Build 889 - Experiment In Progress

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by Donprovo, Jun 25, 2005.

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  1. Donprovo

    Donprovo Registered Member

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    Well, sorry to say, Acronis just can't seem to get it right no matter how hard they try. Build 889 is another experiment in progress with questionable improvements, if any.

    I installed it and immediately found that the rescue cd drivers are still broken. Slow, slow, slow is the rule again just like build 859.

    I wasn't about to waste any more of my time experimenting with this latest betaware release from Acronis so I uninstalled it, restarted, reinstalled build 826 and overwrote the newer drivers that build 889 had left behind due to Acronis' defective uninstaller.

    At least build 826 version of this betaware has high speed drivers for MY hardware although it may not have them for YOUR hardware.

    I guess that's what you get when you buy a program like TrueImage 8 that they develop on the cheap with a freebie Linux kernel and freebie Linux drivers and discount programming help.

    Thankfully I got a discount on this discount betaware program so I don't feel so terribly bad..........just VERY disappointed in Acronis' proven track record over 5 previous builds for failing to fix those things we keep complaining about and for breaking those things that previously worked.

    Hopeless........
     
  2. Monk

    Monk Registered Member

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    Thanks for the "heads up" :'(
     
  3. SSK

    SSK Registered Member

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    You ARE free to switch to another program. I will not stand in your way... :D
     
  4. Donprovo

    Donprovo Registered Member

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    No thanks. I paid my $33 "shareware" fee so I'll stick with 826. :oops:
     
  5. hectorsm

    hectorsm Registered Member

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    My boot CD works just fine so the problem is not with all systems.
     
  6. Chutsman

    Chutsman Registered Member

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    Define "works just fine" ... do you mean the speed that Donprovo was not getting when creating an image, or just that it boots and sees your hard drives?
     
  7. SSK

    SSK Registered Member

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    Hi, could you explain what shareware has to do with your original "comments"?
     
  8. feverfive

    feverfive Registered Member

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    Ugh, I was hoping for improvements, Re: support for firewire (at least mine). When I'm feeling a little more patient, I'll give the new build a try; just not in the mood right now to uninstall 826, install 889, uninstall 889, re-install 826.....
     
  9. Donprovo

    Donprovo Registered Member

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    It was my facetious reference to a previous post I made where I said I looked at TrueImage 8 as if it was shareware so I don't get really mad at it.

    My frustration is that it has so much potential and is on the verge of being a great product but Acronis keeps tripping over themselves trying to get things right. You wait for an improvement with great anticipation and you get disappointed every time. It's too bad.

    I wish Acronis all the luck in the world so they can get this product right enough that everybody doesn't badmouth it all the time.
     
  10. hectorsm

    hectorsm Registered Member

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    Booted and created an image in the morning today. I did not notice any speed difference from the 889 and my previous 826. So the problem is obviously hardware specific and not an "everyone's" problem. TI is very hardware specific so it does not suprise me a bit.
     
  11. ratcheer

    ratcheer Registered Member

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    I also updated to 889 and see no speed difference from 826. A full C: drive image to external hard drive takes about 13 minutes with either build (also the same for 859). However, my external drive is connected via Firewire and Don is talking about USB 2, so maybe that is the difference.

    Tim
     
  12. mareke

    mareke Registered Member

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    The boot CD for build 889 fails on my computer just as the boot CD for the previous 2 builds failed. My computer freezes while the boot CD is loading. I'm not surprised by this. Back to using my trusty build 774 boot CD which works perfectly.
     
  13. zoril

    zoril Registered Member

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    I can only speak for myself - so far I have not experienced any problem with the rescue CD - N'or have I noticed any significant speed differences between build 889 and 826.

    It might not be a bad idea if some are experiencing problems with either the bootable rescue CD'S or speed issues, to maybe include in the post the OS etc, to see if it is specific to one OS only, but maybe ok with all others...

    My OS is Windows'98SE - Pentium 3 800mhz

    Howard:)
     
    Last edited: Jun 26, 2005
  14. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello Howard,

    There is no connection between the OS you have and the performance in Acronis stand-alone mode. The problem is in USB 2.0 drivers that may be not optimized for some hardware. In this case we need to compare the sysinfo.txt file created with the latest build of Acronis Bootable CD with the one create with the latest working build. The description of how to get the sysinfo.txt file can be found at Acronis Help Post.

    Thank you.
    --
    Ilya Toytman
     
  15. Donprovo

    Donprovo Registered Member

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    Ilya,

    If you can give me step-by-step instructions on how to create this sysinfo I will be happy to send it to you.

    My problem in creating sysinfo is that I boot up on the rescue cd and I don't know how to get sysinfo from the rescue cdo_O??

    The only sysinfo at that point is I'm running under your Linux kernel and creating an image of my Dell laptop 5160 internal 40Gb drive and saving it to my external USB2 drive which works just fine in 826 but not 859 or 889.

    The rescue cd's for 889 and 859 both have the problem. Is there a way I could create an 889 rescue cd but copy the drivers from 826?
     
  16. zoril

    zoril Registered Member

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    With my Windows 98SE, I have had many problems with hardware like USB 2.0 memory pens, that can be plugged into the USB slot for XP etc, but always if suitable, need a driver to be compatable with my Win98'se.

    Even then the speed is 1.1 not 2.0. On several occasions in the past, backward compatable drivers have not worked for me as they should have....

    For that reason I am steering clear of saving TI images on usb with this system, until I upgrade...

    Howard
     
  17. Donprovo

    Donprovo Registered Member

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    Hi Howard.

    Who's talking about 98SE in this thread? We're talking about the drivers as supplied by Acronis on the rescue cd's which are burned from within the various builds 826, 859 and 889. The user has no control over what drivers are used on the cd - only Acronis does.

    When you burn a cd like this you have no control over the drivers and they either support your hardware properly or they don't as determined by Acronis choice of drivers.

    What we are noticing is that when compared to build 826 and prior, the create-image-and-save-to-another-location speed has dropped dramatically, similar to if you went from a USB2 driver down to a USB1 driver.

    This dramatic decrease in performance is a result of Acronis changing something that used to work just fine and now doesn't. It doesn't depend on what operating system you happen to have installed on your hardware because you never boot into the op system.
     
  18. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello Donprovo,

    The instructions on how to get the sysinfo.txt file are written in Acronis Help Post part II b):

    If you send us the files created with build 889 and with the latest working fast build we will try to find the fix that will work on your system.

    Thank you.
    --
    Ilya Toytman
     
  19. Donprovo

    Donprovo Registered Member

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    Thanks for the instructions.

    I'll get right on it chief...... :D


    EDIT:

    Oh no! My laptop doesn't have a floppy!

    Is there any other way to create the sysinfo without a floppy?
     
  20. Acronis Support

    Acronis Support Acronis Support Staff

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    Hello Donprovo,

    The only other way is to take photos of it. In this case you need to wait for the # prompt as described above and issue the following command:

    sysinfo

    After that please make shots of the output using Shift+PgUp and Shift+PgDn keys in order to scroll the screen manually.

    Thank you.
    --
    Ilya Toytman
     
  21. zoril

    zoril Registered Member

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    Hi Donprovo:)

    Is there not a wider selection of drivers in build 889 then say 800 or 826?

    Howard
     
  22. Donprovo

    Donprovo Registered Member

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    Well, I don't have a camera to do this with either.

    However, I have started up with the 826 and the 889 rescue cd's and looked at the many lines of code. The Acronis-loaded USB drivers are definitely different from 826 vs. 889.

    Here's my suggestion to you, Ilya.

    Do what I just did. Start up on each of these builds' rescue cd's and look at the code yourself. You can see the same thing I can see except for the hardware differences.

    You'll see that Acronis changed the USB drivers between versions. My hardware's still the same: A Dell 5160 P4 laptop with XP Pro and a generic USB2 external hard drive. Fast with 826, awfully slow with 859 & 889.

    Don't the programmers at Acronis know what they did to change the USB drivers between these versions? After all, they're the ones who did it.

    Let me know what else I can do.
     
  23. Donprovo

    Donprovo Registered Member

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    There may be but I'm not qualified to say. Maybe Acronis can answer that.

    In any event, they changed either the drivers, which is what it looks like when I scan the lines of code and there are lots of them, or they changed something that affects the drivers because the speed decrease is so dramatic that no one could fail to be troubled by it.
     
  24. Menorcaman

    Menorcaman Retired Moderator

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  25. Donprovo

    Donprovo Registered Member

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    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Menorcaman
    Hi again Donprovo,
    I wouldn't dismiss your USB enclosure chipset just yet!! Acronis continue to add and update the Linux device drivers on the boot rescue CD. Perhaps the USB driver fully implement all aspects of the USB 2 specification correctly whereas the chipset doesn't. Hence when the driver is updated your external enclosure falls over.
    Hmm. 6.71GB resulted in an image of 4.67GB, which was transferred in 7 minutes. This equates to approx 16 Mbytes/sec "real world" data tranfer rate. Me thinks that's pretty o.k. over a USB 2.0 link. However, as always, I stand ready to be corrected.
    Regards



    Hi Menorca.

    I posted most of this under the other thread, also.

    Your speeds certainly prove YOU are running at USB2. My speeds USED to be in that neighborhood. Here's my history:

    Image 40GB drive with 10GB used = 12 minutes with 826, 800 & 796.
    Restore above = 22 minutes same as above.

    Now with 859 or 889:

    Image 40GB drive with 10GB used = 1 Hour and 17 minutes.
    Restore above = 1 Hour and 48 minutes.

    Nothing changed except swapping the rescue cd's and performing the same operations with the same hardware.

    To answer your hypothesis about previously faulty USB2 implementation with my hardware I say not very likely. Here's why:

    When I try build 826 vs. 889 on my friend's Dell 700m laptop, I get the same results using his brand new Seagate external 40GB USB2 hard drive.

    I also tested his laptop with my external hard drive with the same results. Mine's a 1 month old CompUSA 2.5" enclosure running a Hitachi 60GB 5400rpm Travelstar drive.

    Then, I did the exact same tests on his Dimension 3000 desktop and got almost the exact same times as on the laptops although slightly faster. The dramatic falloff in speed with builds 859 and 889 existed on the desktop computer as well.

    My conclusion is that all these USB2 enclosure manufacturers cannot be improperly implementing the USB2 protocols as they all carry the same USB2 certification for their enclosures and cables.

    It stands to reason that Acronis has done exactly what we suspect and see the evidence of: That is, the drivers in build 859 & 889 are somehow either different and slower or they are impeded by some other change Acronis made in the rescue cd software.

    There can be no other reasonable explanation based on all the evidence in these threads. Sure we can come up with a million maybe this and maybe thats but before we get way out in left field with blaming the rest of the pc world for Acronis failures in these two recent builds let's look at their track record with these two recent builds.

    Under the circumstances, Acronis should be required to tell US what they did differently in builds 859 and 889 that IN THEIR BEST GUESS would explain why the image and restore speeds dropped a magnitude of 10 times slower on the same mainstream hardware as compared to builds 826, 800 and 796.

    Here's my frustrated question to Acronis:

    Why don't YOU tell US what YOU think about why WE see this dramatic slowdown in speed?

    Acronis, why do we have to always be your guinea pigs and figure everything out for you so you can make another patch?

    How come YOU don't find these problems and TEST for them and FIX them BEFORE we get the latest builds?

    I don't mean to sound too judgmental but enough is enough. This new build "surprise package" routine is fraying some nerves, mine included.

    Hey, Acronis. You guys get PAID to do this stuff, we don't. Where's the consideration?
     
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