True Image 2009 - No Backup Location, No Automactic Archive Name

Hi,

I currently use TI 11 to perform a weekly full backup and multiple incremental backups to a backup location I defined in TI.

When I choose to backup to my backup location, I am not required to input a filename for the backup. TI 11 automatically generates one for me.

In TI 2009, there is no place I can find to define a backup location. When I try to create a scheduled task, I am required to supply I name for the backup file, but this is exactly what I don't want. I want TI 2009 to behave like TI 11.

Has anyone tried TI 2009? Are you seeing the same behavior? Is this by design, or am I seeing a bug?

Thanks,
Tracy

 

To quote Greil Marcus: "What's this s---?

ATI12/200 doesn't appear to have or use backup locations and tasks from previous versions that used Backup Locations seem to be unusable. The automated backup file managment appears to have been stripped form the program. Heck, that was the only reason I used ATI (ver 10) instead of ShadowProtect. I've seen enough; time to restore the disk to pre-ATI12/2009 condition.

 

Wait a minute. I see the elimination of defined backup locations as a major improvement. The way backup locations were implemented in TI10 & 11 was very bad. It was never reliable on enforcing the limits set by the task. It also caused problems when new builds were installed. If you installed over the existing build to preserve your backup tasks, the system would often brerak and the tasks would fail. Many times, the only way to solve the problem would be to clean the defined backup locations from the registry manually and start from scrath.

In TI2009 you can store your backups anywhere you want and have most of the advantages of the old backup loaction method. The limits are set by using the "Automatic consolidation" option when scheduling the task. You also get the advantage of giving your backup job the name you want that has meaning to you.

You may not have exactly as fine a control over limits, but if it works reliabley, this is much better.

 

What ATI did with the old backup Locations one could do with batch files but it was cumbersome for person to do -- easy for a machine. I don't see dropping automated file mangemtn, including automatically applying unique, date-time stamped names and autodeletion, as an improvement.

What they have now might suit some folks, but it's diff and doesn't fullfill the goals of the autonaming and autodeletion.

That there were probs with how ATI had it implemented before is true but full excision is a draconian measure. Not really a fix or a substitute. Consolidation is a slow process, especially if working with full backups. Consolidationg backup files back to a single file isn't what I'd prefer. Some might but I'd rather just delete the oldest and not use up more PC resources reading and writing old files into a new one.

 

As with many ATI features used on a wide range of hardware, I think Backup Locations worked for most of us. I found its automatic management very useful and reliable.

 

Hi,

I have to agree with shieber and tuttle...

The Backup location and file automation works just fine for me. I have never had to go into the registry to fix anything.

I am a software developer and I do a weekly full backup and hourly incrementals. I don't want to have to use batch files to manage my backup files. My backup software should do that.

The removal of these features are a deal breaker. I will not be using TI 2009 and will be looking for possible replacements.

TI just seems to be going backward...

 

For what it's worth. This is the "Atomatic consolidation" option window.

 

Hi mustang,

automatic consolidation does nothing for me........

 

What you get is consolidation instead of deletion. That's a much longer process. Autonaming, well what ATI 10 was doing was exactly what I had been doing with prior versions using batch files. I just used the Backup Location name to describe what disk or set of files was in the backups contained therein. I can see value in embedding that in each individual backup file name but not much since I get that with the Backup Location Name--the autonaming, unique name was critical for me, which is why, pre ATI10, I used a batch file to rename backups after they were made. I could go back to that, but why go backwards?

 

Hi shieber,

I don't think your batch files would even work in version TI12. Down load the user guide and read section 5.6. TI now maintains an internal database about the files that are created. I'm not sure what would happen if you tried to change the file names outside of TI.

 

Doh! [hand slapping forhead]

Wonder why they didn't make it optional to consolidate or just delete oldest.
Well, since my refund request hasn't been processed yet. I installed ATI12/2009 again and tried to see what I might have missed the first few attempts to use it. I wondered is Automatic Consolidation really was a good replacment metod of accomplishing what Backup Locations used to accomplish. Unfortunately, with ATI12/2009 if you due full backups as a scheduled task, then ATI overwrites the prior full backup with the new. The consolidation is only helpful if you are doing incs or diffs. If you want to produce fulls on a scheduled task and maintain a historical series of the fulls, no dice with ATI12/2009, afaics. So if you do incs/difss, ATI12/2009 might be a step up but for those of us that want a history of full backups, ATI12 is a great leap backwards. YOu would have to run tasks manually and name each uniquely to avoid this problem (that's what ATI10 and 11 did, appllied a unique name to each full archive each timeyou ran the task andthe Backup Location limits controlled how many backups were kept. But when you run full backups from a Task in ATI 12/2009,, you don't have that option to uniquely name each backup and autonaming with unique names is no longer a feature in ATI12/2009.

Also, as Rabbitwolf noted, the manual states that you have to use ATI to delete or rename archives, you can't just treat them as normal files anymore or you can end up with errors in ATI. I don't see that as an improvement; seems jsut the opposite to me.

 

Are you saying the TI 2009 allows me ot have JUST ONE copy of the backup? Not a historical backups that go back?

Wow, that's terrible!

I just uninstalled the T11 and "upgraded" to TI 2009 because support told me it solved the problem for the condition when the backup disk becomes full... they did not tell me they solved it by removing hte feature the made me buy the product!

 

Shieber
If the secure zone is not broken in version 2009 it will do what you require with full images.
You never know you might grow to like it

Xpilot

 

Oh dear oh dear! I have just read the secure zone part of the 2009 manual. It appears that the secure zone really has been broken!
In all previous versions backup management in the zone has been on a straightforward FIFO basis. In 2009 version this will no longer happen automatically when the zone is full. Instead the user will get a full up message and will have to take some manual action.
The manual also brings backup consolidation into the secure zone processing.

There is no way I will use version 2009 for my backups if the previous way of running the zone has been changed in this way. The last thing I need when running a scheme of automatic unattended backups is for the process to stop with a message requiring manual intervention.

The joy of the old way of working with a secure zone to store full images was that it was truly "Fit and forget". Why oh why has this simple easy to use and reliable feature been messed about with?
Please Acronis tell me I am mistaken and the new manual is in error and the zone still works in the old way.

Xpilot

 

Reserve Locations?: True Image 2009 - No Backup Location, No Automactic Archive Name

Reserve copy is an option you can specify under options (not while you are creating the tasks but a separate menu pick).
I am trying to see if this will resolve my issues of having historical backups

 

I really am a bit confused here, as most of the regulars on this forum have by now found a way to make a version of ATI work well for them.

So why are they messing about with 2009? What is to be gained, other than satisfying curiosity - which killed the cat btw

 

I've been playing around with the trial for 2009 and the only way I know of to create a new full backup when you have an incremental or differential job is to consolidate based on the age of the backup. Is that the way everyone sees it? If you set it up this way you loose the history of backups.

Also, one of the reasons I wanted to upgrade is trueimagemonitor never ran with escalated priviledges in TI10 to control the running jobs but in 2009 defender is blocking it from running since it is escalated. Sure, it's a prompt but it's annoying and I'm not turning of UAC. Why can't jobs be controlled more easily from that tray icon?

I, like a few here, like the control of backup rules/consolidation and choosing my own filename in 2009 but it's too limited. It doesn't allow for history of backups. I would have to use something like synctoy every week to maintain a history.

It seems like 2009 is more stable no corrupted images yet. TI10 on my other machine just had a corrupted image. Also, I like how the tasks and logs are in the same general area in 2009.

Oh well, I think I'm going back to TI10.

Sitrucz

 

Its hard to avoid the conclusion that the only way to use AT2009 is either fully manually, managing your available space on a daily decision basis, or by accepting a very precise and limited regime:

use consolidation to choose your parameters, then
-ensure you have twice the space available in the target location than is needed for the backup because of the needs of the consoldiation process writing new files then deleting the old ones
-let it do consolidation every backup occasion (after the parameter levels are initially met) adding hours and rendering PC useless for work while doing it
- and forget having sets of historical archives (full, then X diffs, then another full, etc)

"Backup locations" in AT11 were difficult to understand and very badly described in the documention but eventually when you figured out (not thanks to the documentation) how to do it, they worked. Not for me because I use a remote net drive and AT10 would neither recognise archive split size on a remote drive, nor allow you to select anything other than auto split selection for scheduled tasks, so impossible to schedule tasks except where archive under 4GB). Now with AT2009 I can select archive split size, and it works, I was so pleased when I saw this, and the UI is much improved. But I am faced with this bizarre regime.

Seems so, so odd, -- disconnected with reality. One can therefore only assume that this is a commercial decision, that Acronis have decided that the market for them for a home product is made up of people who do not worry about automating the management of archives or of space used. The manual (so-called "file name-based") consolidation feature is a worthwhile addition but automated consolidation is, as another contributor said, quite mad. So mad in fact that to me the only explantaion can be that Acronis are saying that we are supposed to be using one of their Enterprise products if this is our need.

 

You know, that's just what I was thinking, as I also tried to make sense of all this.

I've installed 2009 and looked it over, read the manual, and followed the threads in this forum, and I just don't see how I can possibly make it work for me. Like others here, I want to keep multiple full system backups over time; and in my case I also want to keep "backup sets" - a full backup and associated incrementals - of my data partition over time. I'm doing this quite nicely and without manual intervention with ATI 11, but there really seems to be no way at all to do it with ATI 12.

I'd be willing to go back to my post-command scripts to rename and delete tib files, but even that door is now closed. Even were I willing to manually intervene after every one of my "automated" backup operations, there doesn't even seem to be a manual way to rename an archive so as to put a date in it. I suppose the only way would be to run every backup operation manually, editing the task beforehand to specify a unique archive file name.

I agree backup locations were buggy and poorly explained, but something else broken by their removal is the search function. I use search in ATI 11 to find previous versions of documents etc. from my data partition backups, and while it was slow and imperfect, it worked. As I noted in another thread, without backup locations there is no way to limit the search to a specific set of backup files; it will find and search every single tib file on all your hard drives. So to find the document I modified yesterday in an incremental of my data partition, I have to let it search 6 months of system partition images as well.

Many times in this forum I've read people saying how they simply cannot afford to upgrade to a new release. I thought perhaps they were being too fussy or something, and that it would never happen to me. I've always taken it on faith that software under development continually improves, and I've never, ever been in the position with a commercial vendor that I would have to completely reject a new release as unworkable. I find it somewhat shocking.

 

I complained about the inability to produce historic backup series with diffs and got from support a batch file.

While it is not optimal because it ignores backup device size quotas it might help to overcome some of the issues (see attachment).

 

Moving the location for storing the file limit info into the taskfile instead of in a cfg file in a Backup Location is not the issue -- could even be a smart move if implemented well. The issue is that limits no lnger work for keeping s series of Fulls; it now expects diffs or incs.

I don't know body that does backups that doesn't keep a series. I'm there are lots of home users that keep only one full backup just like there are many that never attempt a restore until they really need to restore. But keeping a series of bais a part of sensible protocols for data storage-- it's not the only way but a common and important way.

Tech sent you a batch file. I'd be laughing if it wasn't so darned pathetic of Acronis to do that. Hey, that's what they used to do back before ATI10, you know, like in the past, like a step backwards.

At least with 12 I quickly filed for a refund, although the request is till pending; with 11 I waited to long, expecting some fixes for critical bugs that never came, and then refund grace period elapsed. I wouldn't expect important fixes to 12, they're too busy working on 13 and 14 to properly finish 12, much less the dreaded ATI11.

 

Lucky you I also complained but have not gotten a response to my support ticket.

The interesting thing about the batch file they gave you is how it works around the inability to change the names of tib files (because the names are now recorded in some central location) by moving the files around to different folders. Presumably the file names and folders are all in the central record and the batch file is just changing their contents.

Seems like a lot of effort to work around a limitation that shouldn't have been introduced in the first place (IMO).

 

Yes, as soon as vendor points you to batch files, they're essentially saying, there's a very basic routine to do what you want but we haven't programmed it into our product.

What's perhaps surprising is that many of the "professional" reviews that you can find on line are little more than regurgitation of venodr press releases and reflect very little product testing -- sometimes the revieweer hasn't even started the program much less tested it.

 

Well, it appears there is a way to keep multiple copies of full backups, and presumably to keep multiple sets of full + incrementals, although I haven't specifically tested that yet. It does require the use of batch files however.

Here's the key. As others have noted in this thread, The manual states that you have to use ATI to delete or rename archives (actually there is no option to rename archives). However, the batch file supplied by Acronis does essentially that, by moving tib files around to different folders. I think the key is that it does so before the next backup, rather than after the previous one. So if your task did an image backup to "image.tib" and then renamed it to "image081027.tib", TIH '09 would get confused; but I find that if I rename it before the next backup, using a pre-backup command in the task definition, that seems to work. I have a task running that creates a new image every ten minutes, and so far it hasn't complained about anything.

I don't mean to get into the discussion of whether it "should" be necessary to use batch files to achieve this elementary operation; I just want to note that it at least seems possible

 

Sorry, I was going by the manual, not the program. There is a context menu available in the Backup and Restore list that includes rename, explore, delete, etc.