Sync with file backup problem
I purchased the upgrade to ATI 2012 from 2011 because of my need to copy my photographic images to a NAS drive. This is done so that all PCs in the household can view them but also because the NAS drive can act as a media server and display the images on my TV. I currently use Microsoft's SyncToy program to perform this task but it seemed a good idea that the task be performed by the backup program.
I have set up a 'Sync' to copy the files from my D:\Pictures folder to my NAS drive \\Datashare\Media Server\Pictures folder. The majority of the files were already on the NAS when I set this up so I thought the process would not take long. I set it up yesterday morning and by 17:00 it was about 85% completed. At this point the D: drive backup started. It should have been a short (incremental) backup but was still running at 22:00. I noticed that the 'Sync' was then showing about 10% completed.
My investigations have shown that my image files are having their 'archive bit' set so the backup is having to backup files that have not been altered. At this point your Sync program seems to be 'starting over' and re-syncing files that are already on the NAS drive.
Why would a Sync program need to reset the archive bit when just copying files to another location.? This then means that the next backup run they all get backed up again even though they haven't been changed. It's a vicious circle and one I can do without, there are over 30000 images to backup.
Thanks for replying Colin.
No, SyncToy is a manual process and has nothing loaded in memory until you do a 'sync'. I had disabled the Windows schedule that performed a 'sync' after installing ATI 2012.
I have carried out an experiment this morning with a couple of test folders after a full de-install and re-install of ATI 2012. (I used the Acronis Cleanup Utility 2.0)
The files in the source directory have no archive bit set. After the 'sync' the files still do not have the archive bit set but those in the destination directory do. I have double checked the files in my d: (data) drive, which had a full backup 2 days ago, and every file that I checked still have the archive bit set. Obviously I can't check them all.
This would suggest that it's the backup process, rather than the 'sync', that is failing to clear the archive bit. This would be born out by the fact that I'm currently running another D: (data) backup that should be an incremental and it's still running after creating a .TIB file that is more than 50gb in size. There have been no changes to any data files, other than my emails, for the last two days. The backup, at most, should be a gb or so.
As suspected the next D: drive backup included ALL files and ended up the same size as the original 'full' backup (388GB). Moreover, it included a backup of my email folder that was deliberately not included in the backup set.
I don't understand why my D: drive file backups will not perform an 'incremental' where my email backup and my C: drive partition backups do. I'm close to requesting a refund as my patience is wearing thin. At least I can now say that it was not the 'Sync' process that was causing it.
I have checked a number of files on both the C: & D: drives and there are many files with the archive bit set on both drives even after the backups. It seems ATIH doesn't use these as a flag and doesn't reset them after a backup.
Norman,
I've got no other suggestions at this moment, why not raise a support ticket?
I have but they're very slow to respond. Inundated with 2012 problems I bet. I may start a new one and request on-line chat option. I've used that twice before and they were very helpful.