Introducing AX64 Time Machine - hybrid imaging/snapshot software

beethoven,

Could you please check if the restore works for backups located on a local or external drive? (I mean not network drive). Thank you

Isso

 

Hi David,

Sorry about this problem and I replied to the ticket. Basically we'll make a change to the program to see if it helps, however based on the information from your last letters I suspect something might be wrong with your system.

Isso

 

Hi MerleOne,

We do have such limitation, i.e. you can delete snapshots only from the same setup that was used to create them. The reason is that the program needs to check some conditions before merging the files, and information for those conditions is stored in the settings file of the machine that took those backups. We may add an option to delete all snapshots though - it's quite possible. Hope this makes sense

Isso

 

Hi Isso I sent you a email 2 days ago (Friday) with my recovery media.

Just making sure you got it. I used the email info@ax64.com

Thanks

 

Hi max2,

Sorry for late reply. Just replied via email.

Isso

 

No problem thanks!

 

I too am running Win 7 64 bit and am having issues with missing snaps. Some of the snaps appear in the AX64 backup folder but not in the browser but many snaps just do not seem to have been created at all (I have auto snap enabled). I am using an external drive connected to my PC via USB to store the files. I have forwarded logs and screen grabs to Isso regarding this issue.

 

If you try this please report if it is successful or not. Thanks.

 

I just took a look at my XP machine and AX64 is acting very weirdly on this PC as well. There are 4 snapshots apx a week apart each. I use this PC daily during the week so what has happened to all the daily and hourly snaps. It appears that AX64 may be merging snaps but not creating new ones. Or perhaps it is creating 1 hourly snap and then merging it into the weekly snap and then it will create a new hourly only to merge it into the weekly as well, etc, etc.

Or, perhaps AX64 thinks its merging function is merging appropriately in that if hourly snaps are more than a day old it will merge those snaps into the daily snaps. This could happen if the PC has been turned off for 24 hours or more hours so no new hourly snaps would have been created to replace the old hourly ones that are now being merged. This sort of makes sense as as far as AX64 is concerned old data is less important than new data and based on the calender these files are old.

Regardless of why this is happening I currently feel I have big gaps in my ability to recover to a chronologically (as opposed to in terms of the calendar) point in time in the past.

EDIT:

On my XP machine I have currently have

1 snap that was created 25 min ago,

1 that was created 2 days & 9 hours ago (the 2 days is not a problem as the PC has been off all of Saturday and Sunday but the 9 hours means that if I have to restore back to this snap most of the work I did on Friday will be lost, or at least will have to be recovered manually from the most recent snap of 25 min ago,,,,which would leave the Friday data vulnerable for up to an hour after booting the PC if the next hourly snap was due to be created 59 min in the future)

1 that was created 1 week and 5 days ago,

1 that was created 2 week and 6 hours ago,

and finally,

1 that was created 3 weeks 6 hours ago.

Considering I have been using this PC every day during the week for the past 3 weeks I would really like to see more restore points, ones that would be retained a day apart for much of the last week that the PC was in use, as well as the relevant shorter snapshot periods. I would hope that merging not be done based strictly on a calendar basis, chronology as well as the calendar should determine when something is merged. So there should always be 3 snaps that are hourly apart (for example if the PC were on for only 1 hour per day for the last 3 days the snaps would be, 1 hour old, 1 day & 2 hours old, and 2 days & 3 hours old, and the last one would not be merged until a new hourly snap has been created), 3 snaps that are 4 hours apart, 4 snaps that are a day apart, etc etc.

I hope this gets straightened out quickly as I do not feel that my data is as well protected as I thought it was.

EDIT 2: at this point it seems to me that the best way to use AX64 is to manually create a snap at the end of each day. Since these do not get merged you could go back in time daily as far as you wished. I assume you can delete the baseline snap and it will be merged forward with the next snap. If not then I fail to see how this could work without the creation of rolling sets of snaps in different folders. Not really a set it and forget it process. In addition, trying to imagine how this would work in tandem with hourly snaps is giving me a bit of a head ache, but I assume it would work (though it would probably mean a rather lengthy job of each day deleting the hourly etc snaps that were created during the day). This was what I was in effect doing with RollBack Rx. At the end of the day, if the PC were functioning properly, I would delete all of the hourly snaps (except the current one) and keep a weeks worth of daily snaps. Perhaps I misunderstood what was going on with the auto snap feature and if I did misunderstand I hope it will be possible to modify it to what I have described above.

 

Isso, when I plug in the external harddrive via usb, then the backup window does show the image/snapshot (as opposed to the image on the mapped drive). However, trying to restore is the same either way - a flash second of a little black dos screen and then nothing happens - no other window coming up, no hour glass and no reboot.
I only did 3 full backups (no hourly snapshots) and one backup is on the external drive (drive size: 297 gb - 110gb free - size of image approx 15 gb) and two images are on the mapped drive (size 465 gb - 72 used). The source drive is 150 gb with approx 45 gb used. Sofar I only tried the restore via the internal gui, not using the recovery media.

 

Thanks for your reply. It does makes sense, but I would recommend an explicit error message such as "you can perform this operation only from the machine it was created on".

 

Hi BG

Apparently, if you edit the name of an Autosnap, i.e., give it title...which could be anything, the auto snap will not be merged as per usual.

I know that Isso & the Team are looking at providing more flexibility in the way this area works, so the above may be a temporary measure until that new functionality is ready.

 

I currently have my AX on Manual because I have a backup practice like yours above. I will make a backup once a day or just before I add something to the computer. I will do a merge of the oldest backup right after doing a new backup. I don't mess with the baseline snapshot. As of now, I don't have any problems.

 

Have just upgraded from 1.1.0.996 to 1.2.0.1096. After the upgrade I couldn't see the previous snaps using the backup browser and just assumed that there had been a format change between versions.

Deleted the old backup folder and started from scratch but backup browser couldn't see the new snapshots either. Did some random actions like respecifying the backup source and target drives (same drives however) and creating recovery media inside the AXTM backup directory. After that the snapshots appeared in the browser. Most likely a coincidence that the browser is now working but you never know. Have yet to see if future snapshots will also appear in the browser.

Running Win 7 x64 with network drive on Linux based NAS running Samba.

 

Yes I have upgraded and I hope this is the reason for the problems. I think I did not have this problem with prior versions but I may simply not have noticed it. I should mention that its not just a case of the snaps not appearing in the browser, they do not appear in the backup folder either,,,,at least thats the case with my XP PC. For my Win 7 64 bit some snap files are showing in the folder but not the browser but here too many snaps that I would expect to be in both locations do not exist at all.

The thing is it seems to become an issue if the PC has been off for a few days. My XP PC has been on since about 12:00 am last night and all snaps created since then are showing up as you would expect as you can see in the attached but as you can also see there are many snaps missing from the period prior to 12 am last night. This is why I think maybe merges are happening based exclusively on the age of the snap and not the chronology of the snapshots creation thus leading to apparently missing snaps.

I am sure Isso will clear this up once he has a chance to reply.

 

I definitely didn't have this problem with version 1.1.0.996. Haven't tried any versions in between that and 1.2.0.1096

I have two machines backing up to the same directory and after stuffing around for a bit the browser on each machine could see backups for machine A (no backups created for machine B yet). After a reboot of machine B, the browser on machine B could no longer see the backups from machine A (which did always work in the earlier version).

So far the snaps always appear in the network folder, just missing from the AXTM browser.

 

Hi bgoodman,

I had a quick look at the logs and replied via email. Basically I didn't find any problems with merging - it seems to be working as it's supposed to. Because 2 days passed since Friday it merged all backups for that day into a single backup.

My question is: what kind of backup strategy would be the best for you? I'd like all of other Wilders members to share their thoughts on this matter too, as we are now in the process of implementing a more flexible scheduling, and any idea is appreciated. Thank you

Isso

 

beethoven,

Could you please create a support ticket (see "Feedback & Support" button on the top left corner of www.ax64.com page), and include a copy of your message and program logs. To collect logs click on the top left corner of the program, select About and then Collect Logs. Thank you

Isso

 

MerleOne,

You are right, we'll add an appropriate error message.

Isso

 

Hi Peter,

Sorry about that problem. The reason is not the format change, but a bug in the browser. We'll fix it in the next update that we are planning to release within 2 weeks. For now you might want to install version 996 (just install it over 1096, without uninstalling). Thank you.

Isso

 

I'd like something that supports a typical work day of hourly snapshots. Not just 3hrs worth of snapshots. Maybe support up to 10 hourly snapshots before you start the merging process.

 

+1 I haven't run into a bug so far either. Maybe my setup isn't complicated enough to evoke problems.

 

As far as I can see from my testing the initial or full back up is never merged with any other snap/incremental backup. Now that may be because I give that first back up a description and any backup that you add a description to is considered to be a manual backup...according to the feedback I have had to a question about this.

 

Why not have an option to allows the user to stipulate how many automatic backup need to have occurred before merging starts, i.e., if = 10 the when the 11th automatic snapshot is taken the 1st one is now eligible to be merged?