WD Elements Versus WD MYbook can't find recommendations here.
I have WD 12TB Mybook external I use with Acronis True Image 2020 without any problems. I was getting ready to buy a WD 16tb Elements External to use as a backup as well. But, I read somewhere that Acronis does not recommend the Elements hard drive for backup as it is too slow and really doesn't support USB 3.0 backups/restores very well. I did a search here, but can't find anything regarding that. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.
Regards....
I don't recall specifics, but do WD Elements drives tend to power down to save power? I seem to recall that was an issue with some drives that didn't play nicely with ATI.
I personally very much like Western Digital's WD Passport series, which are 2.5" portable drives. They run off USB power, needing no external power supply, which is more convenient. And they are small, fitting easily into a pocket or a bank safety deposit box. I've found them very reliable.
tuttle, sorry but I am not able to reply to your private message as am being told my reply 'might contain forbidden characters' hence this reply here!
With apologies to Jon for hijacking this topic thread, the reply I was trying to send is:
Hi Tuttle, see KB 63256: Acronis True Image 2020: Windows services and processes - for all the internal services / processes. You can disable almost all other than Scheduler2 which is needed to run any backup tasks.
I have been running ATI 2021 (with Cyber Protect turned off permanently) on an old Dell Studio laptop that is around 10 years old without any obvious issues. It is fairly slow with only 4GB RAM and an Intel Core 2 Duo processor but works as a TV (internet streaming) for the kitchen!
There are various limitations for the new .tibx format introduced with 2020, mainly down to being the first attempt by Acronis to migrate this format from their business app range and not getting all the details sorted out! That said if you can use a 'set it and forget it' approach in configuring your backup tasks and automatic cleanup rules, then it can work just fine! I was happier with 2020 than with 2021 and ACPHO, and one key advantage of .tibx files was the automatic consolidation of incremental slices in the same file as the initial full backup for each chain.
The key rule with .tibx is to only use the settings / tools provided with ATI when dealing with them! Do not touch them outside of ATI and never in Explorer. This is due to increased use of metadata for these files, including the creation of a 12kb .tibx metadata file when chains are involved. That 12kb file needs to be present else the chains are deemed corrupt!
Mounting is an option that I have only ever very rarely used and didn't miss with 2020 as I could still double-click on .tibx and .tib files to open them and browse contents etc.
Some of the restrictions with .tibx files has been fixed in 2021 but other issues remain still even in ACPHO.
ATI 2020 will continue disk .tib backups created by earlier versions with no issue and can be tricked into creating new .tib disk backups by using a hack of the script .tib.tis file if this is done prior to a new task being run for the first time.
See forum topic: How to create a Disk backup as .tib (not .tibx) which will create a new backup task using the older .tib format in the Windows ATI 2020 or 2021 GUI.
The main advantage of using ATI from Windows is being able to run scheduled backups without having to manually configure the task every time as with rescue media. ATI can wake up a sleeping / hibernating PC if wake timers are enabled, and allow it to go back to sleep afterwards, which is how I have my own tasks set to work so that backups run when I am not actively using the PC's.
Hope this is helpful,
Steve
Indeed, Steve. That is helpful. Thanks.
Yes, I agree there are advantages to running ATI from Windows. I configured automatic backups in ATI Windows for family and clients. However, on my computer with two separate versions of ATI there were significant conflicts with Windows Explorer functionality and other slowness issues. ATI Support got involved and remotely connected to my PC to try to understand what was happening. At that point I began to do all my backups via Rescue Media and have maintained that habit.
Okay, if you are still able to double-click .tib and .tibx archives then that's not so bad. Mounting has some advantages, but at least the archive contents can still be opened and explored.
What about the lack of compression? Has that been fixed? I do all my backups with highest compression so the lack of any compression would make a large difference in archive size for me, meaning I could store fewer on my backup drives.
Your kitchen laptop isn't too much older than my primary laptop, which is a ten-year-old 2nd-Gen quad core. I run Win10 on it and it runs well, provided I'm careful to eliminate unnecessary resource-intensive background processes. It's more responsive than some of the relatively recent PCs of used by my family members.
You say that you were happier with ATI 2020 than with ATI 2021. What were the main reasons?
What about the lack of compression? Has that been fixed? I do all my backups with highest compression so the lack of any compression would make a large difference in archive size for me, meaning I could store fewer on my backup drives.
I have only bothered with changing compression when using rescue media, otherwise I just leave it at the default 'Normal' setting which works fine. Using maximum compression on a lower power PC just causes the task to take longer for minimal size savings, so there is a trade off between higher compression and performance / time taken.
You say that you were happier with ATI 2020 than with ATI 2021. What were the main reasons?
Primarily the introduction of all the extra Cyber Protection services etc in 2021 was unwanted and unrequested as far as I am concerned, especially given these cannot be fully disabled regardless of supposedly being turned off permanently! 2020 didn't suffer from that issue and most of the issues with .tibx files had minimal impact.
Steve Smith wrote:Jon, I don't remember reading many posts dealing with backup storage drive recommendations and such is always going to be very subjective.
Personally, I have been reluctant to consider any very large drives and currently my own largest drives are only 3TB and those are in a RAID configuration in my Synology NAS where a single drive failure is recoverable without loss of data.
If you have the size of data that needs such large drives for backup, then I would still recommend going with multiple smaller drives rather than risk putting everything on one very large drive.
I have been very lucky with my own drives but have dealt with enough drive failures to know that no drives are guaranteed to last forever! My son's PC was the most recent casualty where the internal 320GB HDD just died with no warning but fortunately nothing was lost. A friend brought a different PC a couple of years ago with an almost new 2TB HDD that had an early life failure and lost everything! I have other working drives in some ancient PC's that are over 10 years old and showing no issues!
Steve, thanks for replying. 3TB wouldn't do for me. I have large video files and everything would fill up right away. I backup large external hard drives and then put them aside. I only delete full backups when I know there is nothing I can't live without. In the past I have had hard drive fail. Usually I'm good to go. But back in the RLL, MFM drive days things were wild and chaotic. Trying to be a little more sedate nowadays. Years ago, I once had to find my wife's deleted master's thesis that wasn't backed up on her computer. I found it and was dubbed a saint. As any married man will tell ya, it didn't last long. :-)
Thanks again for your help. I guess I'll just see what works.