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Manual replication of TIBx to offline drive

Thread needs solution

Moved from older Acronis to TrueImage 2021 (current: build 39216). Since previously one needed to uninstall the old ATI version (i.e. not install the new one on top of the old one) I did the same thing. So now I'm stuck with the newest (and not greatest) TIBX format.

*Backup strategy:* consists of one full backup, 2 diffs and up to 3 version chains. Frequency is monthly (not too much data changing on the computer). We're talking about full disk backups here.

While using the previous versions I used to take the external drive to a different location and there copy the newest chain to another location as a second off-line copy. Something like

del H:\Home_Backups\ASUS_RA_Win10-2__*_b3_s*.tib

robocopy G:\Asus_RA_Backups\  H:\Home_Backups\SUS_RA_Win10-2__*_b4_s*.tib /NP /R:3 /W:10 /UNILOG+:G:\robocopy.log /TEE

This way I was removing from the second location (H:) the backup chain 3 (full and diff) and copying the backup chain 4 (first month the full_b4_s1, second month the diff_b4_s1, third month the diff_b4_s2 etc.; existing *b4* files would be skipped by robocopy).

I read a lot about the new TIBX chain. I know, so please do not tell me that:

  • the first tibx file should be kept no matter what (I find this pretty brain-damaged and not increasing the resilience of the system, as some people might manually delete it and invalidate everything then)
  • the newer file is not necessarily the newest backup, as old backups might be changed during the creation of new backups
  • you cannot know just by looking at the file name whether it's a full or a diff (again, brain-damaged decision)

What I'd be grateful to learn is how would it be possible to make an offline copy of the newest backup chain.

*Things to keep in mind:*

  • the "original" backup is on an external drive
  • the second destination is not movable to the location of the first backup
  • the computer is not movable to the location of the second destination (so I cannot simply run two jobs)

Until now it seems to me that Steve's "How to create a Disk backup as .tib (not .tibx)" post would be the only workaround, but I am not sure whether it works with build 39216 or only with the 21400. [EDIT:] As per Steve's post on March 20, 2021, still works on ATI 2021 build #39184. @Steve: problems with validation seemed to have gone, am I right?

Many thanks,

 

Alex

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Alex, as you already look to understand some of the issues surrounding the use of .tibx files, then the best advice that I can offer to you is to continue using Robocopy to copy your backup drives from the local storage drive to the remote drive, but to use the Mirror option so that you maintain a mirror copy of the local drive files on the external drive, removing the need to manually delete older / unwanted backup files from the external drive.

Using the /MIR option from G: to H: should prevent any loss of metadata or creating of any orphan files etc.

The only other option would be if you could connect directly to the remote destination in order to create backups in that location from the local computer, but this would have to be via FTP which is insecure in all versions of ATI (including the current ACPHO product too).  It would also impose a 2GB maximum file size and thus split all backups in to multiple files!