True Image 10 is 20 times slower that 9

Not to flog a dead horse, but isn't it contradictory to say that TI 'locks the partition' - my interpretation of 'locks' suggests that no updates (writes) are possible during the process, which is not the case since you are able to use windows applications and make updates. Maybe it locks individual files, or sectors, as it processes them, but if it were to 'lock' (using my interpretation of the term 'lock') the whole partition then windows would be effectively unusable during the process.

My version is 4942 also! So let's think about various factors. The backup was done inside windows, and there seems to be general consensus that any operation within windows is ok - it's when you get to the standalone (linux) environment that things slow down. My restore was done using the boot CD, and I chose to restore only one partition (I wasn't offered the option to restore the entire disk, since I didn't backup the entire disk). I also did not select the MBR and track 0, which I later read that I may want to do - not sure if that's a factor or not. The USB drive I'm restoring from is a pretty boring classic Maxtor 500 GB external USB 2 drive, plugged into one of the 3 USB2 ports on my thinkpad (lenovo) T60 - recent model, 6 months old. I make sure I plug in the USB drive before powering up with with boot CD in the drive. The 'original estimate' for the restore was about 2 hours, and the actual 'real time' it took was about 2hr 20 mins. The partition was 51GB used out of 60GB (which is why I'm doing this!), restored to an internal SATA drive, 100 GB 7200rpm Seagate. Today, I will try a similar restore but from the network share, and I'll report my findings. It could be the specific USB chipset, perhaps, or some other bios-level stuff that is different on the thinkpads vs. your machine? I don't like my thinkpad in general, but I do know that IBM/Lenovo try to be very linux friendly - maybe they build stuff into their BIOS that makes this work better?

Arghhhh... I can't do a test on another machine since I'm using the trial version ... let me see if I can re-download to another machine.

 

I did all my work on a test system 3GHz P4, and all backups and restores were to and from 7200RPM SATA drives, so that should be fast enough. Some of the differences are that I did do the MBR and track 0. Also, the backed up drive has Rollback Rx on it as part of my experimentation. I suppose it's possible that it sees the Rollback sectors as something odd, but the backup time and file size were pretty normal. My restore from the Acronis CD started out at 9 hours and then finally finished in 7 hours. All other imaging software that I tried worked fine, but I will try some more experimentation just for curiosity, since one fix is just using the BartPE plugin.

 

I did another test backup and restore, on a different, older thinkpad - a T43. I backed up the entire hard drive this time, to a network share. This backup was of two partitions, one ~7 GB, one ~5 GB. Total backup time about 20 minutes. I then restored the entire hard drive back from the network (both partitions and the MBR, all at once), using the boot CD, and it took about 20 minutes also. There's obviously something, I'm just not seeing it.

 

Steerpike. I'm no expert on exactly how Acronis handles the partition during backup but this white paper offers the details of what happens http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/resource/tech-talk/2003/disk-imaging-1-introduction.html

 

Last night I did some more restore experimentation: I ran chkdsk on my source drive (At the request of Acronis customer support), then repeated the backup (30 minutes) and restore (7 hours again). I then tried a restore without the MBR and track 0, still 7 hours (which I did not wait to complete). Then I booted to my BartPE CD with the Acronis plugin and restored the same file including MBR and track 0: 18 minutes. I would say it is something with the Acronis CD, like the linux drivers, but Steerpike is able to get similar backup and restore times from the same Acronis CD. - Brian

 

What brand of machine are you using? My (very loose, very gut-feel!) theory is that my Thinkpad BIOS (or, even less likely, hardware) is more linux friendly. I would guess it's unlikely that there are hardware differences, because everyone uses the same hardware, but Lenovo could make an effort to write their BIOS level stuff to be more compatible with Linux - I would think. Of course, if you have a Thinkpad also, then that theory goes out the window! I'm just thankful that I got lucky.

I have a Dell latitude D60 at home, and I'm about due for a 'backup' (I have two 80 GB HDs, and I image one drive to another every few months (and use the newly imaged drive) so I have a 'fully working backup drive' as a fallback). For my dell, I have a drive-bay disk adapter, and I usually go disk-to-disk, but I can do an experiment by doing a backup to a USB drive, or a network share, and restoring from that.

 

My test system is self-built using a Biostar MB, which uses a Phoenix BIOS. It is a pretty typical system: 2 SATA drives, 1 IDE, CD drive, 2GB of memory, P4 3GHz.

 

Steerpike and Brian Elias, I believe that the rescue CD is the same no matter what machine it is made on, so providing you are both using the same version and build of TI the CD’s are identical. Therefore I suggest that the difference in restore times you are seeing is because the Linux rescue CD has better hardware support for Steerpikes’ hardware than for Brian Elias’ hardware.

The statement re the rescue CD above may not be completely true in that the trial version is not able to make backups, only Acronis Support could say for certain

 

I have been doing many experiments, going back-and-forth with Acronis tech support (which I must say has been very responsive). I have the same problem on two machines - long restore times from the Acronis generated CD, but fast from the BartPE plugin. I am starting to think that it may be something with SATA drives like the Linux drivers. I only have SATA drives, so I can't really check that theory. Steerpike, are you running IDE drives, or has anyone else gotten fast restore times with IDE drives?

 

Did anyone ever conclude anything from all this? I may need to start using this product on some no-name motherboards. Are there updates I should apply?

To answer the previous questions (a bit late!), I have SATA drives in my laptop, but I think the older T43 was IDE.

 

I also went back-and-forth with Acronis tech support (which I also found very responsive). I performed numerous experiments and here is their response:

So it looks like BartPE is the only way to go.

 

Thanks for this disucssion. I recently purchased ATI 10 and just used it to restore a full image backup of my C drive (100 gb). It took over 10 hours (don't know exactly how long since I gave up and went to bed). It did a great job, but I'm glad to hear that there's a way to speed that up. I will be investigating BartPE. BTW, I'm running Vista Ultimate on a Dell Dimension E520.

Thanks for the help.

 

FYI, I very consistently got a restore time of 7hours for the Acronis restore disc and 20 minutes with BartPE. This is with an 84GB drive that produced a 42GB backup file from ATI.