Backups using a chain limit gradually slow to around 1/4 speed of the first backup

Please look at the attached chart showing that the full BU speed (blue) declines with successive BU's on both my computer (Ray’s) and my wife’s computer (Betty’s). The blue bars in the chart are the weekly full BU speed and the orange dots are the incremental BU speeds. You will clearly see that each full BU speed is getting slower. It is starting to stabilize at about 1/5 the speed of the first backups. I've also attached the activity list.

The issue is not the hardware, software, or configuration. You will see the same decline if you will run the same 3-chain task on any computer. I've attached a pdf showing my setup.

I've been working with several Acronis support techs for over a year. They had me run lots of test, upload log files, etc. Finally, they escalated the issue and the team said it's a known problem they are aware of but don't have an ETA for a solution.

Ray, are you using ATI 2018 as in your signature, or ATI 2021 (you have posted in the ATI 2021 forum),

Ian

Thanks, I've updated my profile.

I'm using ATI 2021, Build 39216. Attached is a screen shot of my Backup Method showing "Store no more than 3 recent version chains." The method creates a new full version every 6 incrementals. I run the backup daily, which results in the 7-day cycle.

Also attached is the spreadsheet for my and my wife's daily backup with charts showing the full-backup (blue) slowing down. You'll also see the slowdown in the average incrementals (orange).

After creating the task, the first 3 chains are new and I'd expect them to each be the same speed but you will see that the BU speed slows down. You'll see that after 3 or 4 full backups the speed has dropped from 1,000 Mbps and stabilizes at about 200 Mbps - 1/5th the speed it should be.  

When Acronis creates an independent new full BU, perhaps their algorithm is trying to use unchanged data in the previous chain rather than just backing up everything.

This slowdown can be easily fixed by creating independent full backups and limiting the number of chains by deleting the oldest.

Wenn Laufwerksbackups von größeren Datenmengen gemacht werden sollen und mehrere Backupketten/ Backupversionen erstellt werden sollen, ist das alte .tib Format die bessere Wahl (Gleichmäßigere Backup- und Validierungsdauer).

Backupscript bearbeiten.

Zuerst in den "Explorer-Optionen" (Ordner-Optionen) "Ausgeblendete Dateien, Ordner und Laufwerke anzeigen" anhaken, um später den "Scripts" Ordner finden zu können.

Um ein .tib Format zu erzwingen, erstellt man einen neuen Backuptask mit den gewünschten Einstellungen und speichert den Backuptask mit "Später".

Da man bei ATI 2021 das Acronis Active Protection nicht wirklich abschalten kann, startet man den Rechner im "abgesicherten Modus".

Als nächstes den Dateipfad "C:\ProgramData\Acronis\TrueImageHome\Scripts" öffnen und anhand des Änderungsdatums das richtige Backupscript auswählen. Man kann das Backupscript mit dem Editor öffnen und oben nach dem Backupnamen schauen.

Hat man das Backupscript gefunden, dann das Backupscript bearbeiten und bei ".tibx" das "x" löschen und speichern.

Danach den Rechner neu starten.

Anschließend das Backup starten und später schauen, ob jetzt wieder die normale Dateiendung vorhanden ist (full_b1_s1_v1.tib).

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If you want to backup larger amounts of data, or you are want to create several backup chains / backup versions, the old .tib format is the better choice (more even backup and validation time).

Edit backup script.

First check in the "Explorer options" (folder options) "Show hidden files, folders and drives" in order to be able to find the "Scripts" folder later.

To force a .tib format, create a new backup task with the desired settings and save the backup task with "Later". Since you cannot really switch off Acronis Active Protection with ATI 2021, you start the computer in "safe mode".

Next, open the file path "C:\ProgramData\Acronis\TrueImageHome\Scripts" and select the correct backup script based on the change date. You can open the backup script with the editor and look for the backup name at the top.

If you have found the backup script, then edit the backup script, delete the "x" from ".tibx" and save.

Then restart the computer.

Then start the backup and see later whether the normal file extension is available again (full_b1_s1_v1.tib).

G. Uphoff thanks for the post but this seems too complicated for me. Hopefully, it will help others.

Today, when I opened Acronis, it popped up a message, "As a part of your subscription, you are eligible to upgrade to Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office" and below it was View release notes. The True Image product has gradually expanded into cyber security, so the new name reflects this.

More interesting, the first release note is: 

• [TI-172086] In the "Version chain" backup scheme, a differential backup is created instead of a full one on the second backup launch.

Each differential is everything changed since the full BU. It’s not clear to me what they do. The first tibx has a true full BU and 6 incrementals. The release note says that the 2nd tibx is a differential. It could be a differential to just the full BU or full BU plus incrementals on the 1st tibx. When they create the 3rd tibx differential, what do they use? When the get to the 4th tibx, when finished they will delete the 1st tibx that has the full BU. Clearly, they must be updating the tibx file with what will be deleted. Somehow, the remaining 3 tibx have to have all the files.

Attached is what file explorer says in in my 3 tibx files after today’s full BU. Note that today’s tibx has 2 weeks of BU. The 2 older tibx have the prior 2 weeks of BU. No wonder it’s so slow.

A few months ago, when I was creating this new task, I tried using Acronis to delete the older tibx files to make room on my HD. Acronis had a difficult time and eventually destroyed the ability to recover any data. The tibx files are so intertwined, that it is a mess.

Ray,

Are you using a Version Chain Scheme?  I doubt that you are unless you specifically made that choice during your backup task configuration.  ATI default is Incremental Scheme using and Incremental backup Method.  These are not one and the same.

As for the backups that Explorer shows you, this is expected behavior.  The .tibx container holds all files created by the the Backup plan/task.  All files within a backup plan are dependent on each other no matter if an individual file is a Full, Inc, or Diff, meaning that all files must be present in destination location and represent the backup Chain for the defined plan/task.  Each time the backup plan runs it scans all files in the tibx container to look for changes in data.  In your case you have a large amount of data and a huge amount of data in your backup chain.  This is at root of your slowdown.

My advice is to make your backup chain much smaller by reducing the amount of files retained before cleanup occurs.  Personally I have 1 large data backup that I run daily.  It is around 478GB in size.  It is configured as a Files and Folders backup using a Custom Scheme, Diff backup Method, consisting of a Full backup followed by 5 diff with store no more than 3 version chains.  A Full backup takes about an hour and 20 minutes to complete.  Diffs are usually just a few hundred KB and run in a matter of seconds.  the files created are tib format which do not have the dependencies of the tibx format.  The backup data of this task is for all files on the disk and the disk is for data only, no OS or system files of any kind.  You might consider doing something like this depending on what your data consists of.

Sorry for taking so long to respond. Some how I wasn't getting notifications.

I am using a Version Chain Scheme that defaults to creating incremental backups. I create a new full version after 6 incrementals and keep the 3 most recent versions.

Acronis admits there's a problem in their design. They apparently don't get enough complaints to fix it. I called them a few weeks ago. They said they’d check and call me back but I haven’t heard.

If you open 585105-289851.xlsx that I posted on 8/11/2021, you will see the slowing down of backups. For incremental backups, Acronis has to search backward through the incrementals to the full backup to see if the current file is newer. As the number of increments in the chain increases, I’d expect the search to take longer too. A differential backup search should be faster as it only needs to find the date of the file in the full backup.

I don’t think the issue is incremental versus differential backup or tibx verses tib format but the algorithm. Why is the 2nd version (BU's 8 - 14) significantly slower than the 1st (BU's 1 - 7)? Each version should be independent. But each new version is slower than the previous ones. Acronis has to be unnecessarily searching all previous versions. But it's worse than that because it should then stabilize after the maximum number of 3 versions is reached but it continues slowing down.