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M2 PCIe via NVMe SSD boot drive supported?

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Hi,

is an M2 PCIe via NVMe SSD boot drive in a brand-new notebook supported?

I´m not sure if a NVMe driver would be another prerequisite or if an AHCI driver would work with the SSD that normall runs via NVMe.

TI2014 boots from the USB stick, but naturally doesn´t see the SSD.

Thanks
G.

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Support at this time requires an NVMe driver which is native to Win 10, 8.  True Image 2016 run under those OS's will have support from within Windows.  Your issue is with Recovery/Rescue.  Those procedures require that the PC be booted to another environment.  So at this time only a WinPE Recovery Media disk will support these new devices and then only WinPE built using Win 8, 10. 

There are some issues at present with the latest WinPE 10 release so at this time it is advised to use either a Win 8 ADK or the initial release of Win 10 ADK to build the WinPE disk.  See the thread link below for more on this:

https://forum.acronis.com/forum/102723

Thanks for the reply, Enchantech!

I´m aware that the TI partition backup and restore is some sort of Linux. As NVMe drivers for Linux have been available for quite some time now (even the 1.5 year old Ubuntu 14.04 is said to have it): When are we going to see support for NVMe in TI?

I´m confused re this WinPE and Win ADK thing. Isn´t Create USB Recovery (without system files backup checked) supposed to create a WinPE?! At least this "create a bootable stick" works in Windows 10 1511.

I was about to tinker with WinPE, but when it said it wants to trash my installation with a 6.9 GB Win ADK download I just said NO!

Actually I had hoped to get boot partition backup software for free with Create USB Recovery, but this is the most i_d_i_o_t_i_c (Did this trigger the spam filter?) piece of software I´ve ever seen.

The only thing it knows is: Put a USB stick >= 16GB and then chokes with "An error has occurred". No log or better info to be found nowhere. <aaarrrggghh>

And the most infuriating fact: It auto-formats the stick with FAT, bricking a 128 GB stick with a 32 GB partition that you can reformat to exFAT, but cannot re-partition from the Windows Computer Management GUI. Everything greyed out: Delete Volume, Extend Volume... <aaarrrggghh>

OK, the question was: When will Acronis deliver NVMe support in TI?

Thanks

G.

The Linux environment used to run True Image is a BusyBox compilation.  It is a light weight OS designed to be run primarily in an embedded architecture such as ARM.  BusyBox is used to provide small bootable kernel base with small memory requirement needed to run it and as such provides a core generic set of driver support.  The NVMe drivers and drives that use them are the new kids on the block so at this point, at least to the best of my knowledge, support in the BusyBox compliled kernel for these drives and drivers is not available or have not been compliled yet.  When will that happen?  I honestly have no idea. 

I do understand your reluctance to install the WinPE ADK on your machine in order to gain support for TI and these new drives but at present this is the only option available.

Thanks for the detailed, competent-looking info!

It is "interesting" how convoluted things are. I just dug around a bit more (beyond my usual start-from-CD and back up SATA boot partition with my Win 7 laptop).

So even my TI 2014 has a WinPE ISO builder, but then it wants a premium license. Naturally there is no talk of 2014 any more and 2016 has a local and a cloud version.

Aside: Why / How TF would I (want to) backup the 100 Gigs boot to the cloud?

One would guess that a WinPE ISO done from a TI 2016 done from a Windows 10 would contain its NVMe drivers?!

So what TF would I need the WinPE ADK then for?

I´ve been dealing with this Windoze, Linux and even Mac BS for more than 35 years now and it takes me DAYS to figure how to back up a boot partition?!

Thanks

G.

Hmm, Cloud Backup, I agree with you on this point here in the US at least and probably in most of the world for that matter.  Akamai, the defacto measurement king in connectivity defines broadband as a speed of 4Mbps or greater and high broadband speed of 10Mbps or greater.  Now that said the focus on internet speed is decidedly on the download side for content delivery.  The upload side, which counts for cloud backup is well, not is really talked about. Seems that for the most part upload is not really a concern even though there is certainly a big push to "do everything in the cloud".  Personally, I do not think that large amounts of data storage such as system backups, media backups, etc. are or will be a realistic proposition for consumers until upload speeds reach better than 50Mbps.  We are a far cry from that at present!

WinPE, well, because you have a computer that is running a new kid on the block NVMe PCIe based drive and the Linux environment that is used to perform recovery operations does not yet have driver support for such devices requires then that a user needs a WinPE disk to perform a recovery.  Reason for this being that a recovery of a Windows System OS disk run from the Windows True Image installed application requires that the computer reboot into, you guessed it, the Linux environment that lacks driver support for device.  So, the only way to recover a backup of such a device to that same deivice then is by using a WinPE disk which because it is Windows (8.1 and above) based does contain the needed driver support. 

Will True Image ever drop the use of a Linux based environment to perform such recovery in favor of WinPE?  Good question and one which I cannot answer. My suspiciion is however, not likely in the near future.  So the solution now, at present, is to create a WinPE based recovery disk which when booted will run the True Image application and have access to the driver support necessary to perform the recovery.

Why must any form of recovery disk either Linux or WinPE be used at all?   In most cases such a recovery is performed when the subject computer will not boot into the Windows OS so, a recovery disk is absolutley necesary to perform such a task and that is the number one reason for having/needing a recovery disk, either Linux or WinPE.

 

Thanks, Enchantech,

your comments are thoughtful, but re cloud backup much too defensive of an absolute joke and the other part is more philosophical than an anywhere concrete answer.

Our internet connection is not bad here, but in its asymmetry it´s absolutely not up to the task with 16 Mb/s download and 1Mb/s  / 0.1 MB/s upload.
Even with the most basic Windoze installation, say 16GB, it would take two days. I lack the expression to qualify the suggested / pitched cloud "solution".

As for WinPE and your long-winded "explanation": I got to know that e.g. the free Macrium simply provides a solution.

G.