Anyone heard from HDS - re Rollback?

It sounds like you had a extreme situation.
In my case I installed some software which froze the system, after the cold restart I found myself back in time right before the attempt to install.
I thought it was neat that the filesystem was errorfree and no documents were broken.

If you boot in the morning and power down after 8 hours, you don't want that. And probably modifications are committed regularly, but I missed the commit when I was installing 'Freeze-Me'. That is a different kind of test.

 

Allright, so we are not talking about a regular production system.
When you take time to test beta software, you take the risk of problems and no doubt you took your precautions.

I think that both eazFix/Rollback RX and FD-ISR would suit, where I have a preference for the eazFix approach because I can just leave the 'beta' snapshot and delete it, where in FD-ISR I would copy/update the 'beta' snapshot in order to startover/give up.

Thinking of it, it might be possible that the faulty beta software renders the filesystem corrupt... I wonder which snapshot solution is more robust for beta tests...

 

However, I think you can exclude files/folders so they are carried over in much the same way FD-ISR uses data anchoring. This would mean important documents are still the same in that earlier snapshot of 9am.

 

Whichever works best for you. I am avid beta tester and I test many, many programs. Rollback works great for me with no issues. Actually I had one in a very early release but it happens with most software, FDISR as included. Just trial them and see what you like and use it. Compare ease of use, functionality, support, and most of all make sure it does what you want it to do.

Thanks,

Chris

 

We all are able to create situations that can only be fixed by a restore from a disk image or reinstallation.
When I read how KAV-beta messed up your system and then remembered how a reboot of eazFix/Rollbaxk RX would undo that, in fact without any other action required, I thought that would be kind of convenient.

When I asked you about these tests that you mentioned, I didn't understand that you were talking about a laboratorium situation.
After I mentioned that I was evaluating this snapshot software, you warned me for it's instability. I want to thank you for that.
I decided to ignore your warning and when I got the problems that you warned me for, I decided to do something different than yelling "it doesn't work" and run away.
All I know is that since some serious flaw in eazFix/Rollback RX is fixed in the latest build, it runs very stable on my system.

When Chris' wishlist gets implemented it will be even 'perfect'.

 

Either there aren't many changes that need to be made or not many people have seen the thread cuz not many 'wishes'

Thanks,

Chris

 

Even if FD ISR is hosed the ease of backup or restoration from archive is a nice to have. Rollback has been much more stable on my media server since the last upgrades but the lack of achiving for snapshots and the more challenging backup requirements - spoil the party for me.

 

Just hang in there a while longer and it will be like having another party

Thanks,

Chris

 

If I remember well, RollbackRx/EazFix are working on archived snapshots. So one day you will have that feature too.

 

Chris, since you were there since forever, what do you know about the upgrade policy?

 

Yes I have 2 lics for rollback and 2 for FD ISR. At this point I only use 1 of the RB lics on a multi boot sys.


IF HDS add these feactures and improve reliability I'd probably switch over. But for now my standard choice is FD

 

What is your experience with the latest build that makes you doubt the reliability?

 

At this point I have little negative experience with the current build.

- It seems to take more space than the old version per snapshot - not a measured assessment.

- It hosed the system after a drive clone and trying an uninstall - no obvious erorr - the sytem had seemed fine until the uninstall event - as it was a clone I just put the other disk in again.

- I don't like wiping snapshots to upgrade the version - seems rather pointless - archiving / exporting is essential to me!

- I don't like the complexity assoc with drive backup.

- Support is patchy in my experience I did work with Andrew - about the same time as Peter. Andrew found a couple of errors but never really kept me in the loop. Raxco chase me if I'm slow feeding back or just check up on me once I have raised a support req.

At this point it seems fine - that said I no longer do anything that is stressful to the system - just don't want the hassle it causes - For testing I use FD ISR.

 

Excellent!

I didn't notice that, but it makes sense to me, since now data of the individual snapshot is redundant. No more corrupt snapshot when you delete outdated snapshots.

Disk images are still delicate. But you won't install new disks on a daily basis, would you?

I agree, and it's coming up.

Well, I do have a different experience with Andrew (the same Andrew Shen that Chris talks to when he contacts HDS support) and support.

I'm glad to hear your feedback.

Thank you.

 

Andrew Shen - identified the problem quickly and atttentively but never really kept me informed after that intial contact - my key problem related to hard reset scan disk corruption of snapshots. One of the things that they have worked hard to fix.

That experience coupled with a period with new builds that I could not activate even with technical support quickly turned me off.

But as I said .... I did keep one machine loaded just to see how things turned out.

Long term I'm hopeful that this could be a very good product! that could replace FD for me.

 

To tell you the truth I have never had to enquire about it. I just sent a message to my other contact there (besides Andrew) to get the answer. I will post it when I get the reply.

Not sure why this would be a problem when FDISR takes even more space for the snapshot. Nothing again FDISR for that just saying why is that a negative for Rollback.

Im sorry to hear this. I have only good experience with Andrew. I'm pretty sure recently they have been concentrating more on support. If you ever have issues that are not getting the attention they deserve please let me know.

EDIT: Seems like I missed your new post. Some items may not apply.


Thanks,

Chris

 

Please see http://www.horizondatasys.com/203367.ihtml

Thanks,

Chris

 

I'm looking to add an immediate recovery app to my setup and am currently trialling FD-ISR. Rollback Rx looks like an interesting piece of software and I particularly like the fact it is faster and uses less disk space.

I don't like their upgrade policy though since users who purchased Rollback Rx after 1 July 2006 have to pay full price for major upgrades, unless they pay extra for annual maintenance. This may put me off even if I do end up liking Rollback Rx.

FD-ISR normally give 50% off major upgrades for existing customers of FD-ISR.

The other issue that worries about Rollback Rx is the slowdown of file access caused by each request going through the kernel driver. Peter2150 mentioned a test involving KAV 6 which does not rescan files which have not changed, thereby testing the performance of file access. The test involved performing a KAV scan with Rollback Rx disabled, and then performing the same scan with Roolback Rx enabled. Peter2150 mentioned that a scan was about 1 minute slower (on a total scan time of 4 mins) when Rollback Rx was enabled.

Does anybody know if this slowdown was caused by a problem with Rollback Rx, or whether this slowdown is normal ?

I know some of the do's and don'ts re. working safely with Rollback Rx have been mentioned throughout this thread, but I'd appreciate a concise list (eg. Creating/Restoring images with ATI or IFD) ?

EDIT: Re. do's and don'ts, is it OK to defragment (eg. with PD or mstDefrag) ?

EDIT2: Which is the original software - EAZ-Fix or Rollback Rx ?

 

I am also interested in this issue. Personally I did not notice any slow down but of course it is subjective. I wonder how we can check this issue objectively?

 

Defenestration~

Personally, I haven't found any more noticeable slowdown using Rollback than I did using some other instant restore programs. They all seem to take their toll however!

I have found that PerfectDisk does not function well with Rollback and with past builds using PD with Rollback installed caused some of my crashes! While I haven't had any crashes with the latest Rollback build (even when using PD), I still find PD's operation to be adversely affected by Rollback (to the point of it being disturbing), so I now only use Rollback's defragger.

Although there have been comments to the contrary, as a True Image user I still have not found a way to retain all of my Rollback snapshots when restoring a tib file!

Regarding 'major' Rollback upgrades:

Finally, I could be wrong but I believe that EAZ is the developer of this product.

~pv

 

Hello Defenestration,
I only notice slow performance at boot time, and my experience is that installed on FAT32 helps tremendously. But you have to decide for yourself if formatting the system partition in FAT32 is acceptable.
I don't notice a slowdown during normal system use, even not when scanning with AV software.
I'm not sure if I understand the Peter2150 test well, but it seems to me that only scanning accessed files is effecting the test results. It would be more fair to scan all files, when you want to measure disk performance with/without eazFix/Rollback RX.

I'm curious, since you mention immediate recovery: Is the purpose to be in production as soon as possible after a disaster, or is the purpose to evauate all the software that interest you and go back without uninstall hassle?

 

I do test a lot of software and so want to be able to go back to before installations knowing that EVERYTHING is as it it was before the install.

I also want it as another line of defence in case of system problems so I can go back to known good config quickly. I already have ATI as my final line of defence, but restoring images takes between 20-30 mins, and I want a quicker solution for times when the system is not completely hosed.

It's not really an option for me to have FAT32, and in my experience it's much better to have NTFS as it's more fault tolerant, wheras FAT32 often require chkdsk to run.

I like my system to be defragged regularly and so am wondering what features the Rollback Rx defragmenter has ?

Re. the Peter2150 test, as KAV 6 does not do a full rescan of unmodified files it is a way of testing the overhead of traversing through all files without the overhead of KAV actually checking it for viruses. Admittedly, the test is a bit rough and ready but it should give a reasonable idea of Rollback Rx overhead.

I may write a simple DOS utility which will simply traverse all files on a disk without opening them. The same utility can also be used to traverse all files and open/close them. A third test would be to traverse all files, open each file , read some data without doing anything else with it, then close the file. This should give a reasonable idea of the overhead of Rollback Rx in certain situations. If I do get around to writing it I'll post it here.