True Image 2009 - No Backup Location, No Automactic Archive Name

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by RabbitWolf, Oct 8, 2008.

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  1. oldtimercurt

    oldtimercurt Registered Member

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    Take a look for those "renamed" files in the Restore function and see if you can see them. That was my problem--once renamed, they disappeared as far as Acronis was concerned.

    OTC
     
  2. MKairys

    MKairys Registered Member

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    True. However if I right-click them in Explorer I still get all the TIH options: validate, recover, mount, etc.

    [Edit] Hah! And once I've right-clicked one it does show up in '09's "My backups".

    [Edit 2] You can also "browse for backup".
     
  3. ccasey99

    ccasey99 Registered Member

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    Yikes!!!

    I was thinking about upgrading from TI10 to 2009 in preparation for a pretty large scale conversion from XP to Vista over the next year. Checking out the forums is always a good idea.

    I am SHOCKED about what I am reading about the change in backup file management approach! I do a full image each weekend and a backup of all data each weeknight on each machine in my 3 retail stores. I do the same for several home/support PCs. This works PERFECTLY and I can easily keep multiple images and vintages of data. Everything is COMPLETELY AUTOMATIC, and within TI. All my recoveries have been flawless....

    I personally have probably encouraged 100's of people to buy TI:thumbd:

    Bummer ... does anyone have an alternative recommendation for Vista platforms? I don't see Acronis solving this issue anytime soon.

    I love my TI10 on XP ... sniff ... sniff
     
  4. dvohwinkel

    dvohwinkel Registered Member

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    I helped TI techs fix a bug in Outlook 2003 backups for TI 11.. they decided to fix it only in TI 2009.. so they gave me a 2009 license. I must say I am very unhappy. I used backup locations to keep multiple backups for three weeks (weekly fulls and daily diffs).. so I could restore back to any day over that three week period. I complained about them taking away that functionality. The tech responded that it now works even better?!?!?!?!?! WRONG!

    Acronis are you listening?? You are losing many customers, including me in the future! Fix it! Bring back the backup location functionality! I honestly can not recommend TI 2009 to anyone. This is just how mad I am.

    I don't care and will not use "Try and Decide" nor "Cleanup Utilities".. stop adding junk and stick to making it easy and flexible to do backups efficiently.

    -Dave
     
  5. MKairys

    MKairys Registered Member

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    I feel much the same way, as you can see from my earlier post in this thread :). In my case it was the backup search function that worked incorrectly in 11 (see this thread), and Acronis gracefully gave me an upgrade to 2009, where they said it had been fixed.

    I understand that there were issues with backup locations and that Acronis might have decided to scrap the function rather than trying to make it work. But I was shocked to realize that what they replaced it with -- centralized archive management and automatic consolidation -- has left many of us unable to use the product as we had, and even unable to implement some of the most common and simplistic of backup strategies.

    In my case there is an additional irony: not only was the search function not fixed in 2009, it was broken further, so that at this point is has gone from somewhat usable to not usable at all.

    I infer from my correspondence with Acronis support that they are still committed to making the search function work. And I (and I believe others) have entered into discussions with them about backup strategies in 2009. I am hopeful that these issues will yet be resolved and that improvements will be made to 2009.

    I don't know what is the best way to make an impression on Acronis management: posting here, writing to support... certainly demands for refunds must bear some weight. I'm not ready to do the last even were I in a position to do so, but I shall continue the first two and I encourage others to do so who have the time and patience, and some remaining faith in a product that has or can have many valuable features.
     
  6. RitchieG

    RitchieG Registered Member

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    There will be no need for me to ask for a refund, I have no intention of "upgrading" to TI 2009.

    From what I have seen on this forum ACRONIS has in 2009

    Added support for more hardware GOOD

    Added the ability to save data backups as ZIP files POSSIBLY USEFUL

    It also appears that they have got rid of some bloat, the download is much smaller GOOD

    Got rid of the backup location rules concept GOOD

    Unfortunately when they scraped the location rules they eliminated the ability to create and store "BACKUP SETS" VERY BAD !!!!

    For now I will stay with TI 11, the scheduler is still a bit buggy, every now and then instead of making a full when it should it makes a diff but I know what to watch for and how to correct it and I can create and store "BACKUP SETS" a tried and true strategy as old as BACKING UP.

    WHAT WAS ACRONIS THINKING !!!!
     
  7. gwiesenekker

    gwiesenekker Registered Member

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    Same here,

    Since I have lots of disk space I only make full backups. With version 11 this was easy: weekly full backups of my OS partitions to the Acronis Secure Zone automatically versioned with names ending in (1), (2) etc. and the oldest version automatically cleaned up when ASZ became full, and daily full backups of my data to my Linux server using ftp, with automatic filenames that included date/time with automatic cleanup of the ftp location.

    With version 2009 all this functionality seems to have gone for full backups: I only get one version of my weekly full backups in ASZ, and even if multiple versions would be supported there is (as far as I can see) no automatic cleanup of full backups in ASZ.
    Same for the daily full backups to my ftp server: instead of date/time the names become backup4, backup44, backup444 etc and there is no automatic cleanup of the backup location.

    So I quickly reverted to the image with version 11.

    Regards,
    Gijsbert
     
  8. shieber

    shieber Registered Member

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    Ironically, the model that Acronis is following for "automated" backup management is seen with other brands of imaging software.

    Even more ironcially, and contrary to the model, I've never worked in a place where a series of fulls wasn't kept to maintain both a history and increased odds that a viable backup was in storage.

    Sometimes you find that your hdisks has gone wonky and did so prior to the last backup, or maybe even before the last several backups -- hdisk hardware failure is a good example of this as hdisk usually get progressively worse before we notice the increasing rapidity with which bad sectors are popping up. In such cases, having an even earlier backup makes all the diff. And being able to manage such a series automatically is the sort of rote activity we'd like our machines to do for us.
     
  9. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello all,

    Thank you for your interesting in Acronis True Image

    The latest build of Acronis True Image Home 2009 (9646) has the ability to create desired number of incremental/differential backup archives after the full backup. The functionality is similar to Backup Location Management in earlier product versions (Acronis True Image 10.0 Home and Acronis True Image 11 Home). You can find it in Optional Steps -> Backup Method while performing backup wizard setup.

    Best regards,
    --
    Dmitry Nikolaev
     
  10. shieber

    shieber Registered Member

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    however, unlike prior versions of ATI, it won't do automated file mangement and delete the oldest fulls once a user-set limit is reached. So, re fulls, ATI12/2009 is halfway there to being as effective at automated file managment as prior versions. Could be worse -- could be better.
     
  11. CoolRaoul

    CoolRaoul Registered Member

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    I would be very pleased to be allowed to upgrade to this version.

    I'm not sure of the version I've installed on my system since there no "help->about" menu item.
    Using "properties" context menu on TrueImage.exe gives 12.0.0.9261 for item "product version".

    On Acronis site, looking at page "Available Updates for My Registered Products", I see nothing indicating the availbility of this new release. :doubt:

    Could you please help me ?
     
  12. MrMorse

    MrMorse Registered Member

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    Dmitry, that is not similar.
    To create a task with:
    - create a full after 6 Incrementals
    &
    - active 'consolidate after 3 backups'

    is counterproductive. Please check whether it gives the correct result what you expect.

    I fully agree with shieber's last posting. Acronis is on a good way but not arrived.
     
  13. MrMorse

    MrMorse Registered Member

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    Press ALT key. Then the menu appears...
     
  14. RadicalDad

    RadicalDad Registered Member

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    CoolRaoul -

    Checking the properties on an .exe file doesn't work for all programs - depends on how the manufacturer decides to populate the version metadata. However, with ATI, that method does tell you the version and build number. You are using ATI 2009, which is version 12, build 9621.

    As for Acronis Support's (Dimitry's) claim that version 9646 is available for download, I don't see it either. Looks like more BS from a company that no longer makes a decent product and has no support.
     
    Last edited: Dec 2, 2008
  15. loopguru

    loopguru Registered Member

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    Version 9646 is available for download - just installed it today (German version).

    But it does not solve my problem and the problem so many other users have:

    I just want to create series of backups (one full and n incremental or differential) , if the external hard disk I use as backup media gets full the oldest series should get deleted.

    The current state: Acronis added a option "create a full backup after n Incrementals/Differentials" ...
    • ...which cannot get combined with an option what to do with the old backup series.
    • ...which conflicts with the concept of consolidation. I created a task which creates a full backup after 2 incrementals and consolidates after 3 backups. Of course consolidation never kicks in.

    The whole consolidation feature in itself is a mess. If I do an incremental backup which takes 3 minutes because there wasn't changed a lot the consolidation after that takes hours! I cannot imagine somebody needs that. Backup has to be fast.

    What Acronis should do:

    Create a possibility to automatically delete backups if
    • ...the number of backups is > n
    • ...the age of an backup is greater than n days
    • ...the archives together are greater than n MB (here I would take the size of the directory where all backups are stored)

    This should not be combined with consolidation because this really does not make any sense.
     
    Last edited: Dec 7, 2008
  16. MKairys

    MKairys Registered Member

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    And 9646 does not address the issue of taking a full backup without overwriting the previous full backup.

    I don't personally like the idea of using a "one-incremental" incremental task, taking an incremental I don't want. And while I can use a command script to rename the archive and thus preserve it, I run the risk of confusing the new archive manager.

    What would solve all these issues nicely IMO would be the ability to include the data and/or time in the name of a full image, perhaps with tokens like %D%. So I would name my archive SystemFull%D%.tib and get SystemFull2008-12-06.tib. This would solve the full image problem, and also give more reasonable names to the successive full images of an incremental task than something(1), something(2), etc.
     
  17. CoolRaoul

    CoolRaoul Registered Member

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    Still no 8648 update available for me (French version). I've send a message to Acronis support team about this issue, let's hope they will answer quickly.
     
  18. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello MrMorse,

    Thank you for your interesting in Acronis True Image

    In chapter 5.3.7 “Setting automatic consolidation” of Acronis True Image Home 2009 user guide we can read the following “Automatic consolidation of a backup archive is enabled by setting the overall limitations for the archive. These limitations include:

    - maximum number of backups
    - maximum storage period for the archive files
    - maximum archive size

    So in your example:

    - create a full after 6 Incrementals
    &
    - active 'consolidate after 3 backups'

    is counterproductive. Please check whether it gives the correct result what you expect.

    Full backup will be created after two incremental backup archives because of quota of 3 backups (one full + two incremental).

    Best regards,
    --
    Dmitry Nikolaev
     
  19. MrMorse

    MrMorse Registered Member

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    @Dmitry Nikolaev

    Obviously I have lost my glasses ;)

    Thank you for clarification.
     
  20. loopguru

    loopguru Registered Member

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    New thread with a solution which helps to some extend

    I invested some time and fixed some of the annoyances. I opened a new thread at here.

    Loopguru
     
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