Introducing AX64 Time Machine - hybrid imaging/snapshot software

Acronis went down the pan after version 7, very unstable.

I do remember having a blast with casper at it was solid back then.

I see quite a bit has changed looking at the specs, looks interesting version 8.

 

Hi, currently I am looking for a back up solution should I go with AX64TM? since I read a lot of good reviews about it, if ever I buy it do I still need Macrium?

Please give me some advice thank you.

 

Underkirk--most in this thread would say to definitely try out AX64. It has a 30 day trial. In fact, most would also say to buy it. It's a great program!

However, I suspect that many (if not most) people here would also say never rely on one recovery solution. I would strongly encourage you to use both AX64 and Macrium Reflect. Many here use both and many use AX64 alongside a different back up solution.

 

I will see when the new version comes out.

I will probably just keep using AXTM v1.307 that works just fine on both of my 64 bit Win 8.1 machines. I also occasionally backup using ShadowProtect from a flash drive for any problems that may come up.

 

Underkirk, I would certainly give AX64 a try, I replaced rollback with it a couple of months back and only had a couple of minor problems. One word of advice, uninstall rollback before you try AX64 the two do not work together plus keep your other backup program, always best to run with two.

 

Hot Restore - Fast or Safe ?

I just can't resist to throw in my 2 cents...

I think it all depends on what kind of user you are, i.e. what do you expect from your software.

If you mainly need a reliable backup solution so you are covered in case of a disaster, then reliability will be your number 1 priority. You will probably have used a "normal" image based backup software in the past, and even the soon to come new hot restore method of AX64 will be very much faster than the traditional image based software. So I guess the safer but slower new method is for you.

But then there are users who have different expectations (like me). Checking out new software all the time, tweaking Windows settings and Registry settings, just experimenting a lot. And for those users speed is everything. A lot of those users have probably used Rollback RX before and are still spoiled by its sheer speed.

Now when AX64 came along, many of these former Rollback users jumped on it, and for good reasons. True, AX64 in its current incarnation is already considerably slower than Rollback, but you get much better security in exchange for the loss of speed. Most users gladly accept this tradeoff, because with AX64 there is no need to use a traditional image based backup software additionally like you absolutely must do with Rollback.

If the current AX64 hot restore method gets ditched in favor of a safer, but slower method you will eventually reach a threshold where all of a sudden Rollback RX in combination with an image based backupper (IfW, Aomei, Eaeus, Paragon) will look attractive again.

There was some talk about the 30 to 40 seconds needed to boot into the WinPE (or WinRE) environment. Frankly, I don't buy it. Just did some tests with my laptop (4 years old, AMD Turion64 dual core 2x 1.8Ghz). Booting into the AX64 recovery environment from the HDD (using EasyBCD) took 2 minutes 50 seconds. Yes, the boot process could probably be streamlined, but 30 to 40 seconds? I will believe it when I see it...

So my choice is pretty clear... I strongly lobby to keep the current hot restore method, at least as an option. So far I did not have a single failure with the current method (I do disable my AntiVirus software before).


Alright, just my2 cents...

Cheers
manolito

 

Some very good points, monolito. I am hoping that booting into WinPE is a lot faster then booting into the AX64 recovery environment, it's painfully slow on my machine even from a SSD Drive.

 

"If the current AX64 hot restore method gets ditched in favor of a safer, but slower method you will eventually reach a threshold where all of a sudden Rollback RX in combination with an image based backupper (IfW, Aomei, Eaeus, Paragon) will look attractive again."
You forget the other reasons why AX64 is better than RB. AX64 backs up to an external HD and RB doesn't. RB support is bad. AX64 support is exceptionally good. RB takes forever to upgrade, and AX64 doesn't. AX64 upgrades work, and RB upgrades have been problematic.

 

I said: Rollback RX in combination with an image based backupper...

Since I stay clear of Win8 and use machines without GPT partitions I don't care about RB upgrades. I use version 9.1 which has been very reliable for me.

Using AOMEI as my safety net and Rollback as my toy to quickly jump around between snapshots has worked for me, and if AX64 slows down too much in the near future, I might be tempted to go back to this combination...


Cheers
manolito

 

Whether AXTM does a hot restore or automatically reboots into the.. uhm rescue media(?) after I click "Restore" doesn't really bother me, 40 seconds doesn't bother me either, however the important thing for me is that everything is automatic after I click "Restore", it should boot up into the correct OS automatically and do the restore without further questions and then reboot into the correct OS again after the restore is complete.

So I want to be able to choose the backup I want to be restored while in Windows and then after that everything is automatic, I don't want to have to choose it in the environment that AXTM boots me into because I've noticed that at least with the current recovery media my mouse won't work.. don't know why. :/

 

I did briefly try Real Copy a while ago, and my recollection is that it didn't take very long to boot to its pre-os environment - am I misremembering and/or would the new AX64 take a similar amount of time?

 

What I said (or tried to say) is I would happily put up with an extra 30 to 40 seconds to know that I do not need to worry about doing a cold restore. I know that in both cases the PC is unusable but with the hot restore its unusable for minutes while the cold restore option means unusable for upwards of an hour.

Sorry if I was unclear.

PS: I am astonished that folks would actually consider dropping AX64 if a restore took 270 seconds instead of 225 seconds (Thats 4.5 min vrs 3.75 min). We are talking about an additional 30 to 40 seconds, not additional minutes. Still, if its not too complicated (and I don't see why it should be) giving folks a choice is an easy way to keep everyone happy,,,,,as long as the folks choosing the faster restore method do not clamor for tech support when their PC freezes.

PPS: In addition, I am currently not happy reducing the level of security of my PC when I need to do a restore (but I am willing to live with it if I have to). I would think that the elimination of the need to turn off AV or other malware blocking programs in order to do a restore would be something that is very welcome.

 

Thanks for the advice.

 

Sorry to change the current focus, but the following comment reminded me of a question:

For those of you who use AX64 alongside WSA, do you turn it off before you do hot restores? If so, do you just right click on the tray icon and "shut down protection"?

 

WSA never seems to have affected AX64 hot restores in my experience.

 

So, this would mean AX64 has to keep track of the files, and the same time you could implement VERIFY on the files.
What happened to me, caused that I won't use this program until data/image verify is implemented.
I just can't afford to risk it again with losing all my precious data just because the images are corrupt and windows won't boot.

 

The part about the 30-40 seconds (if true) is not a deal breaker for me - I just doubt that it would work with a fully encrypted system unlike the current restore method, and might lead to other problems for other people who need special drivers and apps integrated into their WinPE disks.

 

Realcopy currently uses native application to do restores, like chkdsk and boots pretty much instantly into the enviroment. It is very low level and rock solid stable (also speed is about the same as hot restore if user chooses to do fast restores). Why we chose not to use this with AX64 is that the native application is so restrictive and cannot be compared to the flexibility of hot restore or WinPE. For example, in native app you can't restore from network shares.

Hot restore is fast, WinPE is stable (albeit slightly slower), native app has no flexibility. On the balance, we find that fast restore via WinPE has the least compromise of stability vs speed vs flexibility.

But we listen to you guys, and we are thinking about including hot restore as an option, but there are caveats.

1. We want to keep the app simple, stable and streamlined
An extra tick box for hot restore might confuse new users. We also start leaning towards giving extra options where it might not be necessary. We don't want to start a trend of doing this. It's best to provide a single good solution and keep improving it than providing everything under the sun to please everyone. The last thing we want to do is end up a few years down the line with a mess and a lot of regret. It's not that we don't want it, but we have to show some restraint.

2. To provide exceptional support.
Hot restore support tickets are the most common we receive. If we keep it, we know we're providing something prone to error. Moreover, if we don't support our users in that aspect, you guys may see that as bad form on our part. And that's not what we want.

All in all, we're always brain storming creative ways to improve the speed of our restores. Fast Restore via WinPE will only get faster over time.

 

Thanks for the explanation Wajamus.

Notwithstanding your points above, it there any chance of including a tick box for the native application restore?

My reasoning being:

1. Hot restore is never going to be reliable
2. WinPE or whatever is cumbersome and slow (is it?)
3. The native app is both reliable and fast
4. People like me have simple needs, and don't mind not being able to restore from a network share, nor that the MBR or whatever is written to.

Since Real Copy is the heavyweight app, and AX64 is the simpler one, wouldn't it make sense for AX64 to have the fast but inflexible native app, while Real Copy has the slow but flexible WinPE?

If the restore process starts to become cumbersome, then AX64 starts to lose it's main selling point (as others have pointed out), e.g. on my system ATI only takes 4 minutes to restore my C drive.

 

Anyone: Is the current and future versions of AXTM and Realcopy compatible with Acronis True Image (2011) installed? Thanks.

 

That`s a very interesting point. How do you tackle this problem? Even if the vast majority of PCs will boot with a plain vanilla PE or RE environment, there is also a number of machines which will not without adding special drivers to the PE environment. Can you come up with a way to automate this?


Cheers
manolito

 

@Grumpa
The answer to your question is here:
https://ax64.uservoice.com/knowledg...atibility-with-acronis-true-image-and-disk-di


Cheers
manolito

 

A couple of questions and comments, if I may.
Thanks in advance for any answers, apologies for the apparently lazy questions. Not really lazy, I hope, its just that I have read the whole topic, am not clear about these questions at this time.

1. Will AX64 work with a GPT formatted drive running under a UEFI Bios?
2. Will AX64 work with win xp 32 bit?
3. Does a fast restore in AX64 take 4 or 5 minutes on a fairly fast system?
4. Will AX64 create its own space for the backup file on the HDD running the OS, or must I make a partition?

My 2 cents:
- The difference between 4 and 5 minutes is not important to me.
- Dependability is important.
- The term "Time Machine" does not make me think of apple.
- I intend to use AX64 to just put windows back to square one each time I shut down the computer. That is, start windows, update the AV, etc, then make a snapshot. End of the day, reset to that snapshot, shut down. Do I understand correctly that that procedure will eliminate any malware waiting in the wings to install itself, and "reset" the computer to the start of the previous session (after the updates)?

Thanks.

 

Will WINPE be included in the install?

 

Just a couple of comments and some of them may be stupid because I must confess that I have stopped reading every single post of this thread anymore so I apologize if some of my concerns have already been addressed.

1. Go for reliability over speed. For gosh sakes, this program is already so fast that another 30-40 seconds added for reliability will STILL keep this the fastest program out there.

2. The name Time Machine, be careful. I do not know what a huge corporation like Apple will do if they see another program coming out with their "copy righted" name.

3. KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid.

4. Let all of us understand (I've stated this before somewhere in this thread) that this is a VERY small group of people who are limited in resources and are being overwhelmed with re-writing thousands of lines of computer code. PATIENCE!

Thanks all for listening,
Acadia