Using Replica vs. separate Cloud backup
I was excited about the new Replica feature with the ATI 2020 release. However as a practical matter it seems unusable for me. But before I throw it to the side I want to make sure that I haven't missed something.
I have a full backup created to go to an internal 2TB SATA drive. Full backup size is approximately 530GB. Replica is enabled. Initial replication took several days (I have a 10Mbps upload speed). Subsequent incremental backups replicated fine. What was unexpected is that when the next full back ran another full replication occurred (over multiple days). On the one hand I can understand that but there were some words in the description of the feature that led me to believe that there was some "smart" technology that somehow would have limited the amount of data needing to be replicated. If there is, it's certainly not helping me.
With that being the case, is going back to separate backup jobs for a local and a cloud backup my only practical alternative? However direct Cloud backups are managed, I know I only incur the long backup time on the initial backup.
Obviously if I've overlooked some other articles or posts related this just point me in the right direction.


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Douglas - you nailed it on the head. During beta, several of us asked if we could have replica to local storage (external USB or a NAS). In those cases, I can see it being very useful. But yeah, if you're taking frequent fulls (like me - I do one weekly with 6 daily incrementals), then replication doesn't work very well just going to the cloud... due to the amount of time and space.
One of the big advantages of the replica, is that it is not dependent on other backup jobs. For instance, if backup Job A runs, and replication starts, while replication is happening, backup B can still run at that time. This is where it will be very handy in a local scenario (for me). Alas, that is not available at this time, but I'm hoping it will be a feature in the future.
So yeah, I think that having a local backup and a separate cloud backup is still the way to go for many people.
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Thank you both for confirming my suspicions. As Bobbo notes, I too prefer frequent full backups and the replication takes as long or longer than the interval between full backups. With a faster uplink speed I would really appreciate the Replica option. I don't see much value in doing replicas to alternate local storage for myself although I can certainly see that it could be handy.
P.S. I did have some resiliency problems with Replica (but didn't report it). During the initial Replica my PC was inadvertently restarted (I hit the rest switch!) replication would not complete and I had to delete the backup job and clear cloud storage to get things to reset. I know there is the warning to leave your PC on but stuff happens...
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I agree that replication isn't the right answer for very many use cases. For each of my three critical data pools, I was doing a cloud backup and a local backup as independent jobs (6 backups in total).
I liked the sounds of replication so I tried it, but after a month or two of frustration, I am abandoning it and going back to discrete backup jobs for local and cloud backups. The problem I have been having matches a similar problem reported for their other backup offerings and matches Doug's experience. If you reboot the PC, or the wifi router, or the cable modem during a replica, the existing replica is abandoned and restarted from scratch. I have a replica that takes days to replicate and the repeated restarts of the replication wreaks havoc on my backup schedule. I upgraded my upstream bandwidth to try to shorten that exposure window but I have just accepted that replication is not appropriate for my use case, and is only appropriate for a very narrow set use cases.
It's back to discrete backup jobs for me.
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Hello Everyone,
thank you for taking the time to share your experience with the new feature! I've passed all collected feedback to the product management.
> If you reboot the PC, or the wifi router, or the cable modem during a replica, the existing replica is abandoned and restarted from scratch.
yes, in its current implementation, the replication task is not resumable. Support of resumable replication is planned for the future product versions.
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