B&R Too Slow - What Now?

Hello and Happy Holidays!

What took 2 hours on my XP machine with 3 gb RAM with PowerQuest DriveImage 7 took me over 15 hours with B&R.

Using: Paragon Backup & Recovery™, version 10.0.15.12802 (19.01.11 ) (Advanced) Free

So I tried it on my new Windows 7 machine with an AMD 6 core and using 16Gb RAM and it still took over 15 hours to BU 170Gb.

I tested it on 4 machines, two older XP boxes and 2 new, fast win7 PCs with consistent results.

Too bad, I like the interface and the people seem nice

Oh, I made a full backup then changed 1 text file and added 1 text file to test the differential backup, and it took 3 + hours.

This is impracticable for a working machine.

Any fast BU applications that you can recommend?

Thanks!

 

Hi Questech. I am not using the free version. I use the Hard Disk Manager Suite ($49.95). Backup times are very fast to my internal backup hard drive. On my older computer (CoreDuo), backing up about 170 GB to a USB 2.0 WD Essentials External Hard Drive took about 1.5 hours, so something is not right with your setup or the software.

You don't say what you are backing up to? Is is possible that it is your backup drive that is the cause of the delay? Have you run a chkdsk /r on the drive to make sure that it is stable and in good shape. You could also try to get a manufacturer's diagnostic package just to test the drive.

Hope this was of some help. Have a great day.

Regards,
-Phil

 

Dell Studio XPS Intel Dual Core i7, W7 Pro 64-bit. About 85GB used on a 750GB drive takes 25-30 minutes for a full backup image but 12 hours for a RAW copy or clone. Depends what you are refering to, an image or a RAW copy?

 

I have used both Acronis True Image (various versions) and both free and paid Paragon with XP and Win7. The Paragon times are very close to the True Image times.

Are you doing the backup from within Windows or booting up the Recovery CD? My guess, given that you are having the same problems on several machines, is that you not doing something that you think you are - the RAW theory sounds plausible which would backup the entire partiton including the unused sectors.

 

Hello All & than you for the replies!

First off I was backing up to an external 1 Tb USB2 drive.

Now after reading this thread I must reiterate that I used PowerQuest DriveImage7 on the same XP machines and got very good results under identical conditions. (if it were still available today and could run on Windows 7 I wouldn't be looking for a replacement).

So I really would like to find a solution that is as good as PQ was.

I am attatching a jpg file with my settings. If I am doing something wrong I would love to correct that.

So your help in correcting my problem (on these 4 machines) or a pointer to a more suitable application is greatly appreciated!

BTW I have no problem paying for a solution that works.

Thanks!

 

Based on the attached picture, your full backup is missing the system flag, it has only the compressed flag.
The differential backup is missing the Increment/Differential flag and the Compressed flag.

So you must be doing something wrong, your basic hard disk 0 may not be the system drive and the differential backup may be of the wrong drive, the size should be the same, 232.8GB and not 192.9GB.

Check up all your backups and make sure that you are backing the same drive, basic hard disk 0 can be any of the drives in the system and they change after booting, any and all drives can move into the disk 0 position.

 

Hello, and thanks for the reply!

I may have mad a mistake with the differential backup (backing up the wrong archive, but what could I possibly done wrong making a full system backup?

I mean there's not that many options. You get into the backup wizard and it guides you through the process.

Once in the wizard you get a file directory tree, much like windows explorer. I chose (by putting a check mark in the check box in front of the 1st drive listed) the Basic hard disk 0, which contains my C: drive and my D: drive. The wizard automatically puts a check mark in front of the tree of drives below it as you can see from the attached graphic.

I make sure the settings are the same as in the previous graphic and I'm off and running for a 15 + hour ride.

Again PQ did this same backup in about 2 hours using the same hardware,

So if anyone could share some light on what I can do differently, I'm very appreciative.

Thanks again!!

 

Run chkdsk X: /r on both your partitions you are backing up. Replace the X with the drive letter of the partion being tested. From my Acronis days I recall backups taking a long time and it had to do with a disk problem.

Try creating the backup with the rescue CD. This removes all Windows stuff from the equation.

 

Hello,

Thanks for the reply!

2 of the machines I'm testing this on are brand new with brand new HDDs and 1 of the XP PCs that I'm testing I ran chkdsk on so that can't be it either

If this worked as good as PowerQuest Drive Image did, I would easily purchase the retail version.

Does anybody have a fast alternative to this application?

Thanks Again!

 

questech,

1. Just on an outside chance of a conflict:

... Have you tried running B&R with your AntiVirus Real_time "Guard" - Turned Off/Disabled ??
... (and also AntiSpyware Guard, if you have separate product)

Does it make a difference in speed ?


2. Also, have tried switching the B&R, Hot Processing Option - from "VSS" to "Paragon's own hot processing" ?
... Does this make any difference ?

 

Hello,

Thank you and everyone that has replied so far... Happy Holidays!

Wow, I didn't think of the AntiVirus thing, although I really don't want to disable it...

But the VSS thing is interesting.

When I start a backup I get VSS errors, something like "VSS technology has failed with error 0x11112vss) or something like that.

It tries to restart after a brief waiting period. I get 3 of those errors and then the backup starts, apparently without the VSS technology.

That could be it.

I made the switch and I am running another backup with my Antivirus program still active (for this test) and will report back with the time results.

Thanks!

 

Good suggestions and I'll reiterate one of my recommendations - boot up the recovery disk and do the backup from it. This takes all Windows and applications out of the picture. It is Linux and doesn't have anything on it other than the Paragon stuff.

I realize my idea to run chkdsk was not a good one - I forgot you are having the problem on multiple machines and 2 OSes.

 

Hello Everyone and Merry Christmas

Thanks again for all of your help on this!

Using the Paragon's hot processing didn't give me any errors, so that's a good thing.

My backup times for this last time and the previous using the VSS option were consistent from a time perspective, both took 4 hours and 24 minutes, which I could live with if I got better differential BU results.

I did a differential BU immediately after I did the full BU and it took 2 hours and 26 minutes. The only files that could have changed would be system files because I didn't do anything else to the machine in between BUs.

That's really too long especially considering that PQ DriveImage 7 did full images of the same machine in about 2 hours and restoring selected files was not much longer than if you were coping from a network drive.

I'm going to try and restore 20 files to time the process with Paragon and I'll report back.

PS I guess I'm spoiled by DriveImage 7 where I could stay within the Windows environment. I don't know how Linux handles long file names, but I can only suspect that doing a selective file restore using the CD restore feature would be a challenge... maybe that's not even an option.

I am trying to transfer files from the older XP machines to the Win7 PCs. My file and directory names tend to be quite long and I can't actually just copy them in Windows Explorer, so this type of BU & Restore is the only way to replicate my directories and files accurately.

Thanks!!

 

I imagine you can stay within Windows for doing file restores but I've never done any, I don't use images for backup/restores of data files. The requirement for Linux or other non-HD resident OS is when you restore the active partition. Windows can't be running in this case. In the older versions of DI which I used, the boot was done into a non-Microsoft DOS version.

Regarding changed files for a differential, if you have any auto-defragging running any movement of sectors is seen as a change even though the file contents haven't changed. Win7 may have it running by default but I've never checked this out and have no idea when it would run.

 

questech,

So, what did you do differently with running B&R that resulted in going from your original 15+ hours, down to 4 hours and 24 minutes, for the last 2 runs ??
... Thats a big difference !

 

Well I'm not 100% sure... the only thing I can think of, which is the most logical answer is that I used my USB HDD directly to the PC being backed up rather than going through my router.

One reason I'm not 100% on that is that at first I wasn't benchmarking, just testing for usability and interface design. Foolishly on my part I assumed that most of the apps I was going to test would perform at least as good as my very old PowerQuest DriveImage7, which always backed this PC up (full image) in about 2 hours).

So only after I came back to check on the process did I notice the extremely long process time. I ran another backup to confirm, then a restore, all with similar results.

I'm use to using my external USB drive through my router so that all of my PCs have access to it, and I didn't pay attention to that possibility.

That was most likely the cause of the 15 hour performance.