Full Back-up Time Estimate
I am backing up my internal hard drive, which contains 745 GB, to a USB 2 external drive. What is an estimate of how long a full back will take? Thanks.
Thanks Steve. I have just upgraded to True Image 2018 from 2017. I appreciate that there are a lot of factors involved and since my computer is about 7 years old and only has USB 2 ports I expect the full back-up to take time. I started a full back-up a couple of days ago using image 2017. After approximately 8 hours, the time estimate bar said 13 hours remaining. I quit the back-up at that point and just did an differential back-up. I don't remember it taking that long when doing the original full back up. I am hoping that Image 2018 may be a little faster.
Bob
Bob, any initial Full backup can take longer but subsequent incremental or differential backups should be a lot faster, especially with some of the performance changes introduced with ATI 2018.
I tend to kick off such full backups in the evening then come back in the morning to check that all has run successfully. I too am using older hardware with only USB 2.0 drives or else backing up across my network to a NAS which also takes quite a time to complete (depending on what I am including in the backup).
Robert, the time remaining bar in ATI is notoriously inaccurate.
You may want to run some tests on your system. I created a 1GB temp folder and copied it to an external drive connected by usb2. It took 32 seconds to complete the transfer. So, if my math is correct (and it could be incorrect as I am a pilot and not a mathematician), then it would take over 6 hours to copy 745GB on my system (which is a very fast ASUS laptop).
Another test you could run is to see how long a 10GB file/folder backup takes. I believe that would give you the best indication on how long a full disk backup would take.
Steve...what say ye?
FtrPilot
The size of files being copied to a USB drive can make a difference here too, i.e. larger files will copy faster than lots of smaller files!
With the ATI backup, then the amount of free space available for the Microsoft VSS snapshot function to use will also be a factor, as this will act as a form of cache for feeding the transfer of data to the USB drive.
So I transferred a 1.39 GB file to the USB drive which took 61 sec. or about 43 sec. for 1 GB. The full backup file is 609 GB so it should take about 7.3 hours to transfer that file. As Steve has pointed out there is more than just file size involved, however, after approximately 8 hours (overnight) True Image said I still had 13 hours to go. I’m hoping FtrPilot is correct and the ATI time remaining is just not that accurate. I am leaving for a trip and will be gone for 12 days. When I get back I will install ATI 2018 and do a full backup no matter how long it takes.
On a completely separate note I am a retired FtrPilot with time in the F-4, F-15, F-14, and F/A-18 (Air Force with an exchange tour at VX-4 NAS Pt. Mugu). Also was the Sq Cmdr for the 6513th Red Hats.
Bob
Bob...thank you for your service. All of my time (3000+) is in F-4s all makes/models including Gs and RF (although I won't admit that in public). I retired in 91. Sounds like you had a very exciting career.
Randy
In general, estimation of copy time is an art rather than a science. I have no idea what algorithm ATI uses but (unless it does some kind of initial analysis of all the block sizes it's going to copy) it has no knowledge of the characteristics of the data it has not yet read. It must make assumptions about the remaining data. Similar to the last few blocks? Similar to the aggregate of all previously processed data? Who knows? But it's really a guess. (I suppose it could analyze all the data first but I hope it doesn't. I would rather it just get on with the copy.)
A plane copy within Windows has the same problem. When copying a mix of file types (with varying block sizes) the time remaining can vary wildly during the copy.
A couple things to add to the discussion...
1. Look in the event viewer to see if you are getting any errors on the USB drive that would be adding time. (I can't recall offhand where to look.)
2. If you are going to leave the backup to run overnight, increase the priority. Turn off as much stuff as you can to keep the machine dedicated to the backup. I would look into things like unplugging your network and then disabling any antivirus software which can add time.
3. Don't believe the estimated time remaining. I've seen cases where it can show a very long time and then suddenly it drops drastically.
Folks - thanks for all you help! I will get back here in a couple of weeks and report on the time for my full back up.
Thanks again.
Bob
As promised my back-up took 16.2 hours. My system consists of:
Processer: AMD Phenom II 2.8 Ghz
Internal RAM: 8.0 GB
Internal Drive: WD ST2000DM 2TB SATA II
External Drive: WD MyPassport USB 2.0
Below is a screen shot after the back-up showing the amount and types of data backed-up.
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Question: Why doesn’t Acronis provide an easier way to delete old back-up files other than having to boot the computer using the Recovery Disk? Thanks.
Bob
Bob, I don't see any mention as to whether you have the Validation option set. If you do, that'll darn near double the time it takes.
Bob, from your screen shot, you have a lot of pictures and videos (approx 400GB) and these types of files do not compress when backed up as are already in a highly compressed format, so this will account for an extended time for the backup operation.
With regards to your question: "Why doesn’t Acronis provide an easier way to delete old back-up files other than having to boot the computer using the Recovery Disk? "
Acronis does provide an easier way to delete old backup file by using automatic cleanup rules configured for each backup task which you can enable.
I have never needed to boot any of my computers using the Recovery Disk just to delete such backup files, and doing so would still cause an issue if the deleted files were created by an existing backup task that is shown in the ATI GUI because information for those files is stored in the Acronis Database and will give pop-up error messages when the task is next run.
You can delete backup files using Windows Explorer but will need to turn of Acronis Active Protection in order to do so with ATI 2018, then run a Validation for the backup task that created the files to reconcile the database data.
I did not have any validation set.
Steve - thanks for the information.
Since I had failed to implement any automatic clean-up I read the following from the TI 2018 User’s Manual:
4.6.7
To delete a specific backup version:
1. Start your computer by using bootable media. Refer to Arranging boot order in BIOS (p. 92) for details.
2. In the Recovery section, click Refresh backups. This will update the backup list. If you cannot find the target backup in
the list, or the backup is located on removable media, click Browse for backup, and provide the path to the backup.
3. Depending on type of the backup, go to the Disk backups or File backups tab.
4. Right-click the backup version that you want to delete, and then click Remove. The opened window displays the list of backup versions that will be deleted. See below why this list may contain more than one backup version.
5. To confirm the deletion, click Delete.
On occasion TI 2018 is simply too darn powerful and there are too many options available. :-)
Bob
Bob, using automatic cleanup is the best way to do this and much easier than booting from the rescue media provided you have sufficient space on your backup target drive to hold at least 2 full backup files. Once you have configured automatic cleanup then you should be able to leave it and forget about it, letting ATI manage your backups for you.
The key points to understand about automatic cleanup is that this works on completed backup version chains.
A version chain = 1 x Full backup plus all associated Incremental or Differential backups that share the same _b?_ backup sequence number.
Old version chains are never deleted until a new version chain has been successfully started by the creation of a new Full backup file.
If you use the option to delete version chains older than say 7 days, those days do not start counting until the next version chain has been started.
One reason for the extended backup times would be the limits imposed by USB 2 interface and the relatively slow SATA 2 internal HDD. I suspect the internal WD drive is ancient, so you should look out for signs that it is on the way out. I would suggest installing the free version of Hard Disk Sentinel (see here).
Ian
Slow drives can really slow things down. I have a very ancient PC with a SATA 1 HDD boot drive which is currently being updated to the latest Windows 10 build after being mothballed for over a year. The process is excruciating. Not sure if getting an SSD is worthwhile as it only has SATA2 ports.
I will chime in here on the speed vs. interface generation issue. SATA II devices are limited to the 300 MBps of the interface. The reality is that an SATA II drive cannot come close to saturating that interface even in SSD form. The SATA III device is limited to the 600 MBps of the SATA III interface. The reality is that modern SATA III drives are measurably faster than their SATA II counter parts. Even so an SATA III HDD of today will max out around the 150 to 160 MBps for the fastest models on the market. SATA III SSD will be measurably better up to around 575 MBps on the fastest drives.
If we take an SATA III SSD and run it on an SATA III interface at 575MBps and connect it to a slow SATA II 300 MBps interface we will not get the full theoretical output of 300 MBps. Realistically, I think you might see 250 MBps or so in this use case. In my view a waste of time really. you would be much better off to add in an SATA III PCIe interface card and attach SATA III SSD's to that card. At lest that way you can reap the most benefit from the drives.