What's the deal with defrags and backups? [couldn't resist]

I just /had\ to ask

WHAT is the deal here ?

. why are *some* disk imaging programs affected by only *some* defraggers? Why are *some* SysRestore/FDISR types hit by this? WHY, OH WHY are *some* file sync utilities susppected?

. why isn't there a proper listing anywhere of compatible backup/defrag combos?

. what are the precautions one should undertake, for, say Acronis TI 8 or FDISR or bootIt NG or Paragon Exact-Image?

annoying, ainnit?

 

I have found that defragging (with any defragger) beween image-backups will bring about excessively larger incremental images. That's because the defrag changes sector-contents and imaging backs up sector by sector.

Most file by flie backup programs are not adversely affected by defragging between incremental backups and some products actually do faster backups after defragging!

 

Rollback Rx's definition of a snapshot:
Technically speaking, a snapshot is the map of the hard disk sectors and the map’s indexing system. Practically speaking, a snapshot is a picture” of the system and data at a specific time. Rollback Rx Professional supports up to 60,000 snapshots.

If I try to run Windows defrag Rollback Rx comes back with the following message: " Rollback Rx has a build in "Optimize Snapshots" feature for you to optimize your disk space usage. Please try to run that first. If you would just like to run defrag, please uninstall Rollback Rx first and reinstall Rollback Rx after defrag!"

Very clear: don't use defragging tools with Rollback Rx. Now I also understand why I can't create new partition on unused disk space.

With programs using "storage bins" this could be different, because this is usually a seperate partition or hidden folder where it stores its information.

Currently testing how restoring an Exact Image recovery DVD affects Rollback Rx. My first attempt at restoring failed, but I will try again using Exact Image's option to "Process all sectors, one by one". This settings allows you to create an exact copy of the disk. All sectors will be copied one by one (even unused sectors). I hope this will not interfere with Rollback Rx when trying to restore an Exact Image recovery DVD while Rollback Rx is still active.

 

I'm wondering why these types of programs (Goback, RestoreIT, Rollback Rx etc etc...) can't just have a way to pause them or save the revert times so when you shut them down you won't lose everything. I mean what good are they if you lose all your revert times every time you shut them down? Which is usually before a defrag or other large changes. I now prefer a regular imaging program like Ghost or TI because of this huge flaw that they all refuse to fix!

 

Interesting.

So what are the choices if one wants to save hard disk space [I have *only* 80+40 = 120 GB]

I have licenses for

> Acronis TI 8
> Roxio GoBack 3 [Norton did indeed spoil it for me later on]


so what am I looking at?

A file backup program with high compression?
Know any of the sort?
But then I gather that they don't have the ability to.. you know... make 'an image' of the OS, so to speak... they can't really restore the system back in time.

Ah Confusion... a spiteful mistress who shall never leave.

 

With GoBack you do lose your revert times. Not sure about RestoreIt or Roolback, maybe not. With FirstDefense, you do NOT lose anything, in fact, in can even UNINSTALL the program completely and you have the option of saving the Snapshots. If in the future, even a couple of years from now, you decide to reinstall FD, you can start using the old Snapshots as if it were yesterday.

Acadia

 

Now why can't you do that with Goback? It would make these kinds of programs so much more valuable if you could just save your revert times. I was wrong about RestoreIT though, you can save your revert times with that one, but not with Rollback Rx or Goback.

 

IF a backup program is affected by defragmentation, then ALL defragmentation programs will affect that backup program.

Each defrag program may handle defragmentation differently, otherwise the wffects of such programs will be te same on any backup program affected by defragmentation.

 

Any backup program worth using can restore a system back to a given point in time, as long as you have saved the backups from that point in time.

Does not matter whether a true file based backup program or an alleged image based backup program.

 

Yup, that's been the one big complaint thru the years with GoBack, well, that plus the system slow down factor. Its a great program and I swore by it for five years, but every time that I had to disable it, I LOST EVERYTHING!!

Acadia

 

By Rollback Rx's definition a snapshot is the map of the hard disk sectors and the map’s indexing system. AFAIK it wants exclusive access to these hard disk sectors. If you want to defrag it needs to give up it's exclusive access and to be able to do this you are required to uninstall. I suppose you can still install a defrag program and use it while Rollback Rx is active, but then the next snapshot would be much larger. The concept of the program is to be able to use snapshots using as little space as possible.

I don't think it's flaw but a design philosophy.

 

If you put Rollback Rx and its snapshots in a separate partition, then you can defragment your other partitions without any trouble.
Or isn't that possible ?

 

Rollback Rx doesn't use a seperate partition.

 

OK diginsight and thanks for your reply.
Nevertheless, I'm reading your recent posts about backup with interest, because I'm also planning to do a professional backup of my harddisks in the future.
Unfortunately, I can't really participate, because my knowledge and experience concerning backup is almost zero.
So I'm learning from you

 

Ok, you're welcome.

If you would like to study a book take a look at The Backup Book: Disaster Recovery from Desktop to Data Center. Good Dutch webstores are www.comcol.nl, www.computerboek.nl and nl.bol.com I don't know about shipping to Belgium. I ordered some cd's from www.proxis.be and they also sell books.

Right now I'm still evaluating Rollback Rx with Exact Image disaster recovery DVD's in order find a backup strategy that doesn't involve uninstalling Rollback Rx in order to create a reliable Exact Image recovery DVD.