True Image 10 is 20 times slower that 9

Using True Image 10 build 4,942 on win 2000 (sp4) with AVG 7.5.448, AVG anti-spam 7.5.0.50 and Zonealarm security suite 7.0.302.000

I recently "upgraded" to version 10 - my full system backup that use to take 40 mins now take in access of 7 hours (in fact I'm not sure how long it takes as I had to stop it!) - any ideas why its so slow?

 

how big is your image?

 

I have a similar situation, although I have never used ATI before. I am evaluating ATI 10 and did a test backup (from Windows) and restore (from boot CD). I have a 80Gig SATA drive with 50Gig of data on it and the backup was done to another SATA drive. The backup took 40 minutes, and the restore took 7 hours. The backup time was very good, but I have never used a restore program that took so long. It almost makes it unuseable.

 

Wow, it seems that I wasted my money. I bought TI Home 10 last week, and update it to build 4942. It took me to create a 34GB fullbackup image 2 hours from the bootable TI (full version). It took me 1.5 hour to verify the fullbackup image file. I did not want restore my PC from the backup at this time, but I did got into Windows and mounted the fullbackup image as a virtual drive. It seems to have everything, and it was working fine when I ran a few apps. However, it is ridiculous the amount of time it took ME to backup since I am planning to do this at least once a week. If it takes 7 hours to restore this fullbackup image when there is a catastrophic failure (for instance, a desktop hijack or some kind of virus attack), then it is useless to me.

Can someone comment on this? Is it this so bad? I am running Wndows XP Home edition, but I am planning to upgrade to Professional some time this year. On my desktop PC (where Windows XP lives), I used to have Ghost 10, but it was so annoying and complicated that I never used it. I think to like this better, but its performance so far is not what I expected. I don't want to spend my whole life in front of the computer doing just backups.

Thanks.

-orestesd

 

In TI 9 my full system backup was about 8.5gb (spread over 700mb size files) - surely this is not that big? - any idea why it's so much slower in 10 than it was in 9?

 

In looking at other threads it seems like the answer is to dump the Acronis recovery CD and build a BartPE version. One post said that took the restore time from 10 hours down to 30 minutes. I'm going to give that a try.

 

Hmmm. What are you backing up to? It takes me about 20 minutes to do a full backup and verification of 15 gb to an external USB drive. But then, I'm using the desktop version of TI, not the bootable CD. I had to restore last week, and that took about 3 hours.

 

Slow backup/restore times are usually the result of the linux drivers not fully supporting the computer's hardware.

Using a BartPE cd is usually almost as fast as doing backups or restores from in Windows and can be many times faster than the rescue cd.

Take a look at mustangs how-to for more information.
Beginner's Guide to Creating a BartPE CD

 

the guide shows you only how to create the bartcd for Win XP - what about Win 2000?

looks like I'm going back to version 9 and try to get a refund on this so called "upgrade"!

 

No reason to make your backups from the ATI Rescue CD. That operation uses the Linux O/S and is 3 times slower than under Windows.

Suggest you build a BartPE CD with ATI plugin (uses its own Windows as O/S). You can then, on occasion backup or validate with using that bootable CD and have the same time performance as doing the backup within Windows.

 

BartPE needs WinXP as a source for the build even though you can run the build process on a WIN 2000 machine. Once built it will work fine with any operating system.

 

That's fine if your only XP box was not bought with XP preinstalled in which case you'd have the original installation cd's which of course I don't!

Does anyone know if Acronis do refunds?

 

Have you read Mustang's Begginer's Guide to Creating a BartPE CD. He explains how to create a WINXP install CD from the files on your machine. My laptop only came with a restore CD and I was able to build a WINXP CD following Mustang's instructions. I recently used it to reinstall Windows.

 

The biggest drawback to ATI is those darned linux drivers and the linux OS on the Boot CD. too bad there isn't an easier way to make a Boot CD that runs win instead -- I mean as easy as making the linux CD. ;-(

I'm guessing the licensing fees and conseqent effect on ATI price are the reason linux is used. But I'd pay a bit extra for the win version if I had the choice.

 

Yep. Linux is a problem. The Full version has never worked for me on my desktop. BartPE is all I use for restores.

 

So the results of my experiment are quite amazing: I did the exact same restore with a BartPE CD as I did with the Acronis CD. As you recall the Acronis CD restore took 7 hours. BartPE took 18 minutes. The results were the same in that they both restored the drive to the same state. I think this confirms what others are saying. I am quite surprised that Acronis would issue a recovery CD with such poor performance. Needless to say, I will be relying on Bart!

 

I'm evaluating ATI Home 10 right now. A backup from within windows of about 55 GB of data over a fast network to a network share took about 2 hrs. I then copied that image to a USB hard drive because I wouldn't have access to the network for the restore operation. I then did a restore from the USB drive, having booted the restore CD (the one that has the linux drivers, I guess) and it took about 2 hrs also. This was using a typical USB 2 hard drive. So I'm not seeing those '7 hour restores', even with 55 GB of data.

I do have a related question about doing the backup from within windows; How does ATI handle disk updates during the backup? Does ATI have a bullet-proof way to keep track of modifications to already-backed up files? What I mean is ... the backup takes around 2 hours, and ATI allows you to keep using windows. I could easily update a file in that 2hr period that was already copied to the backup. I'm assuming it has a way to track this.

Thanks!

 

During backups, you can maintain work and there are no interferences. The computer process reacts the same way as it does during an anti-virus scan.

For a restore you can also work on your Computer. In "Tools", you can specify if you want restore files except those with a later date, etc.

System works well under Windows in both directions (backup/restore).

 

TI locks the partition when backing up. Changes made after the start of the process will not be included in the image.

 

This doesn't hel you ATI issues but by all means, move from ZAS 7.0.302 either to ZAS 6.5+ or 70337. Version 70302 had serious bugs including, for a great many users, corrupting its scanning engine when it did its hourly updates of virus definitions. If the corrupted engine runs a scan, the scan will crash the Truevector service (vsmon.exe) -- worse, the log will read that the scan completed eventhough it did not and virus protection is lost when vsmon crashes. So it leaves you totally vulnerable while telling you that you are protected.

 

I realize that this thread is about speed, and my secondary question was about 'how it works', so I don't want to completely redirect this thread. However, regarding my question about backing up within windows, I'm not sure I agree/understand the answers:

thomasjk said: "TI locks the partition when backing up. Changes made after the start of the process will not be included in the image"

I have a 55 Gig partition with 50 Gig of data inside it. That's too much to make a temporary copy of, so TI must be backing up the actual partition 'as it exists' at that instant in time - that is, it must be backing up individual files within the partition in the state it finds those files at the time it gets to them, during the overall backup process. A Windows system is constantly writing to many different files pretty much constantly. In addition to pagefile.sys (which I believe ATI specifically excludes), there are constant writes out to disk for many reasons. Further, I'm allowed to continue working in windows. So let's assume I start the 2 hr backup at 4pm, and lets assume for the sake of argument that my outlook ost file (which is 1 gig) gets backed up by ATI at the start of this backup. Now, every 5 minutes during this 2 hour period, my outlook ost re-synchs with the server, and gets new info each time - so that 1 gig ost file is getting updated every 5 minutes.

ATI can handle this in many ways; it can say, I already backed it up so I don't care about updates to it (in which case my backup is no longer current, not good if I am making the image in order to tansition to a new disk), or it can somehow detect changes and re-copy the file to the backup - but if the ost file is large, and is getting updated every 5 mins by the system, I can imagine ATI getting bogged down in a very time-consuming process.

The former approach - where ATI would ignore updates since it was already backed up - can be very risky when it comes to database files, etc - where a single user action can result in updates to numerous files at once, and which must be mutually consistent. ATI could backup file 1 of a set, but then the app could updates files 1, 2, 3 with a single user update. Now ATI backs up files 2 and 3 ... and thus, on the backup, file 1 is out of synch with files 2 and 3. That's the real issue I'm trying to understand here.

My preference is always to do full disk backups with a standalone boot disk, but the trial version of ATI does not permit that, which is why I got to thinking about all this. Even though I was 'allowed' to use windows during the backup, I did not for this reason. Since my goal was to transfer the contents of my old drive to a new drive, the last thing I wanted was a set of updates on the old drive that would not make it to the new drive!

 

TI backs up the in use sectors of the drive. To accomplish this it locks the partition during the process whether under windows or from the boot CD. You are correct that any changes made after beginning the backup process under windows will not be reflected in the image. Using the boot CD eliminates this issue.

 

I know how to make the BartPE disc. What I can't figure out is how to add the TI plugin. I see the folders in the TI section of the Acronis Home TI section, but can't get the PE builder to accept them.

 

You need to move the ATI files into the Plugins subdirectory of the BartPE installation directory (in Program Files). Then when you start the PEBuilder ATI will be listed in the Plugins, and you just need to make sure it is selected. This is from memory, but I think it is correct. - Brian