Acronis vs my NAS - ISSUES
I have a WD EX2 NAS. I am using it with CIFS.
My backup completed -and- validated a week ago.
As of yesterday, Acronis did the incremental backup, but refuses to validate. If I watch network traffic, it -starts- to validate, runs at about 27MB/sec for maybe a minute or so, and then says it failed and offers a retry/cancel/knowledge base dialogue.
I have tried this repeatedly.
I wrote a small program to read the files for the backup, and it runs in its entirety. The files -are- readable over CIFS, and the share is accessible.
Furthering the problems, I tried changing the data location to an FTP location to the same directory. Acronis can not manage to log in, despite the fact I've successfully tested the FTP credentials in multiple different FTP clients.
I am at a loss to explain this behaviour...any of it.
I'd appreciate some assistance.
True Image 2016 on Win7 Pro SP1 64-bit
Thanks!
Zero joy. Still starts working, you see network traffic for 30-60 seconds at 27MB/s, then it just stops, waits a bit doing what appears to be nothing, then pops the error box. It's obviously doing -something- for that first minute, and has been all along, so I'm not sure mounting an image is the issue.
Also, this doesn't address the fact that TrueImage 2016 won't work with my NAS's FTP, while every other client I have will.
This product has issues. I need solutions, and -not- at $20/incident for broken software. I either need things fixed, or I need recommendations of software to move onto which works. I do not have the time to waste on this playing around to get what should be a click-and-done solution to work properly.
I won't sugar coat it. NAS credentials in 2016 have been an issue especially. They seem to be much better in the 2017 beta though, but even then, I'm still having the best success by not using the NAS auto-detection feature and sticking to the UNC path with IP address instead of DNS Host Name. If you do need to reset NAS credentials, which may be the case for your FTP woes, the only solution in 2016 currently is a registry tweak.
https://kb.acronis.com/content/58004
Not sure about the sudden data transfer drop off during validation - I'm able to validate on my NAS. What type of NAS are you using? What's your OS? How is your system connected (wirelessly or wired). If you do a lanspeed test with a 5Gb file as a test, what does the average time show?
I know you're not interested in trouble shooting very much, but can't find the root cause unless we do. There are other free versions of backup products you could testl. I'd say use whatever works best in your environment if one of those proves to be more efficient or less troublesome in your particular setup. I've tried just about every backup product out there and none of them are perfect and I've had to troubleshoot all of them at some point. Also, some have features that the others don't, or have different price points that may make them more appealling (or less). It usually boils down to the specific features you want/need and how well the particular product handles them in your unique environment.
Did you read the original post? WD EX2 for the NAS, Win7 Pro 64-bit for the OS.
Wireless, but dropout isn't the issue. I ran my home-brew file-reading program all day and night, and it had no troubles. For some reason it only used about 14MB/s, as opposed to the 27MB/s that Acronis uses. Even Acronis' speed is slow. I can and do pull 48MB/s over my 300mbit cable, through the same exact wireless environment. The router and system are across the room from each other, in a straight line, with a closet door between them. The layout is not nicely conducive to cabling, so I'm not running a chase when I have no actual problems with my wireless. The people who blame wireless for every single problem really have no clue. I've been exclusively wireless at two different locations for over 15 years. It's not an issue. Hell, I get 300mbit or better on the laptop down in the kitchen, going diagonally through a hallway, two closets, and half the kitchen, also without issue.
My conditions for working backup/restore software are not that complex:
1) Backup without issue.
2) Validate without issue.
3) Actually, you know...LOG IN via FTP if you choose to use it.
4) Bare metal restore capabilities a -huge- plus.
I've dealt with Acronis' nonsense since 2015. It has never worked 100%. Either their recovery media crashed, the backups weren't working, the backups wouldn't validate, or now you can't even set up an FTP connection. I'm sick and tired of it. Name some alternatives, and I'll look into them, because Acronis and I are just about done, unless someone (namely Acronis) coughs up fixes. I'm sure as hell NOT upgrading to 2017 when they can't even get 2016 working properly. No way in hell. 2016 introduced half my problems. All good will is out the window until they cough up fixes within the 2016 version, full stop.
Best of luck to you.
Well I'm rather hoping support actually puts in an appearance and addresses the issue here. Or are they as incompetent on the forums as they are on the phone. (We won't get into detail about my -last- experience with them on the phone, when they blamed everything -but- their software.)
Pretty telling when a forum MVP basically tells you to go use some other software. *laugh*
Why is this product even popular, when -basic functionality- is UTTERLY BROKEN, update after update?
Mark, I only suggested testing other applications as a reply to your original post since you said you weren't interested troubleshooting and wanted names of competing products. If you don't want to trouble shoot, there's not much any of us in the forum can do for you, but because of my MVP status, I also can't recommend any competing products, only that you try them out if you're so unhappy with Acronis. If you Google alternatives to Acronis, I'm sure you'll find some that you can test as an alternative and determine for yourself if they work any better or not.
Even though I have an MVP badge, I don't work for Acronis, but dedicate my time because I like the product and like to help out. As a perk, I get some licenses to help with testing and and get to beta test some early releases from time to time, but that's about it. I'm not an Acronis employee and don't speak direclty for the company, but do try to help out when and where I can.
Regardless of what you think about your wireless connection - it's still wireless and I would reocmmend testing with a wired conneciton. You also have one of the simplest and least powerful NAS devices on the market - using only a single drive, minimial CPU and minimal memory. WD devices like the WD MYCloud have come up in the forums with issues before and I'm not sure if it's these particular devices because of the bare-bones hardware they are using, or a compatibility issue with Acronis and them or not. If you Google problems with MyCloud there are a ton of users having problems with these devices and not related to Acronis in anyway. I don't want to put all the blame there, but I myself have a WD MyCloud 4Tb and have had my share of problems with it too. In fact, it was barely usable, until I not only upgraded the firmware, but then reset the device afterwards as per this forum post I came across in my efforts to make the WD MyCloud more reliable:
https://community.wd.com/t/all-of-my-cloud-problems-solved/93565
I'm using the WD MyCloud as a NAS backup respository and since then, it has been more reliable, although not perfect. Even with power saving turned off, even in Windows, It can still take several seconds before a folder will open up on the NAS through file explorer and I have a Gig-E physical network through my house. I'm not using FTP, but others in the forum are, but keep in mind that FTP clients have transfer size limits as well and backing up or restoring several GB of a single .tib file can be a problem. If login is the proglem, make sure it's not secure FTP as it's not supported and if credentials are an issue, tehn the link I posted above is the published Acronis solution.
Again, best of luck in your endeavor.
Where do I even start? :)
1) I know the EX2. As NAS units go, it's on the lower end, no denying that. It's also -still- $600. You expect something that costs over half a grand to work. As it is, I -am- on my -third- unit with WD. I'm well aware that it's got some CPU bottlenecks, believe me. In fact, there's a reason it makes no difference if you put it on direct ethernet or wireless, in terms of speed: you will max the CPU before you increase your network performance. I've done it.
2) That said, Acronis not being "able" to read the file(s) while I can -simultaneously- have my little perl snippet reading in sequential 16KB chunks all day and all night, using the same exact CIFS share, tells me that it's -not- the NAS -or- the wireless. If it were, I'd see issues with my perl program's reporting, as it prints one line per 16KB block read. The wireless was fine, the disk reading was fine, and I had -plenty- of overhead left on the wireless to do over three times what the perl program was pulling, in addition to what it was already doing.
3) Your lack of finding Windows shares promptly is not unusual. I believe it's slow network device discovery, and that's Windows' fault.
Going back to point #2, you can't blame the NAS -or- the wireless when another program can access the same files on the same share. No, there was no oplock in play. There was no locking of any kind in play, and I only started testing -after- Acronis started acting oddly.
And when FileZilla -and- the stock CLI FTP client can both access the NAS via FTP when I set it up as a backup method to see if it was CIFS-related, but Acronis cannot log in, well...how lousy does someone's code have to be to screw up the FTP protocol? Seriously...how bad? That's just sad.
As for that "article" to which you directed me... *sigh* *eyeroll* This guy must be one of those desktop Ubuntu wannabes with just enough 'knowledge' to be dangerous. He has no clue what he's talking about, and he's -guessing- at the problem. He presents no empirical evidence, no replication methodology, and nothing concrete. That wasn't even worth the time wasted trying to sift through it to find a point. He never got near one of any substance other than, "It wasn't working, I poked it with a sharp stick, now it works. See Dick run."
I've been doing Linux since 1993, before Slackware was even at v1.0, when there was only one other distro, which was pretty painful at that. I can tell you that the EX2 series runs BusyBox, and it's one of -the- worst-engineered, worst-conceptualised, worst-executed platforms I've ever had the misfortune of investigating. The thing purports to support iSCSI, which is really putting an NTFS filesystem on a virtual drive in a file on an ext4 filesystem. However, it doesn't incorporate -any- NTFS filesystem integrity and repair tools. Therefore, if you blow out a UPS (or just the power, for the brave), and it goes down, you're -praying- that the ext4 filesystem is the -only- thing which was corrupted. Why? Because there is no way to mount and check the underlying iSCSI virtual disk's NTFS filesystem. WD didn't provide binaries, and good luck building them for the EX2, because it's BusyBox, and you don't have a matching environment with all the correct libraries against which you could build dynamic binaries. Static binaries are...well, they haven't been -truly- static in Linux since over a decade ago.
Needless to say, I know -a bit- more than the guy who wrote that drivel you linked. That's useless, and you should really, really stop handing it out. You may as well tell people to sacrifice a goat and draw runes in blood during a full moon under the celestial alignment. It'd be about as scientific.
Do I want to do a bunch of troubleshooting? No. Mostly because -I have been- for TWO YEARS. Acronis and WD keep pointing fingers at each other. I'm simply in a position right now where I can firmly point to the functioning share off the EX2 via another program and say, "Nope, it's not a problem with the share, as something else is reading from it just fine." I can -prove- it's not the NAS. Therefore, it's Acronis' fault. And again, who can screw up FTP like that? That's just tragic QA.
Didn't come to debate, but did try to offer some free help. Do what you gotta do, I'm personally not interested anymore.
Can't help myself. Just wanted to reference a small handful of the numerous threads and forum posts (most directly in the WD My Cloud forum) with people having all sorts of issues with these devices - many related to overall poor performance, especially when being accessed by wireless devices specific notes about FTP issues too. Are they all bad eggs - probably not since, after some tinkering with that Ubuntu wannabe's useless informaiton, I got mine working fairly smoothly.
*sigh* *eyeroll*, wink, wink, best of luck. Since you've been doing this since 1993, I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out though.
https://community.wd.com/t/wd-my-cloud-unable-to-access-using-ftp-on-lo…
https://community.wd.com/t/wd-my-cloud-ftp-issue/92059
https://community.wd.com/t/ftp-access-denied-w-filezilla-winscp-just-in…
https://community.wd.com/t/bug-add-new-user-ftp-access-denied/92798
http://shortattentionspade.com/how-to-make-your-wd-mycloud-suck-less-or…
http://shortattentionspade.com/wd-mycloud-review-this-thing-sucks-unles…