Introducing AX64 Time Machine - hybrid imaging/snapshot software

It would be great if AX64 could replace Rx. When the thread began that is exactly what I was hoping for. I have had it with HDS and would like to find an alternative. But the fact is that even with incremental snapshots the program cannot deliver the speed and ease of restore that Rx provides (as long as Rx is functioning correctly of course). There is also the significant problem of consumed and non-reclaimable space (without getting rid of a significant number of AX64 backups and starting over). THis means that AX64 does not replace RX. At least with Rx when you delete a snap and defrag using the snapshot defrag tool you get your space back. If you deleted a snap of AX64 you would break the chain and all subsequent snaps would be useless (or am I wrong about this?). So the best solution I can see, for now at least is, for those who are using Rx and want to continue to do so, and who want increased security, is to use the 2 programs together.

In addition I see no tail wagging the dog going on here. AX64 was not developed to work with Rx, it just does. There have been numerous non-RX suggested and requested modifications and these have not been characterized as tails wagging the dog. They, like any Rx related requests are just that, part of the ongoing list of suggested/requested adaptations.

I genuinely hope AX64 does evolve into a substitute for Rx, I would much rather use 1 solution rather than 2, but at the moment AX64 is not quite there.

 

Hi Mohamed,

about AX64 and Acronis incompatibility.
It should be related with the "Try&Decide" driver of Acronis.

Panagiotis

 

Mohamed,

Thank you for being concerned, but indeed the development isn't in any way driven by RollbackRX, it's just very interesting to me how carfal got it working together.
Otherwise as I mentioned the current task is SSD support, and only after that we'll start compatibility tests.

Isso

 

No, sorry, it simply cannot be as fast, because the entire drive is restored.

 

Panagiotis, yes I agree about the driver order.

For your questions:

a) We keep a "dirty" bit that allows to see if our driver was correctly shut down with the system or not. If not, when doing the next incremental backup the program compares the current data on the disk with the last backup (sector-by-sector) and creates incremental based on that information. This will take some time, but will guarantee the chain integrity.

b) Negligible overhead, as very little information is written, besides extensive caching is used.

c) No problem, as the driver consumes small fixed amount of kernel RAM, and we have no other running components.

 

Dear Panagiotis,

Even on those machines, the Acronis is uninstalled, the AXTM doesn't work. Acronis leaves lots of leftovers on un-installations.

Basically, AXTM doesn't work on machines, which had previously any product of Acronis installed.

However, having said I have some machines where I have either Acronis True Image Home or Acronis Disk Director installed, and I want to keep these software in combination of AXTM.

Best regards,

Mohamed

 

Dear Asso,

Thank you for confirming the above.

Best regards,

Mohamed

P.S. All imaging software work with Rollback Rx installed. As previously mentioned by Panagiotis, if IFW driver is above the Rollback Rx driver, then on restoration one gets the baseline snapshot of Rollback Rx, a very dangerous situation. So, it is no rocket science if AXTM works with Rollback Rx.

 

bgoodman,

For speed - there is some room to improve the backup speed, but considering that AXTM is internally a backup program, it needs to actually copy the data (in contrast to snapshot programs), and that may take some time - nothing can be done about it, sorry. Good news is that the highly optimized algorithms allow AXTM to do that very fast.
Also AXTM doesn't require additional operations like snapshot defragmentation etc, this is also saves time.

For backup deletion - you can easily delete the backups from the chain (see the "Delete" button in Backup Browser). It will just merge the backups and the chain will not be broken.
In fact when you enable the hourly backup, the program starts automatic smart merging of old backups to have hourly backups for last 4 hours, 4-hourly backups for last day, daily backups for last week, weekly backups for last month, monthly backups for last year, and yearly backups afterwards.

Of course if your backup drive is not available every time you need to do a backup, then AXTM won't be able to serve your needs. Same if you have limited space for backup.

One question - why do you think that Rollback is easier to use for restore than AXTM? May be we can improve it. Thank you.

Isso

 

Thank you Isso.

About (a).
In a future version could you add an advanced option, to show the snapshot that had a dirty bit? So one could check the newly created files to see if they are corrupted and if so to replace them?

Panagiotis

 

I gave a question. Suppose I have a a fresh install of XP. I make an image of my C partition with Acronis or any other imaging program except AX64. Immediately after that I install AX64 and make 4 images( one base-line and three incremntals( say them Image 0, 1, 2 and 3), all on a USB external HD.

Now suppose I erase my OS partition/ hard disk. I restore the image of my C partition with acronis. Then install AX64 and the try to restore Image4 from my USB external hard disk. Will I be able to do a fast online restore or it will work slow just like a bare-metal restore?

Thanks

 

Panagiotis,

Sorry I might be unclear. It's not the snapshot that has dirty bit. The dirty bit is kept in the settings file on the volume that is tracked. But the program can display a message when the user creates a backup, and the system was not cleanly shutdown before.
I'm just thinking that actually it's the responsibility of the checkdisk to deal with such situations and corrupted files, no?

 

Yes, but can a chkdsk run when AX64 is installed?

 

aigle,

No, since Acronis image was taken before AX, then restore with AX will be full (slow). But - if you take image with Acronis after you create the baseline with AX, then the restore from Image4 will be fast.

 

Oh, I didn't think about it. Checkdisk will run fine if you start it from running OS, but it won't work at boot. Thus, if you have corrupted files, then checkdisk will display them, but won't be able to fix them.

 

That is the reason that I asked for a notification or something similar. So one can at least run a checkdisk and replace the corrupt files.

Panagiotis

 

I got your point, thank you. Hopefully we'll fix the checkdisk compatibility soon and won't need to use workarounds.

Isso

 

So the required info for a fast online restore is stored on C drive by AX64?

 

If there is one thing that currently annoys me it's the restore process.

After i select my snapshot and click Restore, an annoying UAC prompt appears.

Removing the need for this would be a huge improvement.

 

It boils down to a time thing so I meant easier in terms of faster.

I am basing this statement on an earlier post that AX64 snaps take 2 to 6 min on average (I think this is what I read). Rx takes a snap in under 30 seconds and a restore takes apx 60m seconds or less. So if I want to do a test of some sort, or am opening an e-mail I am unsure of etc. the process of creating the snap is very quick and easy. If I decide I want to roll back its simply a matter of selecting the snap and letting Rx do its thing (I expect the same is true of rolling back with AX64). The boot snaps and the hourly snaps that both Rx and AX64 do do not impact much on a user since they are happening without user involvement. It makes little difference in these cases to the user if the snap takes 10 seconds or 5 min since the user in both cases does not really see these things happening or have any direct involvement.

 

That's correct

 

I fully agree and will work on fixing that

 

Dear Isso,

Congratulations on getting the orange stipes at Wilders Security.

Keep up the good work.

Best regards,

Mohamed

 

bgoodman,

On my systems the snapshot time of AXTM rarely exceeds 10 sec. Restore takes 4-6 sec. Actually snapshot time depends on the amount of data changed since the last backup and on speed of your drive. Also several seconds of "preparing" phase are added to that (and we are working to eliminate this).

I must mention that I have quite fast drives (SSDs mainly) and CPUs. For slow or network drives, also if lot of data has been written to the disk since last backup, the operation may take longer, but I expect it in most cases to be in the same Rbx range that you've mentioned - i.e. 30 to 60 sec.

Please take a look at the video demos on the bottom of www.ax64.com to see the speed, or best - just install and try AXTM yourself.

 

Thank you Mohamed, I can see that my status changed to "Developer". I guess I'm talking too much

 

I stand corrected and it sounds as if perhaps I would be able to replace Rx with AX64. I have a new PC/Tablet Hybrid (Fijitsu Lifebook T902 series, Intel® Core™ i7-3520M and 12 gigs of ram, Windows 7 64 bit - I am not ready for W8 having only now made the jump from XP) with a 500 gig SATA drive. There are 2 partitions, (1 partition is 400 gigs and the other is 100 gigs), so I could use the 100 gig partition to store the backups. This still leaves me as vulnerable to drive failure or PC loss as I am with Rx but I am interested in a substitute for Rx so maybe this is it after all. I likely would use both initially as I am not very adventurous when it comes to my PC. I make my living with it so I tend to be very cautious. It is for this reason I have not tried AX64 yet. Once its released commercially and has been in general use for a while I will go for it but not likely before that.