use computer while validating?

Rick, welcome to these public User Forums.

There should be no issue with using the computer when Acronis is performing validation as this does not affect any data stored on the source computer.  Validation is a process of recalculating the checksum values which are stored at intervals throughout the backup archive file to ensure that the integrity of the file remains exactly the same as it was when it was created.  The only impact of validation is the use of CPU processing cycles and disk I/O while the file is read into memory while the recalculation is done.

Thanks for the welcome and quick reply, Steve.

I want to be sure I understand something: Even though the backup is stored elsewhere - not on the computer that was backed up - Acronis is *still using the computer's CPU*.

If this is correct, when can I turn the computer off? I'm sure I'm not the only person who's noticed that a full backup can take the better part of a day. And while it's comforting to know I can get back to email, etc., it seems to mean I'd better leave the computer on when I go to bed, if the backup on the external device is not finished validating.

Rick, if a validation is running on your computer, then you should use the option within the program if you want Acronis to power off your computer when this process finishes.  If you turn it off before the validation finishes, then it will be abandoned and incomplete.

Thanks again for the quick reply, Steve. I appreciate it.

Under other circumstances, your suggestion about the Shutdown option would make a lot of sense. However the difficulty there is the program runs while I'm working. Wouldn't do to have the system shutdown because the backup is finished.

Perhaps you can explain an oddity I observed. I have Acronis set up to do a daily backup in the morning on my Surface (the machine in question.) Unless I have Acronis open, I don't know the status of the backup. I have noticed on the occasions I do open it that it's often in the middle of a validation.

Could it be picking up where it left off when I either disconnected it from the network (where my RAID device is located that houses the backups) or turn the Surface off for the night? When I have noticed this behavior, it is not around the daily backup time.

One of the reasons this seems to be OK, is that when I do one of my occasional checks, I see the message "The backup is valid." when a backup has completed. I guess if I put a pot of coffee on and just watched Acronis do its thing one morning I could give you a better report, but ... Got other things to do. <g>

Rick, if you shutdown your computer when any Acronis task is running, then the error handling options come into play when you restart the computer again, so Acronis will restart the validation again from the start.  It doesn't pick up from the point it had got to when interrupted.

Error handling is configured on the Advanced page of Options.

Hi Steve -

Thanks for sticking with me on this. Looking at the Error Handling settings I see:

Do not show messages and dialogs while processing (silent mode)

Ignore bad sectors

Repeat attempt if a backup fails

I don't see anything specific to validation. Does this mean the whole backup and validation process restarts from scratch if I turn the computer off before the validation process has completed?

Rick, it really depends on what process was active and interrupted when the computer was turned off?  If the backup had finished but validation was still running, then only the validation should be restarted when the computer is restarted.

Even though you are selecting to do validation immediately after a backup via the Advanced settings for your backup task, Acronis creates a separate task for the validation using the same error handling settings and will add a scheduled task entry for this in case of interruption.

Personally, I do not do validation after my backup tasks as it does not guarantee that the backup is 100% good for recovery.  Validation is simply confirming that the backup file remains unchanged from when it was written to disk.  The only way to truly know that the backup is good would be to recover it to another disk and test it.

That said, I have not encountered any issues with my backups on the occasions that I have needed to recover my disk or computer from them.  The key here is to have more than one backup and to have backups stored on different drives or locations.