The unofficial Shadow Defender Support Thread.

Many thanks to Quest and CM. I see Quest SSD is using 120GB Corsair ForceGT with Shadow Defender?

CM, what is the brand of SSD your brother is using with Shadow Defender?

Best regards,

KOR!

P.S. If my memory serves me right, I believe he uses Crucial M4.

 

Yes it's an M4. I don't think that the SSD brand or the controller inside the SSD matters though - unless its one of those semi-faulty sandforce drives that BSOD and then die without any warning.

I have also found a post by Froggie in your old haunting grounds King, the HDS forums:

http://horizondatasys-forum.com/rollback-rx/4235-rollback-rx-ssd-3.html#post10194

Based on empirical data from his own computer Froggie suggests that RBRX is actually allowing TRIM to occur on the protected drive, but at the same time it is probably protecting its own snapshot data from that operation by filtering specific TRIM commands accordingly. It would make sense to do it that way and the RX driver may be able to intercept certain TRIM commands in the same way that it filters and re-directs OS writes aimed at sectors that contain snapshot data.

Of course this is still speculation and Horizon DS keeps its lips tightly sealed on the issue. As far as I know they were supposed to release version 10 of RX last summer, and it never happened. The rumours machine indicates that the new RX v10 won't come out before Win8 hits the shops...

It makes me wonder if those guys at HDS really possess the coding talent to develop the program further. The fact that they blatantly ignore technical questions within their own forum says a lot. If the new Comodo Time Machine proves to be as good as they say it'll be, then I'll definitely switch back to that. We desperately need a new LV/snapshot app that can be proven to withstand and undo attacks by sophisticated malware; at the moment only good ol' SD can do that despite its age. I wish that software developers who market new LV products can prove themselves by producing a robust app that can fully undo sophisticated attacks.

In any case it is disgraceful when you have spent your hard-earned money for a utility and then its tech support team is unable/unwilling to answer such important questions, constantly ignoring pleas for answers from their own users... And yes, sod the meaningless apologies, they should have given you at the very least a free license after they screwed up when they sent you that link for the old pre-SSD version.

To recap on the AHCI vas RAID issue: If Rollback RX indeed puts the system in software RAID then there are quite a few disk utilities that would clearly indicate this. As you know I have RX and SD installed without problems, and all the benchmarks I've run so far still show that my system is on AHCI mode and that TRIM is turned on and working (see attached screenshots). If Rollback would have put my storage on software RAID mode wouldn't these utitilies indicate so?

BTW my SSD is 120GB but I have only allocated 91GB on it for the Windows partition and left the remaining space unallocated for SSD over-provisioning. Also, SSDLife Pro shows my SSD's work time as only 2061 hours. I've used this disk since December but I have secured-erased it a couple of times in the meantime, the last time apparently being 2061 hours ago.

 

Thanks for taking so much time and writing such an excellent post!

Froggie (TheRollbackFrog - on this forum) did his testing after I pointed out that Rollback Rx puts the drive under RAID array. One of the members there didn't believe me and asked to post an image. If you dig further into my posts/threads there, you will find this image.

Here is a recent image of Intel Toolbox that I have taken under Deep Freeze, which I am currently testing. It shows that while under virtual mode, Deep Freeze puts the SSD in RAID array like Rollback Rx. When I exist the virtual mode and boot into the normal mode, the SSD doesn't show in RAID array and the Intel SSD Optimization then works. As I mentioned above, I have posted a similar image on HDS forum while under Rollback Rx, and it show that Rollback Rx puts the SSD in RAID array.

Best regards,

KOR!

 

Thanks for your kind words my friend. As we all know RX is not a light virtualization app, it doesn't have a virtual mode that you can turn on and off. Therefore I can only go with what my system tells me, and in all of my disk utilities the system shows as AHCI. Those utilities should have shown RAID instead of AHCI; so unless the RX driver somehow manages to run the system in a 'hidden' RAID mode that the OS can't see, I can't see no other way how this could be happening. What's your take on this?

I wish HDS would take their fingers out of their collective backsides and come clean with a logical explanation...

 

The ACHI is hardware mode.

Where as RAID array is either hardware mode or software mode. If you don't have a hardware RAID controller, you can still do a RAID array under software.

Therefore, you system is reporting you properly that you are under ACHI controller and that both Rollback Rx (your system) and Deep Freeze (my system) puts the SSD under software RAID array for the TRIM to work properly.

BTW, how is SSD Tweaker, is it worth buying it?

Best regards,

KOR!

 

Thanks for the explanation, I thought that even under software RAID it would still show as such.

Most of the tweaks of SSD Tweaker can also be achieved with registry edits, so no, it is not really necessary to buy the thing. For some users the only good thing of the Pro version is that fact that it has a tool to force the TRIM command on demand, but I find this pointless. I have tried it once and it didn't mess with my snapshots, so RX must be catching up the calls somehow, or it looks like it's working but it doesn't.

To me forcing TRIM is not a good idea, it would be better to use the SSD as normal and then secure-erase it three times a year or so. With a recent backup one can secure-erase and then restore their backup and the disk should be back to full speeds (especially with Sandforce drives).

Another solution is to leave the computer turned on overnight and left at the BIOS/UEFI screen. With all that idle time garbage collection should kick in, and do its thing while the user is catching zzz's!

 

Again many thanks for such a nice thread.

BTW, do you have Intel Rapid Storage Technology installed on your computer for optimal performance of your SSD.

Best regards,

KOR!

P.S. Who know between us and with the help of other members, we might crack Shadow Defender to work properly on SSDs.

 

I hope so!

I don't use the RSTE driver because when I benched my system with the RSTE installed, my SSD benchmarks suffered and I'm not the only one. I'm a member over at SSDReview forums and some more experienced users than myself all came to the same conclusion. My system runs better with just the Intel chipset driver (I'm using v9.2.3.1020).

 

The benchmarks test are never accurate at all, therefore I never use them. However, when I download the AS-SSD Benchmark to see what driver it is showing for my Intel SSD under Deep Freeze virtual mode in RAID array. The image you posted for AS-SSD Benchmark showed msahci driver, where as mine showed isStor driver. See below image.

For this reason, I asked if you are using RSTE.

Best regards,

KOR!

 

And, here is the image of Crystal DiskInfo, which shows TRIM is working under virtual mode of Deep Freeze in RAID array:

 

Cheers for that. I have amended my previous post to add that I'm a member over at the SSDReview forums and some more experienced users than myself all came to the same conclusion: The RSTE driver did slow down their SSDs (also in real-world benchmarks). Some of those guys really know what they're talking about, and since they concluded the same as me, it's RSTE off at least for the time being. Our collective results confirmed that much.

 

I have taken your advice and removed RSTL. Many thanks for this!

Best regards,

KOR!

 

Thanks for the reply. I agree that it is likely that Tony would have covered this off before he disappeared. It's a shame that we can't ask him though - just to be sure.

Regards

 

Thanks for the kind words Blues7.

Regards

 

Thanks Peter 123.

Regards

 

That's certainly unusual and I'm not sure why that is happening. Usually only the partition that the system boots from needs a reboot to unlock the disk.

 

ot posts removed

 

He has moved his user files to D: that's why Windows needs a reboot in order for SD to bring D: out of Shadow Mode.

 

I'm on Windows XP and I don't have to reboot to bring SD out of Shadow Mode on the data partition containing the My Documents folder. I assume that what you are describing is what happens on Windows 7 if the whole of the user profile is moved to another partition?

Regards

 

I don't know if he has moved his whole user profile; but in Win7, moving over just one or more of the Favorites/Downloads/Contacts/Documents etc. folders to another partition forces SD to have to restart the PC in order to come out of Shadow Mode for the partition where the folders have been moved to.

 

Hi pegr,

I have to reboot to exit shadow mode on D: on both of our PCs (one runs XP, the other runs W7). Each PC has all personal files on D: (which includes all MS Office user files). But I seldom put D: into shadow mode so it's not a big deal.

TS

 

@CyberMan969 and The Shadow:

Thanks for your replies. From what you've said, it looks as though this may be true of Windows 7 systems in general and some Windows XP systems. As I don't have to reboot to exit Shadow Mode from the data and recovery partitions on my Windows XP system, it may be partially dependent on the operating system version and partially dependent on the overall system configuration.

The only issue I have personally encountered on my system is that some AVs can sometimes interfere with the ability to enter and exit Shadow Mode on the fly with non-system partitions if the AV real-time protection is enabled. On my system Shadow Defender and Panda Cloud proved particularly troublesome, although some people have reported running this combination successfully (I see that The Shadow uses PCAV).

Sometimes I have to force a dismount of a non-system partition in order to exit Shadow Mode but I have never had to reboot to do so. Again, this may possibly be due to AV interference as it only happens intermittently - I don't know. In any case, as The Shadow said, even if I always had to reboot to exit Shadow Mode it wouldn't be a big deal.

Thanks again guys for sharing details of how Shadow Defender runs on your systems.

Regards

 

pegr,

Some additional observations on this subject... My XP-Pro (32b) PC is running SD build 325 and my W7-HP (64b) PC is running SD build 331, so the need to reboot doesn't seem to be related to the SD build.

Frankly, I don't see any necessity to Shadow Mode D: and in my scenario, where my data on D: is constantly changing, enabling Shadow Mode on D: sure wouldn't be a smart thing to do!

TS

 

Hi TS,

I too am running build 325 but it wasn't the SD build I was referring to. My experience is that, as with nearly all software that digs deep into the system, SD's behaviour can be impacted by what other real-time security software is also running.

I agree. The only time, I ever consider temporarily putting my data partition into Shadow Mode is when engaging in potentially high risk web surfing or when testing software of unknown credentials. For normal day-to-day use I wouldn't dream of putting my data partition into Shadow Mode for the reasons you mention.

Regards

 

You're welcome brother!