I am posting this again on another topic, since the source is different.. For the paranoid people.. the setup download you get is directly from Aomei.. You get the serial-code from sharewareonsale.com after registering your e-mail.. Source: Sharewareonsale.com
It's on again, this time from BitsDuJour.. And yes.. it's a genuine giveaway, not any ripoff ! Get it HERE. You have 20 hours to get it. Today's promotion includes the following: AOMEI Backupper Professional - Paid upgrades and Must be installed during promotion day v3.2 ($0)
Not so many differences between Standard and Pro. AB Standard (Free) vs AB Professional (Paid) http://www.backup-utility.com/edition-comparison.html
True but since I love to spend money, I bought 2 licenses so 4 of my computers are covered. Like I've never wasted 39 bucks before.......
Just to let you know, if you managed to grab BitsDuJour's giveaway of Aomei Backupper Professional, you can update it to the latest v3.5 version www.aomeisoftware.com/download/adb/ABPro.exe with the same registration information.. The installation tells you to uninstall the previous version, and asks you if you want to keep the current registration information, answer YES. If you happen to run into same problem as i did during the upgrade installation.. It wouldn't overwrite even as administrator a few driver files in /system32 directory... Browse to that directory as an admin,and rename the files it tells you it can not overwrite..
Okay, so exactly how is merging useful. I tested it. I ran a full with a text file name one.txt. Then I did an incremental with a file two.txt. One.txt was gone. Then I did another with three.txt with one and two gone. Then I did a merge and only three.txt was there. I then did a separate full as the system then stood with just three there. I then deed a Macrium image withe same configuration. To test how close the aomei merge was I did a restore, of the merge and then followed it with a restore from macrium. The extremely short macrium suggested the disk was essentially the same. Bottom line was the merge and the lastest images were essentially the same. Not just Aomei, saw the same thing with the Shadowprotect merge. What am I missing.
Merging, of course, eliminates unneeded INC images along the way as well as any data in those INCs that is no longer present in the target being merged to. Your example above doesn't make much sense to me (that's not really a surprise to me, though ). If you had baselined, added file #1, INCed, added file #2, INCed, then deleted File #1 & 2 and added File #3, then INCed again. Your MERGE to your last INC would have eliminated INC #1 & 2 and also File #1&2 which only existed in those INCs... that's a true merge. Maybe I'm missing something...
I guess what I am saying the merge and a new backup are the same so why spend the time it takes to do the merge??
What if your current system doesn't reflect the clean state of the previous backups? In that case merge the older images and restore. The current system shouldn't be imaged if there is an infection. In this way, I could see the merge feature being useful.
Aomei Backupper Pro 4.0 here https://www.winxdvd.com/giveaway/joint-promotion.htm ZIP includes setup+license get 4.0.2 here, license is accepted http://www.backup-utility.com/free-trial.html