Introducing AX64 Time Machine - hybrid imaging/snapshot software

Discussion in 'backup, imaging & disk mgmt' started by Isso, Jan 18, 2013.

  1. dagrev

    dagrev Registered Member

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    I use search several times a day. I have literally several thousand docs along and that is a handy feature. I also use an old free version of Copernic that does a better job but isn't as handy in some respects. There are two indexes from Win search and Copernic, but changes to those would in no way amount to more than a 100Mb at the very most.
     
  2. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Well I did disable because the indexing time was crippling, and made the searches almost useless anyway. I ended up buying Lookeen search program for outlook, and it index's in seconds and also has search features for Outlook, that make it cheap.
     
  3. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    @dagrev Well I put FB Build 701, and I didn't see what I was looking for, which was a very large file in the System Volume Information folder. Some of the major imagers put one there and on restore you are stuck with it. It wasn't there with FB, so that isn't the issue.

    What did do was shortly after taking the baseline I took an incremental and it was only 85mb. Then I did a touch up defrag which only took 5 minutes, so there wasn't major defragmentation. Just some files moved... The next incremental was 1.8gb. Actually I was pleased as the time of that incremental was short, so I am going to play a bit.

    But that does suggest either a background defrag, so the search indexing may be impacting.
     
  4. dagrev

    dagrev Registered Member

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    Thanks Peter for looking into that possibility. I hesitate to say I'm 100% certain there is no defrag going on, but I'm 99% sure. It it is, I can't find what would be doing it. Every defrag on the system is off and no scheduled defrags to be run. I even check every other day or so just to make sure something didn't get turned back on.
     
  5. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Well I did some torture testing today. Build a new 701 Recovery CD, and tested it to make sure it restores. Then had fun

    Tests.

    1. Initiated a hot restore. Once the restore actually started I hit the power reset button. The system was actually able to boot to the desktop, but there were a bunch of broken things. Tried a hot restore at that point and it failed. No real surprise. Then I booted to the Recovery CD, and did a full restore from that. Restore was successful.

    2. Initiated a IFL restore. About 10% of the way thru the restore, I did a power reset. System got just to the point of loading drivers when it blue screened. Again no real surprise. Again booted to the FB recovery CD and again successfully restore.

    After all this the next image required a repair of the tracking file. Again no real surprise.

    Pete
     
  6. bgoodman4

    bgoodman4 Registered Member

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    Good to hear that I remembered correctly that a failed hot (or warm) restore could be recovered from by doing a full cold restore to the same snap. Thanks for doing the tests and for the report.
     
  7. Masterblaster

    Masterblaster Registered Member

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    What is the status of this?
    You promised a few beta builds and an official release before the end of the year. You released 1 beta.
     
  8. manolito

    manolito Registered Member

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    Last edited: Jan 6, 2016
  9. Masterblaster

    Masterblaster Registered Member

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    Wajamus, What is the status of the next official release and when will V3 be released?
     
  10. dagrev

    dagrev Registered Member

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    701 is the doing well after the problem I had initially. This is the longest a post Win 10 ver/beta has kept working.
     
  11. TheRollbackFrog

    TheRollbackFrog Imaging Specialist

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    MB, since AX64's visiting schedule to this Forum is sometimes limited, you might be better asking that question of <Info@ax64.com> which drops directly in their lap.

    Feel free to report back if you hear anything...
     
  12. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Don't they need to release v2 before even thinking about v3.
     
  13. Masterblaster

    Masterblaster Registered Member

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    Yes, they need a V2 final, then a V3 beta. I only bring up V3 because it has been commented on by Xeroweight.
     
  14. wajamus

    wajamus Registered Member

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    Hi guys,

    Official V2 release is out, build 703 - please check it out.

    HERE


    Please read notes before downloading.

    We are working on V3, but like everyone else here has commented, V2 needs to be finalized. Please enjoy the build.

    If you encounter issues, please e-mail us at info@ax64.com with your logs (to retrieve them, go to backup tools tab > click about > click collect logs)

    Thanks everyone and hope everyone had a great NYE.

    Happy New Year,

    Waj
     
  15. Baldrick

    Baldrick Registered Member

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    Hi Waj

    Nice one. I am still living in the hope that one day I will be able to use Flashback on my tablet...;) In the meantime, congratulations on the official v2 Release.

    Regards, Baldrick
     
  16. cloggy49

    cloggy49 Registered Member

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    Just installed the 703 version and selected two disks for backup (C & E) but only one (C disk) is being backed up. In previous versions it was possible to select multiple disks. Collected the logs and emailed to info@ax64.com

    Update-1: Support (David) asked me to de-install and re-install the 703 version (with reboots after the de-install and re-install..). Testing it now.
    Update 2: After the previous steps, the second disk is also backed up now.

    Will keep monitoring it....
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2016
  17. dagrev

    dagrev Registered Member

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    Still can't restore while in Windows. I was hoping that would be working on the next release. Boot menu works the few times I've tried.
     
  18. zach

    zach Registered Member

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    Installed version 703 went to do a backup and I get this error message cannot save backup paramaters. Has anyone have an idea on how I can resolve this issue ?
     
  19. bgoodman4

    bgoodman4 Registered Member

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    I would suggest that your best bet would be to try live chat (I am not sure if its still available, you can try it though at http://ax64.uservoice.com/forums/206143-general and then hit Contact Support in the box on the right side) or otherwise contact the developer at their e-mail address at info@ax64.com
     
  20. Nik2000

    Nik2000 Registered Member

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    Dear developers,
    I have 2 RAID adapters - Intel Matrix Storage and Promise RAID controller.
    When i start your Rescue Media, and your software started - don't see anything my hardware disks ((
    Please tell me, do you plan to add drivers of hdd controllers and network adapters to Rescue Media?
    Thank you
     
  21. zach

    zach Registered Member

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    Thanks
     
  22. dagrev

    dagrev Registered Member

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    I can't find anything wrong, but restores are 15 minutes or more range today. Restores are slower in the more recent versions for some reason. I'm going to delete all snaps and start over. Anyone else experiencing much longer restores?
     
  23. Peter2150

    Peter2150 Global Moderator

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    Yes I did. I even had one hot restore that took the full time of the full restore.

    For me FB isn't reliable. Now what do I mean. I've never had an imaging failure or any restore failure. But what isn't reliable is the time. I do an incremental and expect it to take 2 minutes, and it takes the full time. Same with restoring. I just never now what the time is. I never have this issue with Macrium.
     
  24. manolito

    manolito Registered Member

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    Did a couple of tests with build 703, I found it to be the most stable version they made so far...

    Test platform:
    ThinkPad T410, Core i5, 4GB RAM, 320 GB HDD
    No UEFI, MBR based HDD
    Win7 Pro 64-bit
    Three partitions plus the hidden System Reserved Partition
    System C: NTFS
    Data D: NTFS
    Recovery E: FAT32


    No problems with installation and Recovery USB stick creation.

    When trying to make the first full backup I noticed that the FAT32 partition cannot be selected as a backup source. FlashBack simply does not see this partition. This partition has to be FAT32 because it must be accessed from a DOS based boot CD.

    I still converted the partition to NTFS, and now I could include it in the full backup. Backup and a couple of incrementals went well, it did seem a little slower than older versions.

    Switching between three different snaps using the new "Hot" method basically worked with the exception that for 1 restore the backup file was not found. Retrying the restore using the old "Warm" method worked.

    The restores seemed to be OK at first glance, CHKDSK found no problems. There was just one thing I found disturbing: After a successful Hot restore suddenly the BlueTooth adapter was activated, but it had been deactivated at the time of the backup.

    The BlueTooth adapter is turned off and on by software, so I have the suspicion that Hot Restores are not really bit accurate.

    Finally I tried a Bare Metal Restore (after wiping the first few hundred sectors of the HDD). Worked well, and there is a big improvement compared to earlier versions. You still have to restore the partitions one by one, but now you can do this all from the same instance of the recovery environment without rebooting in between. (In earlier versions you had to reboot after restoring the system partition. The other partitions could then not be restored from within Windows, you had to reboot again to the recovery environment for every other partition.)


    My conclusion:
    Their best effort so far, but still I am a little reluctant if I can trust the Hot Restores. Speed is not too impressive, I did not make any measurements, but it felt a little slower than Macrium. It really looks like it is getting slower with each new version...



    Cheers
    manolito
     
  25. cloggy49

    cloggy49 Registered Member

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    Did some more testing:
    1) Incremental backup of second disk is not consistently performed, there are gaps in the hourly incremental backups. This also happened for the first disk.
    2) This afternoon, got an error code when it wanted to perform the incremental backup of the second disk..
    Strange thing is that, when an hourly incremental is missed, the next hour it is picked up normally. This happened both for the primary as well as secondary disk.
    Logs were collected and mailed to support.

    Has anybody else seen that hourly incrementals are missed randomly while the PC is up & running?
     
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