Acronis 2021 Mac Replication not working
Hi! I'm getting a strange error repeatedly when I try to replicate one particular backup to the cloud. It tells me "Network disconnected by timeout". This is nonsense, for two reasons: (1) We have a fibre connection, and it very seldom disconnects; plus, no other running programs show any indication of a network disconnection during the period the replication was running. And (2), after the first time, the error message has appeared almost instantly, suggesting that the program hasn't even started replicating.
As I say, this error has recurred every time a backup completes and it tries to replicate it (9–10 times now); as well as whenever I've started the replication manually. Meanwhile other backups have been replicating successfully.
I would really like if possible to avoid re-doing the replica from scratch, as this is a large backup, and the initial replication takes a long time. Is there any way of troubleshooting this situation without simply deleting the existing replica?
Many thanks for any help you can give with this.
Steve Smith wrote:Steve, I can only recommend that you raise this issue directly with Acronis Support so that they can check from their server end of the connection as well.
Caveat: I am a Windows user with no direct experience of using ATI on any Mac.
I do not use the replica feature of ATI 2021 as it is too inefficient for my needs, especially with only a 10 Mbps upload speed for my broadband provider. Normal cloud backups are 100% better given a full backup is only ever uploaded once then all subsequent backups are using a delta type incremental to upload only changed data.
Hi Steve — thanks for your response. (I believe it was you who helped me out a year or more ago when I was first trying to get set up with Acronis Cloud).
In fact my ATI must have been galvanised into action when you appeared on the scene, because despite over a dozen previous failures, it suddenly managed to finish replicating that backup just after I saw your reply to my post!
I'm interested in your comments about replication vs. direct cloud backups. Have the latter been significantly speeded up in ATI 2021? Because I was using them earlier with ATI 2020, and they took forever to complete (days, literally). That's why I switched to replication. I must say I've so far found subsequent replications (after the initial one) reasonably quick—a matter of a few hours at most.
Anyway, thanks for your input!
Actually I have another question which is sort-of related: I have my backups on a local external hard drive. This is not set up as an Acronis Survival Kit. If I create a survival kit on another external hard drive, could I use that as a boot device to restore my whole system in the case of a complete crash, but have it access the backup on the other HDD? (This would be for Windows, not Mac.)
Thanks for your help with this.
I'm interested in your comments about replication vs. direct cloud backups. Have the latter been significantly speeded up in ATI 2021? Because I was using them earlier with ATI 2020, and they took forever to complete (days, literally). That's why I switched to replication. I must say I've so far found subsequent replications (after the initial one) reasonably quick—a matter of a few hours at most.
The only time when any of my direct cloud backup tasks took an extended time to complete was for new backups uploading a full image for the first time, after that they typically have finished in under an hour as shown in the image below. Today's backup took nearly 2.5 hours but released 23GB of cloud storage when finished.
Actually I have another question which is sort-of related: I have my backups on a local external hard drive. This is not set up as an Acronis Survival Kit. If I create a survival kit on another external hard drive, could I use that as a boot device to restore my whole system in the case of a complete crash, but have it access the backup on the other HDD? (This would be for Windows, not Mac.)
Simple answer is yes and something I have just used today myself to do a full disk backup followed by a recovery to a new disk drive of the same type & size. For my operation I have both the backup and survival kit on the same HDD but it shouldn't matter if your backup is on a second drive provided both are accessible. You could add a survival kit partition (2GB) to your existing backup drive and have multiple options for backup & recovery.
Steve Smith wrote:You could add a survival kit partition (2GB) to your existing backup drive and have multiple options for backup & recovery.
Wow, that's good news! I thought creating a survival kit first formatted the disk? If I can just add a partition to my existing drive with the backups still on it, that will be a much quicker and more economical solution. Does the survival kit creation wizard allow for that option?
Steve, the option to create a Survival Kit is only offered when you are creating a new Disks & Partitions (or Entire PC) type backup task and are setting the Destination for the task to a suitable external USB drive that can be used for this purpose.
See KB 61639: Acronis True Image: how to create Acronis Survival Kit - for more information on the process.
Also KB 61738: Acronis True Image: Survival Kit disk partition for backups is limited to 2TB on BIOS-booted systems
And Acronis Article: The Acronis Survival Kit
Note: you can manually create the survival kit if you prefer to have total control!
First download a copy of the free MiniTool Partition Wizard software and install this, then use this app to move your existing NTFS partition on your backup drive to leave 2GB of unallocated space at the beginning of the drive.
Next, create a new FAT32 partition in that unallocated space, then allocate a drive letter to it.
At this point you can now use the normal Acronis Rescue Media Builder tool to create 'Simple' WinPE rescue media using the drive letter of the new 2GB FAT32 partition.
KB 65508: Acronis True Image 2021: how to create bootable media
Thanks so much, Steve! I hadn't realised you could add a boot partition to a drive with backups already on it. That's a tremendous help, and will save me a lot of trial and error and general hassle!
Steve Smith wrote:At this point you can now use the normal Acronis Rescue Media Builder tool to create 'Simple' WinPE rescue media using the drive letter of the new 2GB FAT32 partition.KB 65508: Acronis True Image 2021: how to create bootable media
Hi Steve,
I've just been looking at the above link, and trying to match it with the way you described it. I reached the screenshot about the media destination (see attachment), and wasn't sure how one is meant to continue from there (there are no further instructions other than "Click Proceed"). I assume I'd be choosing the WIM image file? And is it at that point that I'd be able to specify the drive letter of my new 2GB FAT32 partition?
Sorry, it may be that this becomes very obvious when actually doing it, but I'm trying to avoid possibly having to interrupt the process in mid-stream to ask this question!
Thanks again for your help.
Steve, you need to have created the 2GB FAT32 partition on your external drive and assigned a drive letter to this that can be accessed in Windows, then you should be using the option for the new drive letter from the HDD.
The image above is from my laptop with my external drive connected, where my equivalent rescue media partition is ESD-USB (F:) and the main NTFS partition for the same drive is Seagate2TB (S:), so if I was using the above tool, I would be selecting the F: drive for where the media is to be created.
Once you have a working boot HDD drive, you can easily update this when needed by using the option to just create a new WIM file, then copy that file to the \Sources\ folder on the boot FAT32 partition using the same file name as the one already there, i.e. boot.wim
My own ESD-USB (F:) drive is actually 32GB in size (FAT32) and has a multi-boot options menu that allows me to install Windows 10 or boot from various WinPE based programs including ATI 2021, 2020, 2019 etc.
Ah, I see. So the destination options are dependent on what's actually plugged in at the time. But then I wonder, why didn't any of my other plugged-in external drives appear, like your Seagate2TB? I have 3 external HDDs normally attached to my Windows machine. Or does it have to be a FAT32 or WinPE drive?
Steve, for the Acronis rescue media, it needs to be a FAT32 partition / drive with a visible drive letter. Not sure why my Seagate 2TB drive was shown in the list as that is NTFS and I would not want to have the tool touch that drive and lose all the contents!
What format are your external drives using? Many of the newer drives come with exFAT rather than NTFS?
Steve Smith wrote:Steve, for the Acronis rescue media, it needs to be a FAT32 partition / drive with a visible drive letter. Not sure why my Seagate 2TB drive was shown in the list as that is NTFS and I would not want to have the tool touch that drive and lose all the contents!
What format are your external drives using? Many of the newer drives come with exFAT rather than NTFS?
No, all of mine are NTFS. Maybe your Seagate drive only appeared because it was the host of the FAT32 partition?
Anyway, you've shown me what to expect, so tomorrow I'll have a go at creating the FAT32 boot partition (workday's drawing to an end out here in South Africa). Thanks again for your help!