Why does it take so long to get to a file under Files Backup

Hello HnLA.  

There really isn't a lot of background information in your post to provide a good answer for you.  On my PC, it almost immediately opens when I double click on a .TIB file and with each subsequent click further and further into the backup folder structure.  I would have to guess that this may be local system performance issue as not all PC's have the same capabilities due to different hardware (CPU's, memory, and hard drives for starters).

Can you provide specifics about your system make/model, CPU and installed memory?  What type of hard drive do you have (spinning drive - 5400RPM or 7200RPM, hybrid drive, or SSD).  How much free space is left on your Operating System Drive as well - when there is less than 20% performance will degrade, more so on SSD's in some cases because it needs the free space for caching operations.  If you open up task manager and click on the performance tab, what does your CPU utilization and memory utilization look like and what are the top CPU and memory users identified?  

If file navigation and/or recovery is slow from within Windows version of Acronis, it may be due to not enough available resources.  You might find better performance by booting directly into offline Acronis bootable recovery media and attempting to navigate files/folders from there and even attempting a restore to see if performance is any better.  Alternatively, minor hardware upgrades such as adding more physical memory to your system or replacing a slower mechanical/spinning hard drive with an SSD can provide signficant performance boosts, not just with Acronis, but in all applications as well as other areas like system startup and shutdown too. 

Thanks for your response. I doubt its a hard drive issue. This was the case with my older Windows 7 computer and with my new W10 computer. Got 737GB free of 917GB on i7 7200rpm harddrive.  Nothing else takes this long.  It takes 1-2 minutes for each click. 

Oh, 16GB(8x2) 2133Mhz DDR4

How big are the backup .TIB's that you're accessing? I would imagine it would take a bit longer to navigate larger backup files than smaller ones as well.  Also, if you're running Antivirus software, is it set to scan the location(s) where youre .TIB's are being created?  If so, you may want to consider excluding that location or directories as many AV applications wil actively scan files as they are being accessed which could also cause a bit of performance issue.

A 7200 RPM drive should be pretty adequate, but might explain why it takes you longer to navigate through .TIBs than me.  It is night and day when you compare an SSD (even a low end one) to a spinning drive when it comes to launching applications, application response, and file copies/transfers when.  

If at all possible, you might want to see about grabbing a Samsung Evo 850 250GB SSD or something comparable as your primary boot (OS drive) and pushing your OS onto it and then using your 1TB drive for file storage for things like backups, pictures and videos that will mostly live in the same place.  

HnLA,

I would suggest opening a Task Manager session while you are exploring backup files and watching what processes are running and which ones are eating up the most resources.  This way you can determine if a True Image related process is causing the slow down or if it is something else on your system.

I see the COM Surrogate goes up to 16% when I click each step.  The CPU goes from 5 to 25-30%

The tib files are large, as I guess everything I have backed up is a lot of stuff, including many photos. bX.s1.v1 is about 26GB. The other ones are 16MB to 1GB.

On my W7 machine I had Acronis and Retrospect. I suppose Retrospect only over wrote files, it did not keep multiple versions like Acronis does.  (Retrospect no longer offers a real file back up program. They have a "entire PC backup" like Acronis,).  I would like a file back up that is easily and quickly accessible. Acronis and Retrospect are good for crashes (I hope), but not that good to find files. When I transfered old files to new computer, luckily I had the Old Retrospect program backing up to external drive. Made it easy to quickly copy/paste to new computer.

Also, every few months I would move the latest file back up out so that it was saved permanently, in case I needed to go back.  I think with Acronis, after the old tibs are deleted they are gone.  I am not sure if you can copy and paste them and then access them months later. 

Thank you

If you do backups with Acronis bootable media, you can copy and move .TIBS and restore them down the road.  You just don't want to set a backup in Windows and move .TIB's around because it messes up the database it uses to track incrementals, etc.  I copy backups to 3 different locations (just in case) and can restore from the offline bootable recovery just fine.  So far for me, file recovery hasn't been bad in the Windows version of Acronis, and offine bootable media recoveries work fine too - you might find that to be a faster option.

I've used retrospect as well and it should allow for file recovery, but depends on how you set it up.  I use the default retention policy (Retrospect version 10) which is 12 months or until the allocated space becomes full with daily backups rolled into a weeky and weeksly rolled into a monthly each month.  Another product for another forum though.

If you want a simple file duplication (not really a backup though), maybe look at something like Alwaysync.  It is not a backup solution, but allows you to replicate a source to a destination and keep the two in synch so you'll have an exact copy of both directories in 2 locations.  

What version of Windows are you using?   Win 7 had issues with this in several areas.  You should have a look at dllhost.exe process and see what file that process is handling.  If the file is a video file that file is probably corrupted and is very likely to be the problem.  

This was the same on old W7 computer as brand new W10 computer. I assume that since I am backing up a lot of files it is slow.

I just tried to copy a tib file to the desktop, but that too takes a long time to open each step. I see that even though the tib file says its 98MB, when I open it, it has the last 20-some tib backup files too.

I tried to see how large the files are, but I cannot right-click to see the folder size.

I suppose there is no way to use Acronis to access files directly. The program is really just in case of emergency.

The most common problem here is a corrupted video file.  You say that your Windows 10 is brand new, brand new as in you upgraded your Win 7 to Windows 10 or is this Windows 10 a clean install?

Again, have a look at what dllhost.exe is doing.  There may be more than one instance or dlhost.exe running on your PC so have a look at all of them.

Com surrogate can also be Malware so I would suggest you update your virus definitions and give your machine a deep scan.

On the off chance that you might have a corrupted system file(s) you can run the Windows System File Checker to check for errors.  From an admin command prompt type SFC /SCANNOW making sure there is a space between the C and /.

I have a brand new computer.  The problem was the same with my old W7 and BRAND new W10 computer. I doubt there is a corrupted system.

If I click on C;/Prog Files, etc. I can get to the file in 5 seconds. If I click on .tib file it takes over 10 mintues.

Is this only happening to me? I have Norton Antivirus.  When I open a tib file I do not see Norton getting busy n the Task Manager only COM surrogate

What you need to understand here is that COM surrogate is a waste repositry for an ongoing process.  The dllhost.exe process is tied directly to COM surrogate.  Again, have a look at the dllhosts.exe associated files.  If Norton or any other application or file is eating up resources during your tib exploring then that file is in most cases going to be the problem here.  If it turns out Norton is the one that is slowing things down then you would need to add the processes and services of the TI product to the exclusion or whitelist in Norton which would hopefully resolve the situation.

Thanks, how do I do that?

Visit the link provided here, review the article and dowload and install the Process Monitor.  Use that tool to discover what dllshost.exe instances are doing and see the amount of resources are being consumed by them.  Make ceratin you understand the usage of Process Monitor, read the Help file included in the package.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/processmonitor.aspx

Is there a way to copy files as raw files and not as .tib files? Maybe that will help me access the files quicker. Thank you.

IF your backup is already made, you have to mount the tib (right click and mount) and then restore from the mounted volume via copy/paste or double click the .tib and navigate in Explorer and copy and paste that way. 

If you only intend to copy the original files, you don't need backup software, but instead would be better off with a synching product.  Windows has robocopy.exe embedded (command line) which can do this.  Otherwise a free product like allwaysync might meet your copy/sync needs as well.  I would not replace a backup solution though, but instead, supplement it with a sync solution as syncing doesn't protect your data, only replicates it in different places. 

I tried to mount, but it says there are no partitions.  I just want to see the raw files.

I used to use Retrospect, but now their product is like Acronis, really just a whole computer back up in case of emergencies, and not a way to copy your files.

Allwaysync did not get such good reviews. I am wondering what people use to back up raw files. When I switched to a new computer, having raw files easily accessible thru retrospect made copying them and later referring back to them, much , much easier.

If you have made a backup of Files & Folders then this has no partitions and cannot be mounted, however, you can still double-click on the file in Windows Explorer and explore the archive contents as you could with a zip archive file.

Thanks, but I have no idea what you mean.  All I know is that when I click on the tib file it takes a long time to open, then the next level takes a long time to open.  So basically for just copying the raw files, Acronis is not much help. 

Back when I used the old Retrospect backup it would copy the files. The target drive was easy to access, copy/paste, etc. Retrospect no longer provides this, and is similar to Acronis, in that it really does entire drive backup.

I just want to copy files to external drive and be able to access them easily. I guess I will have to get another program. :(

HnLA - when you configure a backup, you pick the option for "Entire PC", or "Disks and Partitions" or "files and folders".  If you picked files and folders, there is no mount option and only the double clicking on the .tib file as you are doing.  

We also use Retrospect at work - I'll refrain from commenting on it, but have been using it since version 6.5 and have not seen any feature to copy and paste directly from a backup set, mount from within Windows or double click and navigate with Windows Explorer - it is all done wiht the application. You can restore in similar fashion wiht the Acronis applicaiton as well, mount the .tib (if not a file and folder backup) outside of the application, or double click the .tib and navigate with file explorer outside of the application.

I really don't know why it's slow in your case.  It's almost instantaneous on my system.  The only thing that comes to mind is if you are opening an incremetnal with several incremetnals before it as it needs to parse through all of them to get to the data in the last incremental.  If this is a full or differential backup, it should go pretty quickly.

same here. (every click I have to go do something else, literally) I have two 8TB internal drivess then 256G SSD for OS, and my documents. I'm 1-3 minutes per mouseclick as well, and actually wonder if I'd ever be able to "recover" anything with ACRONIS....My computer is brand new, i5 PC. 

Hello Kenneth,

thank you for your posting! Do you have any external drives connected to the machine at the same time? Please check out 68788: Acronis True Image 2021: program GUI is slow when external drive is attached 

If the above article is not applicable in your case, I'd check out 46770: Acronis True Image: Troubleshooting Performance Issues for the general troubleshooting steps and test the latest build if the issue still persists.