TI-11's speed of backup to dvd?

I'm wondering whether the new TrueImage 11 has improved the performance of full disk imaging to dvd, over what TrueImage 10 had.

I'm a long time Norton GHOST user. For years I've used the dos based program to do full disk images of my C: partition. But I have had a few problems over the years with it not working properly with new hardware, etc. And the newer versions of Norton Ghost aren't worth the tax you pay, let alone the full price plus tax.

Some months ago, a friend bought TrueImage 10 but was disatisfied with it, so he gave it to me.

When I tried to do the direct to dvd image of my C: drive, the performance was less than spectacular. I can't remember the actual results, but it was more than an hour to do a few megs.

It would have taken weeks to do a backup of my C: drive. (And no, I'm not exagerating... Do the math!) I could have done it fasster with 1.4m floppy disks.

I was wondering if TrueImage 11 has improved on that. I don't know if it was some bug, or just incredibly poor programming by Acronis. (My friend said he had heard other reports like that, so I suspect the later.)

I could really use a disk backup program, and my choices are Acronis or Paragon's product.

To be honest, I've heard better things about Acrnois, but if it can't run at a reasonable speed, then it wont be an option.

Anybody know whether this has been fixed in TrueImage 11?

 

Don't know if it was fixed or whatever but I wouldn't bother directly backing up to DVDs no matter what the product.

My preference is to make an appropriately sized image to HD, validate it and then burn it to DVD with Nero. With Nero or other burning software you can control the burn speed and also use the burners "verify after burning" option which is faster than TI's validate when using DVDs.

If your image spans more than 3 DVDs plan on copying them to a HD before restoring or swapping DVDs will turn into your life's work. They are not totally read one at a time.

 

That's your choice, of course, but I want the option to burn to dvd.

If nothing else, it's good for doing emergency backups of the whole disk, or of a brand new computer (christmas is coming up.)

And doing it to another partition isn't much of an option if you only have one drive. And many new computers come with only one partition....

Well, as I said, I'm a long time GHOST user, and with it, the compression & decompression were the bottlenecks, regardless whether it was to/from a disk or dvd. (Although faster & better than many other products when doing maximum compression.)

So doing a backup & verification was already running at 100% capacity regardless whether it was on another disk partition or from the dvd.

So for Ghost, doing it the way you describe would actually take longer and be no better.

TrueImage 10 is, of course, very different. I don't know about TI 11, which is why I'm asking.

That reminds me of something else my friend mentioned... Doing restores from a dvd were incredibly slow. I had forgotten about that until you mentioned it.

He did it the way you described.... He backed up to disk, and then burned the images to a dvd.

He too ended up having to copy them to a second drive just to be able to do an emergency restore. (If you have only one drive with one partition, that's really not much of a solution....)

I never got that far along since my backups were way too slow to even complete.


Judging from your comments, it sounds like TrueImage has a long history of being dead dog slow. So long that poster's such as your self consider it to be normal and automatically do work-arounds.

"What, you mean every disk backup prorgram isn't this slow?" kind of thing... Well, no, they aren't. The old floppy sized GHOST was a lot faster. It's biggest problem is that it's been abandoned and no longer supports a lot of today's hardware.

Hopefully I'll get some more feedback about TI-11, because based on your comments, I'm suspecting TrueImage has a long history of being slow with little chance of current or future versions improving. If that turns out to be the case, I may have to go to Paragon's drive backup, and I haven't heard anything at all good about it.

 

I agree, its whatever choice you want.

I wouldn't call backing up 6.8GB C drive in just over 5 minutes on an old AMD 1.2GHz system to internal drive with Normal compression to be exactly real slow.

You can make an archive to HD with TI even if you only have one partition and enough space. It will warn you but it will make the archive on the same partition. You can't restore it from the single partition though. And this is where we probably differ again, I would never have a HD with only 1 partition. One for the OS/Apps and at least one for data. IMO, this is the only way to fly when you are using an imaging program - you can blow away the OS/Apps for any reason and not lose any data. So if I were to replace my broken HD, the first thing that would happen is more than 1 partition on the drive.

I would estimate that most TI users backup to external USB drives.

Hopefully, some TI11 users will respond with a definitive answer for that version. I don't use it.

 

Okay, I did a small DVD backup test using TI 11 (8,027) in Full Mode and here are the results:

Partition backup: approx. 1GB finished image size (1.05GB).

Backup to DVD burn (don't know what speed TI used): took approx. 2 min. not counting the time it took to start and finish the DVD burning procedure (total was about 2.75 min.). So approx. 500MB/min.

Validation or Restore: not possible on the test computer -- Bad Media. It sees the Acronis Backup DVD but immediately throws a "Bad Media" error message when you try to validate or restore. (BartPE may have read the DVD, but I didn't try it as I don't currently have two DVD drives connected.)

So... I booted TI 11 Full Mode on another computer and it validated the image on the DVD in about 1 min. 35 sec. (approx. 633MB/min.)

Just another reason not to use DVDs for direct backup with TI. If you do, make sure the computer you create them on can read them or figure you'll have to copy them off to a hard drive to restore.

 

That's pretty good speed. Litterally about 500 times faster than what I saw with TI 10 that my friend gave me.

I've had problems like that with Ghost. It's a good reason to not do backup's to DVD unless you need to. (But it's still a good option to have available.)

That's also why I long ago got into the habit of always doing a verification after burning the backups.

As for BartPE.... Yeah... I've been meaning to make a ram disk version and / or USB stick version for the times when I need the drive... Maybe one of these years I'll get around to doing it...(grin)

I always do a verification after backup. I got burned by that long ago. Plus, dvd's just aren't reliable on there own, so i always verify even normal disk stuff.

But it does sound like TI 11 is running better than what I experienced with TI 10.

Or rather, it's capable of running better, but it might depend on the hardware. Maybe it just doesn't like some systems or burners. TI 10 didn't like mine or my friend's system.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to run the test. It's nice to know it can work right.... Now I just need to figure out if it will work right for me....

 

A good backup strategy is to get a second hdisk. Messing with CDs or DVDs is just so much more work, backing up and especially during restores and generally not any more reliable, even over the long term. Pressed DVDs have a very long life span for reliable data rentention, but dye marked DVDs (the ones you write at home) don't have relibable retention longer than magnetic media.

HDs are cheap and so much faster it can make your head spin. You would still have the emergency option to burn directly to dvd, and what would it matter if it was slow, since you would only attempt it in some particular emergencies. In fact, once you try using a second HD, you'll never mess with those cantankerous acrylics again -- not for backup anyway.

Do yourself a favor and get ant=other HD. If you're serous about computing and serious about backup, then you deserve it.

 

No offense intended, but that's not your call.

I am aware of the virtues of external hard drives. And their problems. And their potential unreliability (external drives aren't as well protected as internal drives, for example.)

They also aren't as cheap or as compact. And it's not practical to toss a large hard drive (with lots of space left over) into the safe. With a dvd, you just stick the ones you've used in there.


(And for the record, I do have two drives in my personal system, plus a 500g external drive, and plans to get a second 500g usb drive.)


As I said before, for the old Ghost program, compression & decompression (at max level) was the bottleneck. It compressed better than any other disk backup program I've tried (excluding TI 10, since it was too slow to let finish.)

Even doing to a second drive, max level compression was the limiting factor. (Yes, I could use a faster setting, but I prefer higher compression.)


However, none of that changes the fact that I at least want the option to do it directly to a dvd. And be able to do it directly from a dvd.

Not just for me, but for several family (& family member's) computers I maintain. If I'm going to make a backup for them occasionally then they have the right to have the dvd. No sense forcing them to buy a second drive just because Acronis can't get their act together.




True Image 10 was a complete failure for both backup & restore.

Backup for me, and restore for a friend.

And even TI 11 had a restore problem for 'MudCrab'. And I doubt it was the dvd itself that was the problem, else his/her second system would have been unable to read it too.

It sounds a lot like people in here are used to making excuses for TrueImage, and have lived so long with the problems that they are rationalizing work-arounds.

"You don't want to do xyz.... You want to do abc and then 123 and then def..." Well, no, I don't. I want to do xyz and I know why I want to do it. If nothing else, that's my choice.



I still can't make up my mind to buy TrueImage 11 or not. If it doesn't work, it'd be pretty expensive shelfware. (And yes, I know, there's a trial version available. But the disk backup stuff is disabled in the trial versions.)

 

AFAIK, the backup is disabled on the rescue CD that is created but the Windows component will create and restore backups during the timed trial period. The CD will restore previously made backups.

You have been given a possible solution to "don't want to store HDs in the safe"; create the image on HD and then burn it to DVDs using whatever if you don't like the Acronis implementation. Like I said, if space is available it will create the image on the partition being imaged. This will also work on your family member's PCs (you still need a license per PC even if you only use the bootCD and don't install the full TI software). Also, if you create the image on a different drive such as an external USB drive and then burn to DVD you meet the requirements of backup media diversity.

You have the info on how most people use TI and obviously it isn't to your liking. Fair enough, but at this point you either have to try TI11 or try some other product.

 

I wasn't calling it; just making a recommendation. If you want to use DVD disks for backup, you can, with ATI and with the other brands out there.

However, being concerned about speed with DVDs for backup is like complaining that the 57 Rambler does have enough get up and go on the freeway. You're right.