Introducing AX64 Time Machine - hybrid imaging/snapshot software

Hi HP or should I say 'Salut'?

I believe that a future feature request has been made for more selective options as to how many auto backups are to remain unmerged before merging starts, i.e., If set to 10 then when the 11th auto backup is made the 1st one will be merged with the base line, etc.

You may want to go to over to http://feedback.ax64.com/forums/206143-general and check out/vote for currently suggested enhancements, and even suggest your own recommendations for future enhancements.

That is one of the reasons why AXTM is a great app...and the support provided by Isso and his team is peerless.

 

Great idea BG.

And you are correct in terms of how it currently works if you forget to/do not take the recovery CD out of the drive.

 

I have auto snap active but I also want daily snaps that are not merged. I am accomplishing this for daily incrementals easily from within AX64.

At the end of each day before I shut down the PC I create a manual snap with the date and time specified in the description. Manual snaps are not merged until you manually delete them from within the AX64 browser so you can keep as many daily (or more if you wish) snaps for as long as you wish. I am keeping daily manuals for a week and then as new (8th day) snaps are created I am deleting the oldest manual snap so I have a rolling 7 day group of daily incrementals..

I believe this issue will be addressed in the next few months when Isso will be releasing a version of AX64 that allows users to define the number of snaps to be kept (say hourly for 12 hours rather than hourly for 3 hours) as well as to define how and when snaps are merged.

 

Thank you for confirming this, much appreciated.

 

Salut les amis !!!
A real pleasure to be with you !
Define the number of snaps to be kept would be perfect (for example, 12 rotating backups).
Thank you to ISSO.

 

Hi merisi,

Yes, apparently the restore has been completed. However it's unclear to me why the OS didn't reboot afterwards. Bgoodman suggested that the Ax64 Recovery CD was the culprit, however if the system booted into it you would see the AX64 Recovery environment rather than a blank screen. Was it just a black blank screen? Thank you

Isso

 

Hi Henri-Paul,

We'll add more flexible backup scheduling in the upcoming release.

One question - while I perfectly understand the need for real-time versioning, I don't quite understand why do you need Easus for daily incrementals when you can get the same with AX64? Thank you

Isso

 

Fingol,

I replied via ticketing system.

Isso

 

BG,

I was thinking that a better method would be to have a "Press any key to boot from CD" menu at the boot phase. That way the user can keep the CD in the tray. And I was sure that we included that fix in the latest version, but apparently it doesn't seem work. I already asked the boot media developer to re-check. Thank you

Isso

 

BG,

You are absolutely right, that feature is in progress at this moment.

Isso

 

Baldrick,

Thank you for compliment to our support, and for mentioning the Ideas section. I often forget about it

Isso

 

Actually, BG, having thought about it I believe that if the CD drive tray is out (as per what we were suggesting to Isso) and you reboot the tray is automatically pulled in as a part of the reboot...which means it will bootable from during the reboot process (I am not sure that you can configure this not to be the case)...so Isso's approach is probably the better one (once again... ).

 

Isso, everything worked as it's supposed to apart from after the reboot. It went into a black blank screen. I was pretty worried that it was ruined but pleased when it started working again and was back to normal.

Maybe I should make some changes to my system and then try to restore to again so I can see for definite if changes had taken place. I must admit I'm getting more excited about Ax64 the more I use it.

 

you're right. this is a unnecessary redundancy ! (No doubt a widespread "paranoia") ; D

 

No, not a paranoia at all, in fact it's always good to have a "backup backup", especially for important data.

I was just mistakenly thinking that you miss some feature from AX64 that's why you use Easus. Now it's clear to me, thanks!

Isso

 

Thanks for bringing that to my attention. What about the snapshot that the mentioned snapshot was merged to. Can that one be restored to? What's the point of doing merges except to save space if the merged snapshots aren't any good for restoration? I do manual merges, merging the oldest snapshots. According to what you're saying, I shouldn't merge because merged snapshots can't be restored to. Is that right? I got a feeling I am missing something.

 

Hi twl

You have missed nothing. The merging is to save space (as you have surmised) and any snapshot can be restored to, whether it is an individual one (auto or manual) or one that has had auto and/or manual snaps merged into it, one or many. I have restored to all of these types in my testing. It is just so flexible...it's brilliant.

 

OK so as I surmised, the RECEIVING snapshot being merged of a snapshot into it is OK for restoring, but the snapshot that was merged into it no longer exists. Thanks. I understand what BGoodman was saying now.

 

That sounds like a good idea,,,,, the new function may work but since I have not had to do a restore from the recovery disk since the last upgrade I was not aware that this had been added. Has anyone else tried it other than merisi?

 

Humm, I am sure that in the past I simply opened the tray and did the reboot, but I could be wrong about this. The memory I have in my head is faulty. Unfortunately I cannot swap it out for new or better RAM.

 

Yup, you got it,,,,, more or less.......I think..... Actually, I believe that the data or system state from the later snap is the data that is available after merging. The data from the earlier/older snap is over written by the new data or system state that existed as of the more recent snap.

To be absolutely clear here is an example of what I understand the situation to be.

In snap A there is a file called "example".

The file is deleted and snap B is created.

As long as both snaps A and B exist either can be restored to (either system state) or file "example" can be recovered from snap A (it cannot be recovered from snap B as it had been deleted before snap B was created).

Once the 2 snaps are merged (regardless of which is merged INTO which) you can no longer recover to the system state as of A nor can you recover the file named "example" as snap A no longer exists. You can of course still restore to the later system state (what was formerly snap B) but again, as I said above, you cannot restore to the earlier state (the former snap A).

As Isso has said new data is (generally) more important then old data. So when snaps are merged what is in effect is happening is that the newer snapshot data/state is overwriting/replacing the older.

At least thats how I envision it works.

 

Thats great to hear (and not at all unexpected I might add).

 

This point cannot be stressed enough and it is worth repeating regularly! My neighbor recently introduced me to a friend of his who lost everything on the computer because of the visiting grand-son who decided to experiment. He tried to fix it himself and made it worse. An image recovery would've saved everything in minutes and I am not willing to go spend hours trying to recover. I like my time off work.

I should also emphasize on off-site backup as well. A co-worker of mine lost everything on the computer during the recent Alberta flood. His house was flooded up to 3ft on the main floor for 12 days. His computer was in the basement. Lost all photos, videos, documents, etc. No imaging program can save you if you backup to an external drive sitting next to the machine. That co-worker is devastated. Insurance can't do anything about that. Birth photos of his 3 months old son are gone.

You can say "that scenario will never apply to me", but those are just examples. Disasters come in all shapes.

 

Indeed...BG...that is not a surprise. We have all had that pleasure as we have discovered the joys of AXTM...