Cloud storage for backup

There are two options (using Acronis) to create a Cloud backup:

• create the backup directly to the Cloud. This can be rather slow (after first backup) as the incremental backup is done by disk segments, and due to the use of deduplication. The speed of you connection makes some difference, however, I have rarely seen speeds in excess of 20Mbps. A 2TB backup would take between 48 and 60 hours; subsequent incremental backups would be much quicker.
• create a local backup (only works for disks and partitions) then once the first backup is completed, select Replicate, which copies the backup to the Acronis cloud. Not sure how fast that would be (unsure to what extent it used deduplication which would decrease the amount uploaded, but increase the time. The big drawback is that a new local backup chain has to be created, which will produce another large file to be uploaded - you will rapidly run out of storage. 

So, the backup process will not be particularly swift. If you have an alternative cloud solution that allows large files to be backed (at a much faster speed) up then that may be viable. You can reduce the size of the *.tibx or *.tib files created when configuring the local backup that will then be copied to your cloud solution.

Ian

Ian,

Thanks for that good info.  I will have to look into the max upload speeds of the various candidates like backblaze, Google, etc.  I will be copying from my local NAS so I assume you just make sure all files are copied over via a manual process. Or maybe a sync program if there is one that works with cloud services.

Just checking on this:

"You can reduce the size of the *.tibx or *.tib files created when configuring the local backup that will then be copied to your cloud solution."

If you mean an incremental backup I did configure mine for weekly differentials. So for a differential you would just copy that file and the updated index file? Or is there more I can do?

I don't have massive data changes so after first backup the incrementals are pretty small and quick.

But strange that if you have a good local backup and you replicate that it creates a new local chain? I always thought that that was really fancy language for "copy"😀

Seems like making a backup directly to the acronis cloud may not be reasonable at large file sizes. Seems safer to have a local backup and then copy it over to somewhere? Then if there is corruption you at least still have your local backup?

Thanks,

BJB

BJB wrote:

Just checking on this:

......

"You can reduce the size of the *.tibx or *.tib files created when configuring the local backup that will then be copied to your cloud solution."

If you mean an incremental backup I did configure mine for weekly differentials. So for a differential you would just copy that file and the updated index file? Or is there more I can do?

I don't have massive data changes so after first backup the incrementals are pretty small and quick.

.......

BJB

I was not referring to incremental backups. When configuring a backup, one of the Advanced options is Backup Splitting; you can set this to automatic, use one of the pre-sets or create a custom one:

Ian 

Ahh.....the size of each individual file will be smaller, vs.one big file. Got it.

Thanks,

BJB

That is it. Not something I have used for a long time, but good to know it is there for when it is needed.

Ian

Well after days researching this.....raw cloud storage I could copy backups to, storage my NAS could backup to, looking at various plans, file size limits, file type limits, you name it...  Everything has a last second caveat!

I see Acronis cloud is 50% off through Dec 1. Back to seriously considering that. Sorry, a few last questions.

If I get 5tb for 5 PCs I assume the 5TB is shared not each PC? 

As far as upgrading my PC's  from the perpetual version to the cloud version does it keep my backup setups and schedule or is it an uninstall/reinstall?

And re-reading the thread here and the good info, since I want to continue to backup to my NAS locally, for each full and subsequent incremental backup do I understand it would make a backup to my nas first and then it would copy/"replicate" my files from the nas to the cloud after the backup?  

The sales info implies the replicate is automated. If I have scheduled backups will it do both the NAS backup and the cloud copy automatically?

Does this sound like a good solution for my needs?

Thanks,

BJB

BJB wrote:

If I get 5tb for 5 PCs I assume the 5TB is shared not each PC? 

As far as upgrading my PC's  from the perpetual version to the cloud version does it keep my backup setups and schedule or is it an uninstall/reinstall?

And re-reading the thread here and the good info, since I want to continue to backup to my NAS locally, for each full and subsequent incremental backup do I understand it would make a backup to my nas first and then it would copy/"replicate" my files from the nas to the cloud after the backup?  

The sales info implies the replicate is automated. If I have scheduled backups will it do both the NAS backup and the cloud copy automatically?

Does this sound like a good solution for my needs?

The 5TB is shared by all devices signed in to your Acronis Account using any registered version of ATI or ACPHO.

The rules on being able to upgrade to ACPHO depend on what version you are coming from, for older versions Acronis will recommend doing an uninstall then installing the new version, for more recent versions it may be possible to do a direct upgrade.

Where provided, you can use the option in Settings in the GUI to save your backup configuration data to a zip file then be able to import this back later.  This does not include schedule information if I remember correctly.

Replication in my opinion is not worth the trouble and is a poor alternative to doing a direct Cloud backup with all the automated control the latter would give you.

Doing a separate Cloud backup would have the initial pain of a full backup being uploaded to the Cloud but thereafter only changed data is ever uploaded.  Replication on the other hand follows the local backup scheme, so if you set to create a new backup chain after 5 incrementals, replication is going to upload a full backup every 6 executions!  Plus to my knowledge, the user has to manage cleanup for replication!  That makes it very easy for your Cloud storage to be exhausted by unwanted extra backups!

O my!  Great input. 

Sounds best to setup 2 automated backups. One to NAS and one to cloud.

But do I recall that acronis gets cranky if you setup two backups for the same drive?

I have acronis trueimage 2021 perpetual license.

Thanks,

BJB

BJB wrote:

.......

But do I recall that acronis gets cranky if you setup two backups for the same drive?

.......

Thanks,

BJB

This is not something I have seen. I can happen if the backups are to the same directory. I have two Acronis Cloud backups of the system disk on my mission critical machine, one is daily and the other is weekly. Never had a problem.

The only thing to remember is that the speed of Cloud backups is limited by the way they work (all the processing is done locally requiting a lot two way communication between the PC and the cloud server) - any upload speed over 30 Mbps will not make any difference to the time backups take.

Ian

Got it, thanks!

Looks like I am going to do this.  With my acronis trueimage 2021 perpetual license should I just install over it or buy the upgrade from within it?  Or uninstall reinstall?

Thanks,

BJB

If you are upgrading from ATI 2021 to ACPHO then there should be no need to uninstall the former.

Look for any discounts on buying ACPHO as there are some on offer with Black Friday / Cyber Monday on the main Acronis site.

Found the discounts and was about to hit enter and read the fine print about renewal....

If I buy this for one year (5 PC's 5TB) when I renew next year, and assuming Acronis has their usual black friday deal, can I renew at that discounted rate or do I have to renew at the full price?

I know there are no guarantees for pricing....but say someone got the one year cloud deal last year, can they renew at this new discounted rate that is on their website?

Thanks again,

BJB
 

I would suggest that you may need to cancel any automatic renewal of your subscription then look for any new discounts being offered again next year when approaching that time rather than allowing an automatic renewal that may or may not be discounted?

Note: the above is just my view and not based on any experience as I have never purchased any subscription to Acronis products!

I agree with Steve on this - in my experience there is a disconnect between the billing system and the current status of a subscription. However, if you do get a renewal invoice, the email will contain a link allowing cancellation. This process is very quick in my experience.

Ian

Thanks! Think I will do it and fight the renewal battle in a year. If I cancel and re-up, hopefully my backups stay :)

You should get a 30-day grace period between the end of the subscription and before any backups are deleted from the Acronis Cloud to allow for delays in renewal.  You won't be able to make new backups during that grace period but the existing backups won't be removed.

I wanted to report back to this thread as I received a lot of great help and good advice!  I have successfully completed my OS drive cloud backup and my data drive backup.  My data drive was around 1.9TB and it took around 6 days to fully backup.  About what I expected.   I had to remind myself if I ever had to restore from the cloud it would be much faster with my 400Mbps download speed!

Thanks again for all the help. 

The only odd thing I cannot figure out is within the program you can go to "manage all your devices with online dashboard".  I have a username and password of course for my acronis account and licenses but it does not work. Says it is "temporary disabled or not activated"

If I try to get there from my direct web login page (which works) the dashboard does not work from there either.

I researched this and it talked about firewalls etc.

I clearly have activated my cyber license on the computer and my account login sees that as does the program.

But the dashboard is separate? Or needs to be activated? There was no option to activate the login which would make sense.

Sure it is something simple.  It has been a journey but glad I got this to work.  I now have local backups to my NAS and a cloud backup.

Thanks,

BJB

Recovery is much quicker, but is slower that recovering from a local backup. I suspect having download greater than 50 Mbps will make little or no difference (unless you are recovering multiple computers at the same time). There is still a lot of two way communication as decryption is done on the local PC and there will be access to multiple backup slices. I suspect that if recovering to the same drive, only sectors that are different on the local drive are recovered.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, that does help. Anyone have suggestions on this dashboard logon issue?

Also, did I see somewhere there is an android mobile app that gives you access to the backed up files?

I am a big instruction reader and saw manual on how to backup and restore...didn't see anything on the dashboard or app.

Thanks,

BJB

BJB wrote:

Thanks, that does help. Anyone have suggestions on this dashboard logon issue?

Also, did I see somewhere there is an android mobile app that gives you access to the backed up files?

I am a big instruction reader and saw manual on how to backup and restore...didn't see anything on the dashboard or app.

For any dashboard logon issues you need to open a Support Case direct with Acronis - I had some issues recently which miraculously were resolved after months of hassle with no action from my side but after Acronis just 'looked' at it and said they didn't change anything!  My personal take is that the dashboard is a waste of my time!

There are mobile apps for both Android & IOS but neither will do what you are suggesting - these are only for access to backups created from the mobile devices.

Acronis haven't published any information on the dashboard or mobile app other than that already found in the main ATI / ACPHO user manuals!

Steve,

Thanks again!  I appreciate it. Glad to know the dashboard is no big deal.

Currently the Cyber Home manual has the cloud backup process buried within the local backup process.

And when I looked for cloud specific docs, a lot of acronis business cloud docs came up.

Might be nice to have a complete cloud specific workflow document.

I will submit a ticket just to see on the dashboard. Glad it is no big deal.

Thanks,

BJB

Just thought I would update on the dashboard login issue and ticket.

So the error message for the dashboard says "This account is temporarily disabled or not activated. Please contact your administrator or support" whether I login from my windows desktop or android tablet and choose dashboard. The account login works fine.

I am glad to know the dashboard is not a big deal but figured I would take the opportunity to check out support. 

Setup a ticket and after 2 weeks of emailing back and forth on a case the resolution is they want to schedule a time to screenshare on my PC and pull program logs!

I really don't want anyone messing with my setup. My cloud backups completed (thanks again for the help with cloud backups), update per schedule and local NAS backups still work too.

And if the issue is on a browser-based login into their servers even from android I have no idea why someone would have to see my program logs....

I will probably just drop it as you said the dashboard doesn't really offer additional functionality, but I am sure second level support knows how to fix account setup on their end.

BJB

Yes, I agree with this; such a function is very lacking.

This thread is rather old but after about 2 months this did indeed get fixed by upper level support. Nothing on the pc or user side, it wad something on the web login or account side.

All has been good and dashboard works well.

BJB 

Dear BJB,
Thank you very much for letting us know.