Strange backup size in email notification

I made one additional test with tjhe Incremental Volume Backup mentioned in my previous post. The email notification  mentions now  a backupsize of approximately 273 GB (instead of 204 GB after the previous Incremental Backup Version). This is not possible  (because only a very small amount of data had changed between the two Incremental Backup Versions) 

Windows Explorer still shows instead for the .tibx File a size of  around 71 GB. 

Robert, can you share a copy of the email notification you are receiving as I am not seeing any mention of backup size in any of my messages or logs they come from for my ATI 2020 backups?

Thanks Steve

I am uploading a Screenshot

Thanks Robert, I can see why there are differences now.  You notifications are coming from the Acronis Dashboard servers and mine are from the Notification email option in the GUI for each backup task.

I used to get the server one but that stopped working for me back in October time last year and hasn't worked since.  There is a known issue involved with the server notifications which I am waiting on being fixed.

I would suspect that the server is showing the culmulative backup size for all the backups involved in your backup chain.

Hello Steve

Thank You very much for your feedback and for your explanations.

I do not understand accurately what is "the cumulative backup size for all the backups involved in your backup chain", that you mention.
In my particular case I am using an Incremental Volume Backup" with .tibx Files. In that case, there is only one .tibx File for all versions and there is only one Version chain for that Backup ...and the size of that tibx File is around 71 GB....an other order of magnitude than the 273 GB identified in the email-Notification.

I do not see for what kind of purpose this number of 273 GB can be useful.     I guess that we agree that reporting 273 GB is a bug and that it should get fixed. 

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Since for some users like me the size of the tib/tibx files matters (because the SDD volume with my foto files has around 700 GB worth of data that needs to be backed-up), I believe that ATI development should spend some time to figure out and agree which figures should be reported in the email notifications. Some examples of figures which would be helpful:

• size of the tib/tibx file of the current Backup Version,
• in the case of .tibx Files for an incremental Volume Backup Version: also by how much that size increased for the current incremental Backup version
• how much time it took to create the last Backup Version
• how much time it took to validate it.

Also all reported values should the same in both type of email-Notification and in the ATI Log.

To avoid a waste of time, when a problem is encountered: I also believe that the email notifications should contain those types of error messages and warning messages that are helpful to understand an encountered not-optimal behavior and help to understand what can been done to avoid the eventual repeat such poor behavior

An example of messages that should be included are those messages that describe that ATI forced use of a sector-by-sector backup because of an alleged File-System corruption (which File -System Corruption?)

In that particular problem occurrence that I have been confronted-to: these messages were not even Warning Messages according to the message classification that you once described to me

Shall I contact ATI development on this subject? Or do you think, that they are already aware of that?

Robert, the server notification essentially is an overview of the current backup status rather than giving a detailed analysis (or at least that is how I view it).

A more accurate view is given in the ATI GUI for the backup task by using the options that are provided there, i.e. the initial Backup statistics shown on the first page, the individual statistics shown on the Activity page, then a composite view of the file sizes when you open the 'Clean up versions' option (without any need to do anything other than view the contents!).

Example of one of my own incremental tasks shown below:

The first image shows that the backup data represents just over 62GB that would be recovered by this backup.

The second image shows that my second incremental backup chain contains just over 120GB of backup file data in the 6 files within the chain.  Plus there is a further 72GB in the newest chain that is still in progress.  This second image from the Clean up tool, shows the date / time when the individual files were created along with their sizes.

Hello Steve

Thank you very much for your answer and your useful informations

Up to now, I did not realize, that I  could find via "Clean Up" Menu the size of the individual Incremental Backup versions; This is very useful for me. Thank you again for it.

There is still something that i do not understand. In the top row/line of the "Clean Up" Menu, for the Incremental Volume Backup of my C: and H: Partitions I see a size of 90 GB. However Windows Explorer shows me for the only .tibx file of that Backup a size of 71.xxx.xxx KB. 

This is not a huge difference, but is not the same. I was first thinking that the size shown in the Clean Up Menu was the uncompressed size and the size shown by Windows Expülorer was the compressed size....But the options of my Backup definition specify   "withpout compression" (this is my translation from German to English)..

Even if not probable, I can not exclude that I originally specified "compression" and changed that eventually.

If a non-mathematician will argue, that the two sizes are identical, I will not insist and will perhaps go along

Thanks to your feedback, I know now, how I will find the (very approximative) size of the individual Incremental Backup Versions that are stored in a common .tibx file.

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But the original problem (i.e 71 vs 204 GB) is still not solved ---This problem is of course probably something for the ATI Developpers, not for you.

Another problem: the email notifications do not report the alleged File Systerm Corruption and the forcing of sector-by-sector operation mode (a problem tat i encountered when using an ATI 2018 Incremental Volume Backup defintion with ATI 2020). When considering the amount of time that multiple of us wasted, because this information is seen only in the ATI log: I find that unacceptable. I also have the impression, that the documentation for that Problem is not sufficient (i.e. why does ATI believes to see  a File systrem corruption? Which kind of corruption? Where exactly within the huge SSD does ATI believe to see that?)

It is my general impression, that even if ATI is probably a great Backup Software, Acronis Development Managerment should pay much more attention to ensure that the individual ATI developpers provide useful diagnosis information (an aspect that currently seems to be quite poor).

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There is still something that i do not understand. In the top row/line of the "Clean Up" Menu, for the Incremental Volume Backup of my C: and H: Partitions I see a size of 90 GB. However Windows Explorer shows me for the only .tibx file of that Backup a size of 71.xxx.xxx KB.

Robert, can you post a screen shot for the above difference in size?  Normally, I would expect that there is more than one backup file involved in such a case.  See my further screen image below where I have expanded the non-selected top section for my backup used above.

Even if not probable, I can not exclude that I originally specified "compression" and changed that eventually.

Compression can only be configured / changed on initial setup of a new task then cannot be modified once that task has created the first backup file.

Another problem: the email notifications do not report the alleged File Systerm Corruption and the forcing of sector-by-sector operation mode (a problem tat i encountered when using an ATI 2018 Incremental Volume Backup defintion with ATI 2020).

This type of information will only be shown if you are using the Notifications option for the task settings where you configure the email server etc, where the detail is taken from the ti_demon log file.  The web / server based notifications only give very basic information, i.e. what, when and end result only, so will never tell you about specific issues as mentioned.

Hello Steve

You find attached

- a Screenprint of the informaztion provided by the Clean-Up Functionality (see the reported 90 GB size)
- Another screenprint of the information provided by Windows Explorer (see the 2nd tib File from the top sand its 71 xxx xxx KB size))

In my case there is just one backup-File (a .tibx file) associated with my incremental Volume Backup called "ATI20 2020 02 02 CH Inc". 

By the way: I see even much larger discrepancies (huge discrepancies!) between the reported backup-sizes with the Incremental Volume Backup-Defintion for my large F SSD (I my time will permit, I will report it perhaps  tomorrow in another Post)).

It is extremely odd, that the two kind of email notifications do not report the same information. Especially when considering that the old way to activate email notificaztion overwhelmes quite a number of "regular" PC users (problems with Firewalls and other anti-Malware Software - need to spercify unknown port numbers). In addition they report other figures than what the Clean-Up Screen reports. This is extremely poor and ATI deserves to get better served.

Robert, looking at the screen image for the clean up panel, this does show that the sum of the files for the backup task do add up to 90GB.

78.9GB + 2.9GB + 8GB + 257.4MB = 90GB

Explorer is showing the size of the container .tibx file where I would suggest Acronis use compression to reduce the 90GB down to the 71,640,044KB size shown.

Note: this is not the same as ATI using Compression when creating the Full & Incremental files if you have not elected to do this, but is how Acronis are assembling these files together in the single .tibx file used for this type of backup.

Thank You Steve

First, to avoid any misunderstanding: i want and need to state explicetely that I appreciate very much your support, which is now outstanding. Thank You for that.

But I am upset about the time that I wasted because of the shortcomings of the ATI 2020 documentation and of the ATI reports (in this particular case: the reports of the Consolidation Menu). The sizes  reported by the Consolidation Menu are perhaps interesting, useful and/or important for ATI developers and ATI support specialists. But they are confusing and of limited use (especially because they are not reasonably explained), for those of us who are regular/laymen users but nevertheless need information, for example about the evolution of the size of the .tibx files.

Look (see attachment of this Post) at the backup sizes reported by the Consolidation Menu for my second Incremental Volume Backup (this is the backup of the external SSD containing most of my photo files;  around 700 GB worth of Data). The reported Total size is 4.1 TB while the effective size of the .tibx File is around 750 GB.  These two figures are miles away from each other. 
 .
Furthermore for each one of the Incremental versions the Consolidation Menu  reports a figure in the range of 830 to 851 GB (while only the last Incremental Backup Version was substantial). Totally confusing if not misleading 

In the case of my second Incremental Volume Backup the sizes reported by the consolidation Menu are miles away from what matters to me (= what matters to me, as a user, is the effective size of the tibx file and how it evolves after  each Backup version). 
Why does that matters to me? Answer: i need to figure out (very approximately of course), whether the time has come to start again (after multiple Incremental Backup versions)  with a Full Backup Version (because even with 6TB, the size of my Backup Devices is limited,  and I therefore need to use somehow efficiently these 6TB, especially for the backup of 700 GB of data). 

Something worries me more and more: while ATI developers are brillant, they do not spend sufficient time
a) to figure  what ATI should report  (report where?) to us, the regular users of ATI
b) to explain that to us

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One could argue: "ATI is a black box, and you (= a regular user)  do not need to understand what goes on under the cover" .....But unfortunately, ATI is is not already there (in my particular case: ATI is not already sufficiently "intelligent" in order to be able to decide efficiently when it is time to create a new Full Backup Version) . 

What I will need to do: keep myself manually track (for example with excel or access) of the effective size of the .tibx files  and of the evolution of these sizes (perhaps also of the elapsed time of the backup runs and of the backup verifications). Hopefully, I will not get confronted with bad surprises

Kind regards

Robert, thank you for the compliments about supporting you - we are of a similar age and I do understand the frustrations that the ways some applications work or inform users can cause.

With regards to the quality of the ATI documentation and task reports / notifications, I can only recommend that you use Feedback tool provided in the ATI GUI to make known your concerns about these areas of the application.  If necessary, repeat the same Feedback for each new area that you encounter.  Feedback doesn't get anything more than an acknowledgement that it has been received, but if you include links to the various forum topics along with your name, then Acronis can get in touch if required.

I am not sure which particular menu you are referencing when you mention 'Consolidation menu' but assume that you may mean the information shown in the 'Clean up versions' panel as shown in your attached PDF document?

With regards to the most recent document, this poses a problem because your Full and subsequent Incremental backup file sizes are almost identical, which if I recall correctly, was identified as being caused because sector-by-sector mode was being triggered.

This is another issue that you may wish to raise directly with Acronis support by opening a support case.  My understanding here is that the backup task and initial file(s) were created by ATI 2018 then continued with ATI 2020 which then suggested that some form of corruption was being encountered and thus swtiched to using sector-by-sector mode.  This should not be the case if you can demonstrate that creating a new ATI 2020 backup task for the same source data then does not identify any corruption and creates sensible sized incremental files!

Final comments regarding backup file sizes and storage media requirements.

Personally, I would ignore the file sizes shown in the Clean up versions panel other than to use them for information.  The key important file sizes are those of the actual .tib / .tibx file(s) as shown by Explorer on your disk drive.

If the 4TB of files shown in Clean up versions, only occupies approx 750GB disk space in its single .tibx file as shown in Explorer, then use this as an indication of how many such files can be stored on your 6TB storage drive.

Using this method, if you were to create a Full backup image followed by say 6 Incremental backup files, this could be expected to be around 1TB in size on the disk, so you could store 2 or 3 such files on your 6TB drive without consuming all the available storage space.

Hello Steve,
without your excellent support, I would have probably given up on ATI 2020.

1. Thank you for your recommendations on using the Feedback tool and including links to the various forum topics. I will follow your recommenations.
    
2. Yes, you are correct in guessing what I meant by “Consolidation Menu”.
   It is only now, that I realize that calling it “Consolidation Menu” was wrong.
   My apologies for that.
   Probably I should have called it “Version Cleanup Menu”.
    
3. Regarding the most recent delirious size figures in the “Version Clean Up Menu”: it is a “Version Clean up Menu” for a new Backup Definition (resulting in the use of just one .tibx file) that I have created with ATI 2020 (as a bypass to the problems with my older Backup Definitions that I had created and used earlier with ATI 2018 that uses multiple .tib Files).

In contrast to the older ATI 2018 Backup Definition, the effective total size (as reported by Windows Explorer) of the .tibx Backup File seems to be more or less as-expected. For the single “ATI20 2020 02 02 F Inc.tibx” file: the file size is 751’987’096 KB according to Windows Explorer (as per today).
This very large size includes the very large size of the data included in the initial Full Backup Version and the size of the data included in a couple of incremental Backup versions.

But what is delirious, totally unusable and misleading for a user like me are the sizes reported in the “Version Clean Up Menu” of each individual incremental backup Version (the reported size of each individual Incremental backup version is in the range between around 830 and 850 GB resulting (together with the size of the Full Backup version)  in a total  of 4.9 TB (two days ago, before the newest incremental Backup version this was  4.1 TB).  

4. Until Acronis has fixed the problems of these delirious Backup size figures: I will use exclusively the Backup File sizes reported by Windows Explorer in order to understand, how large the Backup Files are, how these sizes evolves over time,  and to understand when It is probably again time to create a new  Full Backup versions.

   I should however make the observation, that reporting such delirious size figures affects the credibility of ATI and the faith that I can have in ATI. It becomes less easy to hope, that ATI masters the many difficult aspects of Backups if ATI is not even able to report correctly these backup sizes. Perhaps it is just because the simple task of reporting these size figures has been delegated to junior programmers and ATI Quality assurance did not paid sufficient attention to these reports?
   Hoping very much, that Acronis Managers wish to retain the faith of the Acronis customers and will ensure that these problems get fixed (which are probably not very complex to fix)

   
    
5. At this time, I feel  very vulnerable.

   I schedule  every Week ATI 2020 incremental Volume Backups of my F Volume and of my C+H Volumes.  But I am not sure at all whether I will get from ATI error or warning messages when the created Backup Versions are problematic. Why do I feel unsecure?

1. I am not able to activate successfully via the Backup Options  the email “Notifications for backup operation” (described in section 4.5.3 of the ATI 2020 User Guide)  that never worked on my PC for reasons that I do not understand; (some Malware  Protection feature (which ones?) that I do not wish to deactivate? Or other Port numbers than those which are documented by my email-provider?)

   I believe that Acronis is already aware of similar problems and that it therefore Implemented the less problematic method which probably can be called “Online Dashboard solution” (described in section 7.5 of the User Guide).

   
    
2. Instead I use the global “Email Notifications”/"Online Dashboard Solution"  described in section 7.5 of the User Guide….but according to one of your previous Post this kind of email notification does not contain the same amount of information as the  kind of email-notifications described in section 4.5.3.
   I do not understand why ATI does not provide (at least as a user-selectable option) the same amount of information via this kind of email notification. .
    
3. Also: I noticed that on my PC the “MVP Log Viewer” provides  for Backup Definitions created with ATI 2020 (and using .tibx Files) less information then for ATI 2018 Backup Definition using .tib Files.
   A question: Will the “MVP Log Viewer” show me for example the Information Messages (in fact: they should be classified as Warning Messages) related to alleged “File System corruption” and “forced use of sector by-sector Mode” (which can result in huge .tib and tibx Files and which are indeed warning about non-negligible problems).
    
4. Can I be sure, that I will get aware of all Error and Warning information (including those Warning contained in Messages  wrongly categorized by ATI as “I” messages) via other (which other?) Tools aimed at normal/regular users-like me, who are not specialists but are just non-initiated laymen?

Getting the assurance from Acronis, that I can get the needed Warning and Eerror information (with a description on how I will get them) will substantially help me to feel more comfortable/secure with ATI 2020 (which otherwise seems to be, this is what I have read and hope, an excellent Backup Software).

Robert

Robert, just picking up on a couple of points from your post above.

The email Notifications option for any backup task will only give you the same level of detail as you can see using the MVP Log Viewer tool and look at the corresponding ti_demon log file directly on your computer.

The more detailed log messages are now stored in the backup_worker log files but these are also more difficult to read and not offered by the MVP Log Viewer tool, as were not used when that tool was created!  The MVP community is looking at producing a new log tool but this is still in the development stage at this time, and will need to be approved by Acronis before can be shared with the wider user community via these forums.  The new tool will use yellow highlighting to point out any error conditions identified in the logs.

Hello Everyone,

searched in our internal sources - there are two known issues affecting the displayed sizes

TI-171941 Different backup size on storage and in the email notification (.tibx archive)
TI-178715 Backup sizes for incremental slices of .tibx backups are not calculated correctly

The RnD team is working on the fixes, please accept our apologies for the inconvenience caused by the wrong numbers.