B&R10 is a waste! Acronis Techs are clueless! Jack Black this Bud is for you!
Here is the link to the original thread started 8/15/2009: http://forum.acronis.com/forum/3010 After over four months, 70 some posts and 3500 some views it is time to start a new thread and sum things up. Here were the original problems with B&R 10 1) You have minimal or no control over the backup image name 2) You can not overwrite a previous backup. Retention Rules, contrary to what Acronis tells you, will not solve the overwrite issues 3) The whole image naming convention Acronis uses it the most horrid thing in the universe. Recreated_Archive_onandonanon 4) There are issues running batch files as pre-job commands on 2008 Server. Here are the positive things to say about Acronis: 1) After three and a half months they finally responded to the above thread. I guess that's a plus. I couldn't understand the response but they did respond. 2) With the latest release (11345) it appears as though they did fix the batch file and Recreated_Archive_onandonandon issue. Here are the negitive things to say about Acronis: 1) They don't respond in a timely fashion if at all. 2) I'm sorry but their technicians are ****. Clueless about their product. Clueless about problem resolutions and way out of touch with their developers. They make promises they can't keep. 3) They don't listen or respond to your questions. Throughout the course of a chat your will have to repeat yourself three or four times and ask them to go back and actually read the question that you originally posed to them. 4) They will avoid the real issues. It is obvious they have been instructed not to talk about them. They try and change the subject or offer a "work around" as opposed to dealing directly with the issue. OK Acronis. The ball is squarely in your court. After four months and a million promises here are the two issues you have yet to acknowledge let alone resolve: 1) You have minimal or no control over the backup image name 2) You can not overwrite a previous backup. Retention Rules, contrary to what you say, will not solve the overwrite issues Acronis please make a liar out of me. Respond in a timely fashion and address the issues. Don't dance around them. When are you going to fix these issues? Just for grins I chatted with support this evening before making this post. I wanted to address the issues from scratch to make sure their responses (after four months) hadn't changed.. Here is the chat: Jim Becher: I am backing up to external USB hard drives. Only one backup (.tib) will fit on the drive. I am rotating these external USB hard drives on a nightly basis. Since I have minimal control over the backup image name (it either appends the date and time to it or gives it an un-godly name like recreated_archive_yadayadayada) overwriting the previous backup is impossible since I don't know then name of the .tib it created. Jim Becher: I first have to ask. Are you aware of the way I am backing up and the problems involved in not being able to overwrite a previous backup because of Acronis's nameing convention***? n: I understand your issue and will help you resolve it right now. Jim Becher: So how does Acronis recommend "overwriting" a previous backup? ***: Jim, when you schedule a task in Acronis Backup and Recovery 10, you get an option called "Retention rules" using which you can set the limits on amount of space taken by backups or limit on number of backups. Jim Becher: OK. So when do these "Retention Rules" kick in? Before the job runs or after the job runs? ***: It should be selected before the job starts, at the time of scheduling a job. Jim Becher: You completely missed the question. Please read it closely and respond again if you will..***. : I understand it, when you plan a backup task, you get one of the options called Retention rules, you need to set the values to it, and then this rule works for all the backups in future with the same task. Jim Becher: Then let me rephrase the question. These "Retention Rules" need to be executed right? Are these "Retention Rules" executed before the job runs, while the job is running or after the jobs runs? When does it actually check to see if I am compliant with my "Retention Rules"? Is that any clearer ***? : Thanks for the clarififying it. Jim Becher: No problem ***: These rules are executed after the backup is completed. Jim Becher: Thank you. Then I am going to have to ask you to closely reread my opening backup senario. I can only get one backup on any given external USB hard drive so ... if the external USB hard drive already has a backup on it this would be the senario ... Jim Becher: The job starts, the job fails because the external USB drive is full and then the "Retention Rules" kick in. Do you now understand the issue I am faced with because B&R10 will not let you "overwrite" previous backups? ***: May I know what limits you have set in the retention rules? Jim Becher: No limits on size and and delete backups older than 1 day. I must say you are ducking the issue. Even by your own definition of "Retention Rules" and with my particular backup senario the job will fail if a previous backup already exists on the external USB hard drive. Jim Becher: I think the real questions are "what genius came up with the horrid, horrid .tib naming convention"?, is Acronis aware of the problem, are they going to fix it and if so when? ***: I will forward it to our development team as this is the first time I heard of such naming convention. I am sure they will come up with a resolution for it as soon as possible. Jim Becher: I must ask. This is the first time you have been made aware of the fact that Acronis either appends the date and time to a image name or, if the meta files is corrupt or missing, gives it a name of Recreated_Archive_yadayadayada? ***: May I know if you are using the latest build of the Acronis Backup&Recovery Server for Windows? Jim Becher: 11345. I must ask again. You have never heard of Acronis's image naming convention before this? ***: We know about it. I think I misunderstood something. Ashok Nirwan: Is the naming convetions not suitable. Jim Becher: OK. So Acronis is aware of the situation, they do consider it unacceptable and they are going to correct it? ***: Could you please suggest a better naming convention so that I can forward it to our developers? Jim Becher: It is pretty simple. Make it what ever I type in. No matter what it is. Don't append anything to it, don't change it in any way, shape or form ***: Okay. Jim Becher: Thanks for your time
You have a point Bodgy but you always stand a chance of the current backup being corrupt or invald for some reason. That hasn't changed since the dawn of time. Where Acronis really, really messed up on B&R10 is their naming convention. You cannot specify a image name. It will always at the very least append the date and time to it. It completely removed the ability to overwrite a previous backup. They never should have done that.
The real problem is that Acronis lies and ducks issues. This has been a major flaw since B&R 10 first came out months ago. Every time you get in to a chat with a tech the senario is the same. Oh, we weren't aware of the problem. Oh, ya we know about. Oh, here is the work around. Oh, it is a problem. We will make the developers aware of it and it will be fixed in the next release.
Promises and lies. That is all they do. They have yet, after all these months, to come clean with their customers and give an honest answer. That is all anyone is looking for. An honest answer. They refuse to do it. They lie, make promises they don't have any intention of keeping and duck the issue. That is the real problem. Even if they came out and said "we don't consider it a problem and have no intention of fixing it" at least that would be an honest answer and customers could, for the first time, adjust accordingly.
They just refuse to even address the issue honestly....
Hello Jim and Colin,
First of all, I had to remove all traces from private information and rude phrases here according to our Forum Rules. Please pay attention to it next time.
First of all, I'd like to apologize for the long delay in response to your case. We're now experienced a very high volume in our channels, this volume is related to new releases, that's why we are not able to respond to some requests in a timely manner. I will assist you in this situation.
After four months and a million promises here are the two issues you have yet to acknowledge let alone resolve: 1) You have minimal or no control over the backup image name 2) You can not overwrite a previous backup. Retention Rules, contrary to what you say, will not solve the overwrite issues Acronis please make a liar out of me.
1. I assume you mean automatic backup task. In this case, the backup can be named as it's described in Page 366 (Chapter 8.2.5.) of this User's Guide:
Data from each machine will be backed up to a separate archive. Specify names for the archives. The program generates a common name for the new archives and displays it in the Name field. The name looks like [PolicyName]_[MachineName]_Archive1. If you are not satisfied with the automatically generated name, construct another name.
If you selected Store all machines' archives in a single location, you have to use variables in order to provide the unique archive names within the location.
1. Click Add variables, then select
[Machine name] - substitution for the machine's name
[Policy name] - substitution for the backup policy's name
As a result, in the Name field the following rule will appear: [Machine name]_[Policy
name]_Archive1
So, if the backup policy named, say SYSTEM_BACKUP will be applied to three machines (say,
FINDEPT1, FINDEPT2, FINDEPT3), the following three archives will be created in the location:
FINDEPT1_SYSTEM_BACKUP_Archive1
FINDEPT2_SYSTEM_BACKUP_Archive1
FINDEPT3_SYSTEM_BACKUP_Archive1
2. Click OK.
The name looks like ArchiveN, where N is a sequence number. If the program finds that the archive
Archive1 is already stored in the location, it will automatically suggest the name Archive2.
This is the way how naming works in the latest version. It has been extended significantly since previous version. I can agree that someone could find those settings not satisfying their needs. In this case (note, that I do not promise about fix etc) we will report the exact suggestions to the responsible team. Support department is not responsible for features implementation. We can only address the possible implementation to be reviewed.
So if you have any suggestions on how to implement this scheme - you are very welcome!
Now, regarding retention rules and backup overwriting: I assume that you're saving your backup per task to some external drive and it does not overwrite, is that correct? In this case, you have received a correct answer: you can set it up with batch files or with retention rules.
I can agree that we had a common issue with retention rules do not work when you're saving your image to external drive, but it has been fixed in Update 1. Except Retention Rules, we have implemented one special feature, when product cleans up the location when there's insufficient space to save the backup. This can be done in Clean Up Scheme (by changing Retention Rules to the second option I named above). Then the product will clean up the folder according to the space analysis.
If it still does not work for you with the latest build, we should figure our what exactly happens, to make a clear picture regarding your setup and policies you're applying. Could you please create a screenshot of your Backup Plan (advanced view) and post it to this thread?
If you are not familiar with making screen shots, please read the below step-by-step instructions.
- Get to the window which you want to make a screen shot of;
- Hit the (Alt+)PrintScreen button on your keyboard;
- Run Paint usually available in Start\Programs\Accessories or another graphics application;
- Choose Paste command in Edit menu;
- Save the result picture in JPEG format being preferable.
Also, please describe how exactly do you set up your retention policy. Step-by-step, please.
Please do not hesitate to ask me if you have any additional questions.
We are looking forward to hearing back from you at your earliest convenience.
Thank you.
Alexander,
In your very even handed response to Jim you include the following:
"1. I assume you mean automatic backup task. In this case, the backup can be named as it's described in Page 366 (Chapter 8.2.5.) of this User's Guide:..."
The link you provide does open the PDF, but it only includes chapters 1 - 7. It does not include a chapter 8, and page 366 is in the index.
SimonB
Thanks for pointing that out Simon. The fact that his link doesn't point to answer doesn't suprise me in the least. That is a typical Acronis response. Well... my only comment is this. You have once again completely missed the question. Danced around the issue and ducked it completely. As far as the rude remarks in the original post you are confusing rude with accurate. Acronis you are unbelieveable! I feel like I am talking to two years olds. Since you obviously can't handle one question accurately let alone two or more let me try and rephrase the primay question:
I want the name of my backup image to be server.tib Nothing more, nothing less. Exactly server.tib Tell me how to do it.
You can't can you. It cannot be done. So based on the fact that it cannot be done:
1) Does Acronis consider this to be a problem or issue?
2) If Acronis does conside this to be an issue do you intend to fix it?
Now there is no way I could make the issue any clearer is there? I would think even a two year old could understand it. I even took the simplicity a step further. Both of the above questions can either be answered Yes or No.
That is as simple as it gets. Why has it taken Acronis months and months to answer two simple questions. Why have I spent countless hours in chat trying to get answers to those two simple questions? Would you like to try and answer those two simple questions?
Those seem like very simple questions to me Jim! I can't see how these could now be interpreted in any other way.
The answer seems to be "No, the end user cannot choose how to name his backup files the way they wish to. Acronis will always append information. You can choose how it goes about doing this but it cannot be stopped".
I seem to remember a thread asking this very question, perhaps yours indeed, and there was some method in their madness for the current naming convention. Something about it being the only way they could get some aspect of the software to work as intended.
Didn't Echo Workstation work they way you want it? If so there must be a way to make it work in B&R10 also.
I thought they were simple questions too but 5 months, 80 some posts and infinite hours in chat have yet to yield an answer from Acronis. They are ducking the issue. It is obvious their tech have been instructed in no uncertain terms to not answer that question. It has been the subject of several threads here and elsewhere. None of them have been answered.
Yes Echo Server (and workstation) gave you full control over the image name. Someone really messed up version 10 and now we a looking at a coverup bigger than Watergate! Seems pretty typical of Acronis support. They make promises, lie, try and find work arounds and are very concerned about the problem (ya right). They do everything but address the real question.
Hi Jim,
Just out of interest, what problem is the lack of ability to control the names of the backups causing you? Is it simply that you can't konw in advance what the names are in order to delete them before performing the next backup? If so, have you tried the suggestion from Acronis support about the clean-up option in the latest build? Seems to me if this new clean-up option works, the name of the backup could be rendered irrelevant to you? (if the whole problem is that you only have space to store one backup on your external drive).
Cheers,
Dave.
You hit the nail on the head. The new cleanup option doesn't work. This whole nasty namiing convention problem is pretty much right back to where is started when they first released B&R 10. Did you read the two very simple questions above? 5 months, 80 million posts and more time in chat that I want to think about and those two simple questions remain unanswered.
Let's for a moment forget about all the problems with B&R 10. Let's pretend they don't exist. Just the fact that Acronis won't answer two simple questions says a lot about them and their product ...
Curious to know why Mr. Becher thinks these are dealbreakers. These sound like old , comfortable habits from antiquated systems and an inability to work with metadata. Who cares what the filenames are called, there are so many ways to tell what the content is otherwise.
Sure these would be nice-to-haves but nothing he's been talking about are serious problems; there are more important things to fix. Just my opinion.
Please see the post in the other thread. You are not up to speed with the issue and are making comments without really understanding the issue. If you took the time to read the entire thread it might make a little more sense to you.
I have read the two simple questions that you have asked, and also read your previous thread. However, in light of the fact that you are not getting answers to these questions from Acronis, I think the inference is "No, you cannot control the name of the backup files which Acronis produces", and "No, Acronis do not see this as a problem" (this is IMHO). With that in mind, I think you need to move on and be objective about a solution to your space issue (no point in keep winding yourself up about it, life's too short!!). How many external devices do you rotate? Would it be worth considering buying some new, bigger devices? (just trying to help).
Actually I think it might be easier and cheaper to find better backup software :) Maybe something that works :) Still waiting on your response Acronis ... cat got your tongue?
I agree the backup naming is an issue. It is no issue when you back up to SAN, or a remote drive, but when you want to backup to removable backup sets of disks, BR10 loses the plot and gets completely confused. You are left with recreated and corrupted archives that are corrupt and wont boot. I have one server on ti9 backing up to the same rotating disks as another on BR10.
The ti9 backups have never failed.
the br10 backups are hit and miss viable (despite br10 never recording issues on creation).
The only solution is to create extra cleanup and retention tasks which take a long time and never work properly.
the non standard naming really has caused many many problems moving from ti9 to br10 for our business. I used to trust the backups, now they are so often corrupt, i have to do a bare metal restore every week and pick which archives to save when i find a non corrupt one.
Hello all,
I apologize for the incorrect chapter naming in my previous post. I took the number from older version of User's Guide, and for now we have changed the numeration. The current Chapter of this guide with the information I mentioned is 7.3.5 (page 369).
Actually, I have already posted the part of Guide in my thread which clearly states all possible naming variations we have at this moment. We are not answering "Yes" or "No" to the situation you described because it's not clear for us. That's why I'm trying to determine what exactly happens, but this is the only description I was able to find:
You hit the nail on the head. The new cleanup option doesn't work.
What exactly happens when you're trying to set the clean up task? How exactly do you set it up?
1) Does Acronis consider this to be a problem or issue?
2) If Acronis does conside this to be an issue do you intend to fix it?
To give you the exact answers we have to figure our what happens in your particular situation. As I have already answered in previous post, we do not have a common issue with archives naming to fix, so each case should be investigated individually.
Darryl, first of all - thank you for the detailed description for the situation you experience. As far as I understand, you're facing the issue with naming right after you're changing the drives, is that correct? Also, you have mentioned about backups corruption: when do you receive a message about archives corruption? We should divide those issues from each other, because backup corruption and backup naming issues have different causes, so let's figure out what happens.
How exactly do you set up the product? What are the tasks and retention rules? As far as I understand you're using some external drives as the destination, is that correct?
Could you please let me know the build number of the product, which you can find in the Help -> About dialog (it should be a 3 or 4 digit number)?
Could you please provide me with the exact sequence of actions that lead to the issue you report, so that I can try to reproduce it?
We are looking forward to hearing back from you at your earliest convenience.
Thank you.
Build 11345
I am out of the office until the new year now but i was finding that all of the recreated archives were corrupt. Hopefully with this new build that issue will be resolved. It was suggested to create seperate vaults on the drives and seperate backups for each drive on different days, but that is unrealistic as IF i could be sure that the drives were to be swopped consistently every weekday (which i cannot), in order to backup every day a minimum of 4 tasks are required:
task one: mon, wed, thu, every two weeks starting now
task two: tue, fri every two weeks starting now
task three: mon, wed, thu every two weeks starting next week
task four: tue, fri, every two weeks starting next week.
This is not an improvement from TI9 where i had one task set to backup to that share/drive letter and that was it. If the drive was swopped a differential/incremental simply created the full archive again, and if it wasnt swopped, or had been swopped once, then the differential/incremental would be created. Using this system i never had a faulty restore. I test restores every week/2 weeks.
Please restore the option to not have appended time/date data to backups if requested.
Like many, i also have scripts that run outside of acronis to manage backup sets, and .tib files on disks, and they are run from other products. It is not suitable for me to use acronis to run these scripts as they depend on other factors that acronis is not aware of. The inability to state a specific backup name, i.e. server.tib is a real headache. I do understand that other people have used non standard names before and that is fine for them. I however bought acronis because of its ease of use, and because if i am out of the office, someone else can follow simple instructions to restore images.
Since BR10 i have had lots of problems if the .meta folder doesnt perfectly relate to the last backup. The recreated archives have consistently been corrupt. The worry with this (and has been reported by many users of all the products, both corporate and home) is that no error is reported, and the only way to establich is the archive is corrupt is to run it. I have purchased universal restore only to test the backups. Verifying the backups does not show the images as corrupted when in fact they are.
I have tried making a simple backup to tape (DLT VS1) of a data only drive, the operation completes AND VERIFIES without error. Restore always results in a corruption error (and a suggestion to try another archive) and no way to recover the data.
On this subject i have: updated the drivers to the latest version, cleaned the tape drive several times, and bought brand new tapes. The issue remains.
I understand Acronis is aware of the stability issues and working on them. I am trying to be patient while they are sorted.
Please speak with your developers about the new naming convention. Many are reporting it as a problem for their environment, please at least give us the option to append time/date data or not.
I urge you to also please read all of the reports of corruption during restores from many users. If nothing else, please look at the methods of verification of images, as there is a problem here. People are trusting your products with their data after all. Most of us corporate users will probably have alternate methods of data recovery to some degree, but i really feel for the home users who have been using & when they have a problem and want to restore their photographs of lost family members or similar, they are finding themselves with no recoverable data.
It would be helpful and proper and probably restore much lost confidence in Acronis if the management (if there is any) would explain to the (this) angry user community what has happened at Acronis to produce such an faulty product as 2010. It seems that at one time you had a superior and intelligent development team that for years shipped a great product. I have for many years purchased and used the Acronis line for several companies that I have worked for as well as using it for myself. I personally am convinced you must have lost those original intelligent and creative developers and have hired some inexperienced nin-com-poops right out of college. How do I know this? -because I have a Software Development Manager with 25 years experience. I can tell what inspires such a dramatic and clueless changes like you have done with 2010.. youth with no awareness. Please give us a break and fess up Acronis! What is going on over there?
1) Does Acronis consider this to be a problem or issue?
2) If Acronis does consider this to be an issue do you intend to fix it?
To give you the exact answers we have to figure our what happens in your particular situation. As I have already answered in previous post, we do not have a common issue with archives naming to fix, so each case should be investigated individually.
So by that am I to infer that you are not aware of the inability to name backup archives how you wish and in is user/system independant? I think you may be in for a bit of a shock if that is the case. I can tell you that I also have no control over what Acronis calls my backup archives but currently it is not affecting me adversely as it is others. But If I want an archive called Backup1.tib, surely I can have this, yes?
Hello all!
Thanks for all your comments! The situation discussed in this topic is one of the most important for us, so I would like to update that current thread:
at the moment there are several threads opened for the same problem (backup naming), and as far as we are working on it, it would be nice to have all the information stored in one thread: as far as this is going to be reviewed by the management, development and marketing team, we would like to have all the concerns, complaints and suggestions in one place.
I have just updated the following thread with the latest information related to the backup naming issue, so would appreciate if you could review it and share your ideas with us.
Dear Darryl,
Thank you for being so patient and understanding, and - especially - for your comments.
I have carefully reviewed the post you have kindly submitted, and would like to help you with the backups reported to be corrupted, but unfortunately due to the lack of the information I cannot provide you with the solution right now. I would appreciate if you could send me (as soon as you have time) the answers to the below questions via PM - this will help us to localize the issue and find the solution:
The reasons why the backups maybe reported as corrupted are:
- backup is not properly recognized
- backup is corrupted
Backup may get corrupted due to:
- the source location is corrupted
- the target location we are saving the backup is corrupted
- there is a glitch in the connection between the target and the source machine (in case you are backing up over the network)
- there is a glitch in the drivers, etc. - the product version itself
As far as you have changed the tape drives, we can exclude the option (2). The rest remains. So could you please kindly specify the following?
- Are tapes attached to the machine that you are backing up or you access them over the network?
- Have you performed the following command on the machine you are backing up: chkdsk /r /f - this could help to fix the errors on the hard drives if any.
As soon as I receive your reply we will be ready to continue investigation and finally resolve the issue, so I will be looking forward for your PM.
I will also update the thread with the cause and the solution description as soon as we have one.
Dear Dennis,
I must say we appreciate your comments and you being with us for such a long time. We are highly concerned with every thing that may upset our customers, so I would like to forward your feedback to our Management and Development teams, and would appreciate if you could be more detailed about what exactly you suggest to be faulty with the product - this will help me to provide them with more details concerning what we need to work on, and even - probably - help with some of your concerns.
Thank you!
Yana, I see you are very kind. Must be troublesome trying to handle all of the "stormy" input you are getting. I am glad someone at Acronis is trying to stop the bleeding caused by 2010. I will document the shortcomings I see n 2010 but I really think here and there as I view all of the other folks complaints, mine are about the same. I am a Software Development Manager however and can document things in a professional manager. I worked for Symantec/Peter Norton for 10 years in Antivirus. Helped QA and feedback for the Ghost product for a while in the 90's. I left Ghost for Acronis because your original efforts made Acronis a superior product. I guess that is why I am so disappointed in what has happened with 2010. I truly feel you should continue to sell TI Eleven because it is a great product and I need to supply licenses for additional desktops in my IT department. 2010 is too heavy with unneeded "Windows" features and way too slow and unreliable.
Quote:
1) Does Acronis consider this to be a problem or issue?
2) If Acronis does conside this to be an issue do you intend to fix it?
Forgive me Alexander but there is a common issue with the naming convention. It does not need to be handled in a individual case. The common issue is that you have no control over the image archive name. I am just amazed. The above two questions have been unanswered for months and months. Thread after thread. Two very simple questions that Acronis has yet to address. After all the replies from Acronis. They have danced, ducked, weaved and bobed but have yet to address the above two question. Absolutely amazing ...
Hello all!
Thank you for your replies!
Dear Dennis,
Thank you for your kind words, I really appreciate that. You are absolutely right: as most of the new products do Acronis True Image Home 2010 also rouses censure, and at the moment I'm busy with gathering the feedback from the customers concerning this product so that we could make the program suit all the customer's needs. We continue updating the product and we pay accurate attention to every request - your opinion helps us to make the product better!
So if you could really kindly document the shortcomings - this would a really great help. You can submit it here or PM to me with all your suggestions - be sure I will take care of them to arrive to the product management directly.
Dear Jim,
I guess you didn't notice the linkin my previous message due to it was a short sentence which could have been easily lost in a big post, so let me quote:
>> at the moment there are several threads opened for the same problem (backup naming), and as far as we are working on it, it would be nice to have all the information stored in one thread: as far as this is going to be reviewed by the management, development and marketing team, we would like to have all the concerns, complaints and suggestions in one place.
I have just updated the following thread with the latest information related to the backup naming issue, so would appreciate if you could review it and share your ideas with us.
I entirely understand that you are upset, and be sure we would like to improve the situation - that why it is more convenient not to clone the threads, but have all the information in one.
Let me know in the specifying thread in case something seems confusing - I will be glad to clarify.
Thank you.