of the (I believe) 4 NEW features for Version 8. Please, please, please, someone please give us the answer!

 

You see the files in the image, but they are now stored as placeholders rather than compressed images of the sectors. If you restore one from the image, you simply get an empty file of the appropriate size. So, there is a savings of time and space (although only as much space as the compressed file would take). Interestingly the effectiveness of this seems to vary from machine to machine, I don't know why yet.

 

Right On btb4!
Thanks for shedding light on files that are there but are not!
The effectiveness issue puzzles me though. Keep us "posted".

Mike

 

So, basically the file takes up 0 space in the image but is created empty on restoration? That would make sense. I wish they would have explained that in the docs somewhere.

 

I don't know why all this controversy about page file and hibernating files. First, most experts recommend to disable hibernating because it takes too much space from your HD and there has been instances where WinXP does not come out of hibernating ands you have to unplug the PC and plug it again, etc... You really don't need hibernating at all (you have screen savers) and this is for HOME users (no networks). I also understand that the page files are erased (by default or by setting it up yourself) after shutdown so every time the PC starts the Page File is empty.
Anyways, are you so impatient that you can not wait 20-30 minutes that takes ATI to create a Full system Image (including Page files, Hibernating files and your pet Rony) Or, do you want ATI to go from 0-60 in 5 seconds (this is not a Porsche). Come on, you are giving too much importance
to these Files. Just start the Full Backup and go to the supermarket or do your errands oer simply take a shower, by the time you are dressed the backup has been already finished. I don't care if the Page File and Hibernating Files are included AS LONG AS I CAN RESTORE MY FULL SYSTEM WHEN THE TIME COMES and that's the only thing that matters.
On the other hand, ATI 8 also added some "new" feature that it will check your Windows files' integrity after restoration. Thanks, but I don't need ATI to do something that I can do myself for free by simply open command Prompt and write "sfc/scannow" and hit enter and that's it. All the rest of the "new" features are already included in ATI 7 so... It seems to me that Acronis is trying to SELL a simple UPDATE as an UPGRADE and for $30 you don't get anything worthy of that price. ATI 7 (build 634) has been the most reliable, troublefree and consistent version to the present and I will keep using that version until all ATI 8 bugs and problems are fixed.

 

@Mazaprin
Looks like you do not use the tool as many others do. If you take incremental backups, these two files will always be part of the incremental backup - wasting space and time on a daily basis...
Hibernation btw. has nothing to do with screensavers and page files only get deleted if you set your computer up to do so. Btw - who do you think you are telling other people whether they need hibernating or not

 

Tom_USA: Tell me... exactly how much space is wasted by an empty placeholder to a file?

 

It seems that I did not explain myself more clearly. First I did not know that this paging file problem was referred to "incremental" backups (as opposed to Full backups). Regarding Hibernating Files I was only conveying what I have read on other Forums and expert advice and this is intended for Home Users who use their PC for entertaining purposes (so you don't really need Hiber-nating to preserve your pending work as it was at that moment and return to it faster without having to open all applications and documents again), Screen savers just take charge when you don't want to shut down your PC when you are going out for a short while. I am not an expert but I read many articles from experts and I even subscribe to Langa List and Old Geek's which are very, very outstanding websites to adwuire a world of knowledge and, believe me, incremental backups are not reliable, much less if you try to backup to several CDs or DVs (as opposed to a full single folder backup to an External USB 2.0 HD) because later, when restoring, if one single file on these incremental backups was damaged or corrupted (for example, the CD or DVD #4 of 10) the entire Restoration proccess will fail miserably. That's why many experts DO NOT recommend incremental backups UNLESS you are a profession al that works with your PC every day and have a very large portion of your HD in use (60 GB plus) and they can't afford 1 or 2 hours of Full backups each time, BUT... for Home Users that only use less than 20 GB on their HD, the BEST option is a weekly FULL backup to an external HD (it only takes less than 30 minutes). Since I am only using 13 GB on my 30GB HD
( and I have a lot of Applications installed) my FULL backups with ATI 7 Build 634 only take 21 minutes (and 12 minutes to check the created image) including page files and whatever is there (I have Hibernating disabled and set it up to empty page files upon every shutting down, I have 512 MB RAM so I don't really need Page Files but I set it to fixed 500 MB, so why do I need these page files after I shut down my Laptop When I can start Clean without any OLD page files?. Do yourself a big favor and always do a Full backup Image every week and don't waste your time nor complicate your life scheduling incremental backups that carry absolutely NO guarantees (you can check the full backup image after creating it and that's all you need to be safe). Another importante thing: If you do full backup images to an external HD, be sure to DEFRAG that HD thereafter (I personally use Diskeeper 8 Pro). I hope this clarifies my previous reply

 

Sorry, but nobody is using hibernate mode with open/unsaved documents. At least nobody that some technical understanding.

Yes, they are a good place to start to build some knowledge.

No, no, no.... You can check the consistency of the whole backup with every single incremental backup included. Even with TI 7.0. The huge advantage that you gain with incremental backups is the possibility to restore to any day you created an incremental backup. This is especially valuable if the last backup was already corrupted some days before the last full backup....

Again, with incremental backups you gain much more flexibility. If you have some more and larger hard disks, the "daily full backup" approach will not work any more.

That is totally wrong. The "pagefile" is not only used for paging but also (quite heavily) for swapping. (Microsoft messed up the terms "swapping" and "paging") - check the swapfile usage in the task manager - you may be surprised how much paging/swapping actually is going on.

For example because you want your pagefile to be located in unfragmented file space.

Outsch... I simply can not back up close to 1 TB in full backups daily/weekly and do not even have no intention to do so. If you do not know better about data security and backup reliability, you should not give such an advise.

Why would you want to do that? If you write for example to an empty external disk, it will automatically be in a single piece and not fragmented all over the disk (which would not even make sense because it is the only file on the disk...)

 

I am not trying to be an expert giving technical advise, I 'm just giving my opinion and any expert will tell you that a Full backUp to an external HD beats any incremental backups to CDs and DVDs (they are too fragile).

Hibernate
To hibernate manually, select Start, Turn Off Computer, then click the Hibernate button. To set your system to hibernate after it has been idle for a certain amount of time, select Power Options inside the Control Panel (in Category view, select Performance and Maintenance, then select Power Options). On the Power Schemes tab, choose a time next to "System hibernates," then click OK.

Hibernate - Differences Between Hibernate and Standby
Hibernation
Hibernation, which reduces the start time, saves the complete state of the computer and turns off the power. When you resume from hibernation the BIOS performs the typical Power On Self Test (POST), and then reads the hibernation file, Hiberfil.sys, to restore the state of the computer. Everything that was running when you put the computer in hibernation is restored.
Standby
In standby, the computer slows down and uses less electrical power. Programs continue to run in the background although the computer may appears to be off. The computer "wakes up" when it detects user input. With some computers, you can
press the power button to wake up the computer.
Note: If your computer experiences a power outage during standby, all work that you have not saved is lost because the computer is still running in the background.

As you can see Hibernating and Stand By are almost the same (to me) and the only difference is in power consumption. In Hibernatus the power is shut off while on Stand By the power is still on but with less consumption and if there is a power outage you lost unsaved work. That's the only difference
and to me does not amount to much,apart from the fact that Hibernating requires too much space to store the "PC State". If you have AMPLE space on your HD that will not be a problem BUT if you have a 30 GB HD in which 80% is being used, Enabling Hibernatus will pose a memory problem.

I agree with TOM_USA that with incremental backups you can restore to exactly any day you want but, again, only professionals who make their living
working on PCs have something to gain with it but for Home users to create
a Full backup every week there is not much to regain or recover from one week to another unless you did some important work or installed some important software but, in that case you do a full backup inmediately after saving the work or installing that software (I am not saying you must do a full backup every sunday sharp, you can do it every 3 days or whenever you feel like and have time for it, that's not a problem for a home user that most of the time is just exploring or surfing the net andnot doing anything worth saving.
regarding Page Files maybe I was not clear enough, I do need the page files, I just moved it to the non-system partition and set it a fixed 500 MB so the Page file is there (some experts even say that if you have 512 MB RAM or more you only need a Page File of 20MB or something like that, the minimum).

As I said before, only professionals with large chunks of their HD in use that work everyday on the PC are benefited from incremental backups but if you only have less than 20MB in use on your HD and you don't earn your living with your PC, you don't need incremental backups. A full backup of 20 minutes every 3 or 4 or 7 days will suffice and you will have the guarantee that every full backup is as good as the previous one.
Each one of you are entitled to your own personal opinions, I don't even know why I entered this post, I think it would be better for me to go elsewhere because, in the end, nothing in this post applies to me.

 

Your post contains sweeping statements which are inacurate or at least misleading.

For example, you are confusing two issues here. Are you saying that optical media are unreliable or are you saying that incremental backups are unreliable. There is no reason imv why an incremental file should be any more unreliable that a full one. Optical media can be unreliable, and are certainly not as robust as a HD. You don't have a prayer of examining the issues if you don't separate them.

You continually keep refering to 'Any expert this' 'any professional that'. This is not rocket science it is just data copying at the sector level. Whilst I respect your right to have an opinion, I don't know who you think you are quoting and I don't find your post particularly helpful, you are far more likely to confuse issues than simplify them.

 

wow, that was a LOT just to answer the question:

"Has anyone made an image that excluded Pagefile.sys and Hiberfil.sys? The only image I've made so far included them. Is there something special I need to do?"

i have the eval version 8 and the hyper / pagefiles are most certianly there, they are not placeholders as they are restorable and take up space. i too can't figure out how to enable their removal from the backup.

as for the rest of this discussion - on hibernate, i for one love that function, as my entire life - work/play/hobbies surround a lone sony TR3 with a mere 4 hours of battery life. i hibernate every chance i get when away from a charger. on incremental backups - its the one reason that i am going to pay the 50 USD for ATI. I have and am using a copy of Ghost that came with Norton Systemworks 2003, and i hate it, but it does pretty much what ATI does, sans the incrementals. I used to use Veritas BackupMyPC for years, and hated that too, even more than Ghost! But its a fact, that EVERY user no matter what walk of life, needs to have - DESERVES to have - a reliable way to incrementally back up their PC in case of disaster or stupid keystroke. So with Ghost i have been using Goback, just in case.

Well, looking forward to purchasing ATI, and becoming a contributor to this forum, BTW to see another thread just started on this topic, go to:
Poll on Sony TR World

 

Tell me, herojig...
How much space do those files take up in your TIB? If you will look at the contents of those files, you will notice that they are entirely null bytes. You could have a 4GB file, and if the contents of that file were entirely null bytes, that file would compress to nearly nothing!

For an overly simplified example of how file compression works, consider these two representations:
A) 000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
B) 0x60

Which is more efficient?
Can you extrapolate this towards how PAGEFILE.SYS and HIBERFIL.SYS are stored in the TIB?

 

I see the file in the TIB and there is a byte count, a big one.

but, i getcha, so that's just compression, not exclusion, like the website says, right? perhaps it's just a doc error on the part of Acronis causing all the confusion.

thanks, i got my credit card in hand....

 

I believe that they used the word "exclusion" for simplicity's sake, rather than technical correctness.

If somebody is looking at a spec list, that's pretty much the best way to convey the idea of what's going on. What I described is way too wordy and technical for such a case. What they do is as good as exclusion, but yes, at first glance it would appear that the data for those files is actually being backed up.

Another non-technical guess at why they do what they are doing is this scenario:
Say a user backs up their 1.2GB C: partition. (Of which 0.2GB is the pagefile). If ATI actually excluded the file from the image, I'm sure the user might be concerned when the restored partition only takes up 1.0GB. (Where did the 0.2GB go??)

 

Laptop, battery life...

Hibernation works perfectly on my system. Standby, on the other hand...

Disk space used by hibernation is not really an issue. Most computers have way more HD capacity than RAM.

 

So if it's really an issue..
I avoid the whole thing by creating a small partition for the swap file which has also the advantage of less fragmentation of my system drive.
This has never caused any problem.
I have never used the hibernation option, but maybe it's possible to assign another storage location too.

 

I understood that this was only available with version 8 of the product (which I do not use). My understanding was that the "older" versions still did back up these files - at least it was sold as a new feature for version 8... maybe they did make it up to fill the "new features" list and already had it running in version 7?