You Experienced TI User's.... Please tell me that this is'nt true!!!

Good evening everyone.

Well I finally had a go at the program and I am seriously wondering if this software is for me! I did my very first complete Image today and for a backup of some 18Gb (which compressed down into around 12Gb) it took approx 1hr.45mins. My internal HD drive being 60Gb so I have approx 70% of that free. The created backup image finally came down as split into 3 sections, roughly around 4.5, 4.5 and 3Gb for each image. It was compressed in Normal mode onto an external HD through a supposedly fast USB2 connection that was showing me 200Gb of free space. The third smaller image holding a lot of what was already captured in the 2nd image. The time it took was like watching grass grow. It just took for ever.

I then had to do a integrity check. It was showing another 20mins, which I took to read would be for each section. I didn't bother. By this time I was really fed up. This thing just went on and on. I begin to wonder if it’s not a whole lot quicker to copy everything over (excl Windows) with a free program like Karen’s Replicator and reformat in the event of a problem or disk crash. Can someone please tell me that this cannot be true!! I also have GoBack which is one hell of a lot quicker…. full system crash accepted of coarse when GoBack would obviously then become useless and inoperative.

I also note that I now have 3 additional registry items loading from TI in the start-up. TI Monitor loading in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE together with TI Schedule/help…… and yet another 3rd TI schedule, a Schedule2, loading into system server at start-up. Is that correct?.

As I had added and removed various bits in and out during the day, not least a new printer and some other stuff, I decided to give it another go this evening and did an incremental Image backup from that which I undertook earlier in the morning. This time it took approx 1hr.30mins which is a far cry of what I thought that I read here last week when a poster said the he/she took only some 15/20 mins to do the said incremental backup which he/she does on a regular basis!. I'm obviously missing something here.!

Now I know that my machine is not the quickest and I stand in awe of some of the specs that I have read on this board, but given the details listed below can one of you really experienced guys and gals tell me if the time indicated are satisfactory or is my machine simply not powerful enough!? If I have to wait this amount of time for a weekly backup then I think that I would rather not bother quite frankly. This is no slight on the Developers here as I know that TI is a well thought off product, but really 3hrs including integrity checks!!! come on!!

The major bits of my machine has the following spec…… well it is 4/5 years old now!!, BUT still purrs along very nicely thankyou.

The OS being w98se
AMD Athlon Processor 1010MHz
512 SDRAM
As a matter of habit I closed all other programs down prior to the start of TI (or any backups for that matter) and the TI Image backups were undertaken with approx 74% FREE RESOURCES
My True Image software being v8.00 Build 796.

Listen I would greatly appreciate any comment by you TI experienced people here on the detail that I have written. (apart that is from throwing my very reliable computer out the window and getting another…. ha)

I look forward with interest on reading any feedback. Sorry to be a pain but I really do need to know if others here are experiencing similar backup times or maybe it’s that software that’s going out that window!!

Thanks to all who take the time to contribute.


Doodallybloke.

 

Don't feel bad; here's my notebook specs (I use it as a desktop replacement):
--Dell Inspiron 9300
--1.6GHz P-M 915 chipset
--1.024GB 533MHz DDR2 RAM
--Windows XP Pro, SP2
--60GB Hitachi Travelstar, 7.2K RPM internal hard drive
--external, Seagate 120GB, 7.2K RPM ATA hard drive
--external enclosure, AMS Venus DS3 enclosure w/ USB2 & Firewire

TI8 doesn't recognize my external drive (which I use to store my backup image) if connected via firewire, when using the rescue boot CD. It does recognize my external HD using the boot CD when it's connected via USB2. When in Windows, TI8 recognizes my external HD whether connected via USB or firewire.

When creating an image outside Windows, it took almost 2 hours to create 9.8GB, non-compressed image, & another 20 minutes to verify it. When actually in Windows, it only took around 10-12 minutes to create the image (this time, though, I selected "normal" compression, resulting in approx 5GB backup file). So, depending upon whether you're creating the image w/in Windows, or not, you could experience some exceedingly long image creation times. I hate to generalize b/c it seems every individual on this board has a different story/experience w/ this product. There seems to be a disturbing lack of uniformity regarding each user's experiences.

 

That sounds long for imaging 18GB, but a slower processor and slower hard disks could account for that time. A less than full speed USB2 port could also explain the longer time.

These three files are all part of one image. The maximum file size on FAT32 disks is 4.5GB, so TI splits the image at that size automatically if no other split size is specified. If you look at any one part, you are essentially looking at the entire image. You can't look at the parts separately. The integrity check time of 20 min. was for the entire image, all three parts.

Well, that is quicker. There's one problem. Karen's Replicator only works for data files, the Windows files won't be in the "replicate", so you won't be able to restore anything but your data.

Yes that's correct. These are small and won't slow your system.

The time and size of the incremental backup depends on how many changes were made to the disk. If you defragment a disk, the incremental will be almost the size of the full backup and take almost as long.

To establish a minimum time possible for a backup, make a backup to a second internal hard drive or to a second partition on your primary drive. You could use the Secure Zone for this test. If the time is significantly shorter than 1:45, the problem is with your USB2 port or drive.

A second test is to create the bootable Recovery CD. Boot from that and make an image to the external USB2 drive. If the time is much less than 1:45, then something running in Windows is interfering with the imaging process.

Let us know what you find out, and we will try to help from there.

 

Maybe to give some benchmarks might help;

My laptop runs AMD XP 2400+ with 512 meg ram and backs up a 30 gig HD to a SZ contained on a 40 gig Iomega USB2 drive in under 17 minutes and reduces the size to just under 4 gigs

My desktop runs AMD64 3500+ with 1 gig memory and backs up 140 gig hd to a SZ on a second internal hd just on 20 minutes..

This occurs every friday evening as a full backup and never fails.

 

How much of the laptop 30-gig is actually used? If you used the Normal compression and got a 4-gig file, my guess is that less than 8-gigs of the 30 is used.

 

Other people have already commented on the speed questions. As far as these go, I saw another comment. Yes, they are small, but I hate programs that load services that are not needed unless you run the program.

For me, I don't do scheduled, only manual imaging, so I disable (or set to manual) all these startup services and programs to save RAM. No need to run stuff that's not necessary I always say.

I then created a batch file that starts up the True Image service before running the program, then stops it after it's done.

 

Hi Doodallybloke

My computer is a Pentium 3 800mhz with a similar Win'98SE OS to yourself. I have 256 meg SDRAM.....

My time for a complete backup of my C:\drive to either an external drive, or the Secure Zone was exactly - 1hour 8 mins for 2.42 gig of data the last time + 1 hour 10 minutes the time before for the same data.

Currently I am using TI build 889, but I did get very similar results when I used either the 800 or 826 build, give and take app one minute. I should also add that the compression I used was high in every case. When running TI I tend to close as many background tasks as possible....

Good luck,

Howard

 

Hi Doodallybloke:
You might check the drivers on your USB hubs. I got a new machine, loaded TI, & gave up after it was taking over 2 hours to create an image through the USB2 port. I thought it was TI until I tried it on a firewire drive & it took 8 minutes.

After right clicking My Computer/Manage/System Tools/Device Manager, I right clicked on each USB hub & updated the drivers. I was then able to create an image in 8 minutes on my external drives hooked up through the USB2.0 ports.
Hope this helps,

 

It's only new so there is only about 6 gigs in use

 

Well I said that I would report back. Initially I would say my sincere thanks to you people out there that helped the advancement of this thread.

Thanks to EVERYONE for your time spent in posting here.

I read with interest all that was written here and took it all onboard. I did a complete defrag before any of the several TI backups that I have now undertaken over the few days. I went to websites and DL new drivers to check if I had the latest (which I already had). I reloaded TI, v8 build 796. I closed down my Anti Virus programs, disabled GoBack etc., etc.,. In short prior to any backup that I did I closed down just about EVERYTHING apart from the bear essentials. I was very disappointed with the results.

After doing all that what happened was that nothing happened!. It still took 1hr:45mins(ish) to do a full image of some 17.1Gb on my internal HD which came down under normal compression to just over 10Gb to my external HD. The image was again in 3 No. files. I then did it again with all my stuff still loaded, ie: GoBack, Norton etc.,. Times more or less remained the same.

Did a TI backup inside Windows direct onto my main ‘C’ drive, which the program did not like at all, again in compressed mode and that took over 2hrs:10mins.

Finally I did a completely uncompressed TI backup to my external HD of some 17.1Gb and that, would you believe, took the LEAST amount of time, some 1hr:20mins approx. That came down in 5 files.

I think that I am resigned to the fact that my processor is just not powerful enough to get the backup times down any further, or that this TI software doesn’t like what it considers to be a huge capacity. Sure glad that I don’t have many .wav and/or .mp3 files on here anymore. Before I shifted all that over onto my ex.HD I was showing some 46Gb on my ‘C’ drive!!! Imagine how long that would take!!??

BTW: As a matter of interest GoBack, I have v3.00 DeLux, did not suspend any logging as and when it was loaded during several of the many backups that I did. That program remained intact throughout. It would only appear to suspend itself when a full defrag is undertaken.

Anyway that’s the result. I think that this thread is now probably exhausted. It was ‘interesting’

Again thanks to all who contributed.

From a disillusioned software user....


Doodallybloke