UPDATE: This is Definitely NOT the Worst Program EVER!!!!!!! (Sorry about that)
UPDATE: I discovered that this was being caused by a bad USB port (that my external hard drive was attached to), and not TI 2021. After I plugged the external hard drive in to a different USB port, it is running fast and consistent.
And, yes, I am "eating crow" right now. I have worked with PC's since back in the pre-Windows DOS days. So I should have thought to test the hardware before jumping to conclusions. My apologies to Acronis.
**********************************************************************************************************************************
ORIGINAL POST: I cannot even try, without lots of dirty words, to describe how much I HATE True Image 2021!!!!
I had True Image 2019, and loved it. Fast backups and clones. Easy to use. Easy restores from backups. No problems ever.
So I finally bit the bullet and bought TI 2021 for my desktop. Sadly, when I did that, I transferred my license for TI 2019 to my laptop, where it is running wonderfully as we speak.
TI 2021 is terribly, awfully, horribly slow. I used to back up about 1 TB of data using TI 2019, and it never took more than 6 hours to backup and verify that data even for a full backup. Now, when I start that exact same backup, it tells me 12+ hours remaining to complete the job. Way more than double what it took before.
And cloning is even worse. It used to take less than 3 hours to clone that same drive. Now it says 12+ hours when I start it. It also used to take about 5 minutes to chose the 2 disks and start the process. I tried it yesterday and it took over 45 minutes before it started. I then cloned that same drive in under 3 hours with NTI Echo 5.
I read somewhere to disable the Protection option, but that didn't help at all.
I just do not understand what happened to True Image. But I am about to go uninstall it, since it is useless at this point.
If anybody has any suggestions how to increase the speed back to TI 2019 levels, please share them. But, at this point, I don't have much hope.
I don't think Acronis wants to make Backup software anymore, they for some reason think they should switch to being like Bitdefender or Kaspersky instead.
I accidentally installed ATI2021 while doing my recent restore, and I immediately noticed something was wrong - where did the options go when recover files from a backup? A quick uninstall of ATI 2021 and an install of ATI 2020 set it right.
I don't know why they can't just launch "Acronis Anti-Virus" if that's what they want to do. It'd be like if Ford wanted to begin developing a space program so they used the F-150 as the base of all their rockets, just bizarre.
John, while I understand your sentiments I would have to disagree only with your forum post title. I have seen worse programs.
Anyway, levity aside I can say that there is a lot of consternation over the fact that ATI 2021 shoved in all the protection stuff without any ability to choose not to install it nor a way to turn it all off. It is suggested to use the feedback in the program to express your feelings about this.
I have stayed with ATI 2019 on my production machine and only use ATI 2021 on a test bed. ATI 2020 introduced the .tibx backup format which although may be more robust, it does take more time and is not as readily understood.
+1 to Bruno's observations. Unfortunately Acronis did not listen to the feedback given during beta testing - probably was too late to change things at that stage and meet the (marketing dictated) release date.
After much stuffing around I have managed to get ATI 2021 to play nice for my purposes. I share Bruno's concerns about the *.tibx architecture. Being risk averse I used several other backup solutions for my mission critical data.
Ian
BrunoC wrote:ATI 2020 introduced the .tibx backup format which although may be more robust, it does take more time and is not as readily understood.
I didn't even notice the file format change, I assume this is why I can no longer mount my backups?
Just to clarify when the issues were just to do with the Protection components in the initial release I was annoyed but not too concerned. Now in the later 2 releases of ATI2021 while that seems to work a bit better, they have broken the backup systems to such an extent that I can't trust it to get a backup to either a hard drive or my NAS consistently and reliably. I had issues also with restoring / mounting backups. The tibx thing is not really an issue for me except I for the life of me can't understand why they changed the naming structure which very easy to understand previously and now makes no sense. I haven't noticed massive differences in speed so I but I do take the point about mounting now being gone?
Is it possible to use .tib any longer? In 2020 or 2021?
Mounting of .tibx files was not possible in ATI 2020 but has been restored back again in ATI 2021.
You can use a work-around to continue using .tib files for Disks & Partitions backups in both 2020 & 2021 versions but this only works for new backup tasks. You cannot convert a task which has already created any .tibx files to go back to using .tib files!
See forum topic: How to create a Disk backup as .tib (not .tibx) which will create a new backup task using the older .tib format in the Windows ATI 2020 or 2021 GUI.
The .tibx file format is only new to ATI but has been used for some years with the premium Acronis Backup business product range, so this move is intended to bring ATI closer to that product and probably save having separate development teams essentially producing different products to do the same Backup, Recovery and Cloning purposes! ATI 2020 was the first step in this migration and had a whole bucketful of limitations / restrictions because it was released before the migration had been fully completed. ATI 2021 started to address more of the limitations but it is obvious that Acronis have moved their focus from the core Backup, Recovery & Cloning features of ATI to force users into their unwanted Cyber Protection arena (again being migrated from their premium Acronis Cyber Protect Backup products), and doing just as bad a job as they did originally with ATI 2020 and .tibx files!
Problem solved. Please see my update in my original post above.
All I can say is well done for solving your problem - but for me I have had so many recent issues with Acronis both via a hard drive and a NAS that nothing has changed. L2 Support has reached out to me today but I am over them. I have spent so much time with their support people and got very little actual assistance.
John, glad that you have found and got round the root issue for your problems with ATI 2021.
Craig, if you want to do anything further with the issues you are seeing, then I would suggest making a clean start here in the forum with a new topic opened by yourself, and we will do our best to try to help.
Note: the MVPs are not employed by Acronis and have no access to any of their Support systems etc! We are just experienced users who are willing to help other users here in the forums!
John, thanks for the update.
It's not always easy to eliminate possible sources of a problem. It would be interesting to develop some kind of wizard that could interact with the user, the system and the ATI database to really hone in on problems. Wishful thinking on my part.