Network file backup: Are all files backed up?

I ran a backup of my 5 network drives, selecting ALL files.
Are any automatically excluded?
I have unchecke the boxes that indicate excluded files.

If none were excluded, and the backup was done correctly, then TI did much better than Retrospect 6.5 in compressing the files.

The most recen Retrospect backup used 818MB, TI used only 635920KB, that's a big difference.

I'll run another Retrospect backup, in case I have actully changed the files, but I doubt it.

 

Retrospect 6.5.350 used 856813568 bytes, using Retrospect's default default compression selector.

TI 9.2337 used 651182080 bytes, using Normal compression, that's 24% less!

Further proof of my long held assertion that Retrospect's default compression is very poor.

 

Don't forget that TI does not image hibernation or page files in the .tib. I don't know how Retrospect handles them.

 

They backed up the very same files, 1,098,231,897 bytes in 17674 files.

 

I forgot to mention that TI and Retrospect do NOT always backup the same files.

First, the comparison is only valid for TI's files backup mode, as Retrospect only backs up files.

Second, each program may have each different set of defaults for excluded files. For TI, I do not specify exclusions, but things such as the pagefiles might be getting excluded.

Most importantly, when backing up the drive on the which the OS in which Retrospect is running, Retrospect backs up the "System State" but does NOT make certain (maybe all) of the files that are part of the system state separately available. Allegedly, this done because the 800 pound gorilla is allege dto have a Backup API that suggest this be done tyo prevent folkes from fiddling with the system state. I prefer to not special case such files.

AFAIK, TI backs up all files requested, not distinguishing System State files.

 

I'm not sure what happens during Files and Folders backups but for sure, when creating a Disk/Partiton image, TI only includes a few bytes of "placeholder" information representing the size and location of the Page and Hibernate files.

 

I'll do an experiment in a bit and let y'all know the outcome.

 

When doing a FILES backup, TI excludes ANY file named pagefile.sys from the backup, even if it is NOT actually a page file.

When doing a DRIVES backup, TI includes ANY file named pagefile.sys, even if it is not actually a page file. When doing a recovery of a file named pagefile.sys, that is not actually a page file, TI restores a file of all 00 bytes, even tho the file was originally all text. TI should be more intelligent and actually clobber only real page files, not files that happen to be named pagefile.sys.

It is rather trival to identify real page files, see http://www.standards.com/index.html?PageFileUsageMonitor.

 

Hello Howard,

This issue has been forwarded to our Development Team. We will let you know the results of their investigation as soon as possible. As this can take a few days, we apologize in advance for any delay with response.

Thank you.
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Kirill Omelchenko