RollBack Rx DeFragging

I have been using RollBack Rx fior a couple of years now, and the biggest complaint I have is the time it takes for RB Rx to do the defragging.

Sometimes it tyakes 1-1/2 to 2 hours to defrag all the snapshots.

If I want to get on my Desktop to do some quick work, it's impossible to get thru the entire boot process for hours with the darn defrag going on.

So.... can I just change the settings to never have it defrag ?

What are all you other users of RollBack Rx doing about the defrag slowness ?

Thanks for help and suggestions.

 

How many snapshots you have?

Best regards,

 

I try to delete older shots and keep about 6 and have them locked.

It's agonizing waiting for the defrag to end.

 

With 6 snapshot, something is wrong.

1. Do you defrag your drive while Rollback Rx is installed?

2. When was the last time you updated the baseline?

Best regards,

 

By updating the baseline, it is like installing Rollback Rx a new!

Best regards,

 

I have my original baseline from about 6 months ago.

I let Rollback perfrom it's own defrag using the automatic settings.

I seem to rfecxall reading a post from a RB user that he more or less disabled the RB automatic defrag.

But what would happen after a period of time if I don't defrag the snapshots ?

As I said, I don't keep like 100 snapshots.... I delete them from time to time and only keep a limited number of them.

 

Six months old baseline might be your problem, especially if you are deleting and adding lots of software and/or documents.

1. How big is your partition/drive?

2. How much space is used which is under Rollback Rx?

Best regards,

 

I am using a 2 TB Hard drive and other than a restore partition, it's all used as my C drive.

I can't recall the amount of space reserved for Rollback and can't check as I am at my work PC right now.

I can create a new Baseline and see how the defrag speed is affected.

But I didn't think the age of the baseline would matter.

 

2TB is a very large drive to be under Rollback Rx. By amount of space reserved for Rollback, I meant how much of this 2TB is used and how much is empty. The % of the amount used?

Try it and see what happens. Did the defrag speed got progressive worse?

Best regards,

 

I'll try it this weekend and report back with results.

Thanks !

 

Try to keep your C:\ drive smaller. That might help. I also assume that all your data files are on C:\ drive too? If that's the case and you're editing/adding data files often, have you tried putting your data files on a separate partition (do not set Rollback RX to monitor it) and see if that resolves the slow defrag issue for you?

 

Yes, I have all my data files on that same drive.

The defrag speed did seem to get progressively worse.

 

I too keep about 6 snaps and my defrag times are much much faster than yours, maybe 2 or 3 min (mind you my drive is much smaller as well). I agree with Aladdin, your baseline is likely too old.

On a side note are you imaging your drive at all? If not you might want to start as Rx can fail under certain circumstances (hard drive failure for example) and you could lose everything.

 

bgoodman4,

No... I'm not imaging the drive.. at this time.

I have been toying with the idea of using ShadowProtect, but am hesitant to dole out the money.

 

RollBack Rx is IMO an excellent component in a protection regime but it is only 1 of a number. For example it has recently been pointed out that certain rootkits can evade Rx and compromise your MBR. A number of folks have reported that when they removed the rootkit Rx restored to the baseline and then became deactivated. This necessitated a reinstall of Rx. In your case this would have put you back 6 months as your baseline was created 6 months ago. IMHO if you are not creating images regularly (I do this weekly) you are asking for serious problems. I have been using Paragon Backup free and it works very well (and of course its free). Others use Macrium which is also free but I found it a bit complicated to set up (you need to be a bit more savvy in order to create your boot media). Of course other events can cause you problems that an image would offset to a greater or lesser degree. I mentioned drive failure above, another could be the loss of the PC (theft, fire etc).

 

@ pratzert

Your experience is not very surprising especially if those snapshots are not in the same branch. can you post a screenshot of your snapshot tree?

The best way to fix it would be to reset to your baseline or to update your baseline.
If you don't want to lose them try the following:
1. boot to your baseline snapshot (not the reset to baseline).
2. run a defrag.

If this does not fix it means that your snapshots are heavily fragmented and you cannot do anything to fix it, other than resetting or updating your baseline.

The defrag of RollbackRX only releases the free space from the snapshots nothing less and nothing more than that. And you cannot actually disable it since it happens automatically every hour when you are logged in windows.

Panagiotis

 

I think that since you've been adding and subtracting snapshots while RB has been trying to keep them defragged for 6 months, RB is working over time and slowing down. I think you should uninstall RB to the latest snapshot and re-install. Make sure you have your product key first. I'll bet you haven't done a system defrag in ages either unless you're doing a no no and defragging while RB is installed. Do a defrag while RB is uninstalled and make an image while you're at it. If you're using WIN7 and you can't afford that imaging app you want, there's an imager built into WIN7. Then re-install RB and be sure to have the browser active with the RB site on while you re-install. Add your product key when asked and you're back in business.

 

You can turn off the boot time defrag by going to Program Settings --> Advanced Settings (tab) and unchecking the two (2) options that say something like Defrag snapshots during next system boot... .

However, that is NOT the problem, only a symptom. Your problem is as stated:

Your system problems will get worse if you do not follow some of the suggestions to cleanup RBrx.

Before doing anything I would first download one of the imaging programs that are available and make a system image -- just in case. Then cleanup your system and create an nice clean image before reinstalling RBrx. And of course take images of your system on a schedule that fits your needs.

 

Most users do something about once a month to cleanup Rollback. Usually that means uninstall, cleanup system/defrag, reinstall Rollback. Another option would be to do a monthly update of your baseline. In either case you will loose all of your snapshots.

I currently have 20 snaps with a baseline that is 20 days old. Rollback's boot time defrag takes about 1 minute.

 

System performance will degrade.

 

My snapshots defrag takes just 10 to 15 seconds, and I have 14 snapshots on 91GB system partitions on both my desktop and my two laptops (I have one SSD and two hard disks as system drives of which I have assigned 91 GB for each system's C: partition, all with almost identical software setups). The rest of each disk has been assigned to logical partitions which are not protected by RX. My wife's computer also has RX but she doesn't use her computer often.

Eversince I installed RX on each of my systems I have always disabled automatic snapshot creation and deletion, and also automatic defragmentation of snapshots. I have never updated the baseline, and I always create/delete/defrag snapshots completely manually. I create and delete snapshots frequently as I'm testing different software, and I've made a habit of defragging them manually at boot time almost every other day. I have never uninstalled RX to perform maintenance anyway. It has now been more than a year since my first RX install, and snapshot defrag still takes just 10 to 15 seconds max on both my main system SSD and my two system HDDs.

Maybe your disk is far too large. Maybe you should have split it to a smalier RX-protected primary and one or more logical partitions, and you should have defragged the snapshots more often.

 

Thank you all for some great info. I appreciate the help.

I went ahead and started over.... got rid of all my snapshots and created a brand new baseline.

My machine is faster now.

I'll keep on top of it and create a new base line maybe about once a month.

I'll also try to make a decision on an imaging program and back up with an image too.

Thanks again.

 

Good to hear, see my post at https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=2084184&postcount=71 this may give you some ideas.