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Why does my backup take so long?

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I am running ATI 2021, build 39216 on a Windows 7 Professional 64 bit PC.  

I added an external 4TB drive to my system, plugged into a USB-3 port.  It currently has about 2.6TB worth of data – almost all of it video files.  I created a backup job that runs daily.  The scheme is incremental, new full after 30 incremental versions, store no more than 1 version chain. I use this scheme for other disks, both on this PC and others, without a problem.  But something is strange with this one.

On Day 1, I ran the first full backup. It took about 7 hours and the backup file was roughly 2.6Tb.  On Day 2, having made no changes to the files on the source disk, I expected the backup job to run for just a minute or so, and the backup file to be slightly bigger.  The backup file was slightly larger, but the job ran for almost 7 hours.  The same thing happened on Day 3.  

Assuming I had screwed something up, I deleted the backup job and started over.  The same thing happens.  The incremental jobs run almost as long as the full. 

So I tried an experiment, I created another backup job, but instead of specifying the input via “Disks and Partitions” I used “Files and Folders”.   The rest of the options are the same, including the target disk (another external drive).   As expected the first time that job ran it took about 7 hours and the “full” backup file is about 2.6Tb.  On Day 2, the job ran for about 15 seconds and the resultant “inc” file is only 200k.

I can restore files from either backup. 

Any idea what’s happening?  Why do the incremental jobs for the “disk” backup tale so long?

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What version of True Image are you using here?  Is it ATI 2021 or is it an OEM equivalent supplied by Crucial along with a new drive?

What file system is in use on your 4TB external drive?

If the files on that external drive are all mainly video files, then personally I would not use ATI to back these up but would use a synchronisation application that is able to mirror the drive contents to another location / drive along with all changes and deletions.
The reason for this is that ATI will try to compress the video files when they are already in a highly compressed state, so is wasting processing time, plus ATI puts the files into a container file (.tibx or .tib), and lastly, nothing will be deleted until after a new Full backup has been created successfully, even for your chosen option to keep only one version chain, so your storage location has to be able to store 2 x 2.6 TB plus the size of the 30 incremental files!

I’m running ATI 2021 Build 39216.  I have no idea what Crucial is, but this software was purchased from Acronis. The file system on both the source and backup drives is NTFS. The backup drive has plenty of free space. 

I guess I’ll leave it as a “file“ backup and chalk this up to another unexplained Acronis phenomenon.

Part of the explanation of the difference in speed could come down to Disk + Partitions backups using the *.tibx architecture and the files + folders using the older *.tib architecture. I would also check the validation setting for the disk + partitions backup to make sure that (at most) only the most recent backup is validated. It will take a long time to validate a backup comprising 2.5TB.

I agree with @Steve Smith that file synchronization is a better backup strategy for a large collection of video files.

Ian

WPSIII wrote:

I’m running ATI 2021 Build 39216.  I have no idea what Crucial is, but this software was purchased from Acronis. The file system on both the source and backup drives is NTFS. The backup drive has plenty of free space. 

I guess I’ll leave it as a “file“ backup and chalk this up to another unexplained Acronis phenomenon.

Sorry about the reference to Crucial, that came from multi-tasking with different topics at the same time.  Crucial is just another supplier of SSD's alongside an OEM version of ATI for cloning etc.

Dear Acronis Board,

I'm only Backing up 28 GB on  1 laptop and 40gb on another both are i3 @220 ghs or so.

I completely removed Acronis True Image 2020 from 1 laptop, and used free ????ium, because it sat at calculating time for hrs., it never kicked in.

????ium took 30 minutes start to finish at best...

The other Laptop takes over an 1 hour 15 minutes to calculating time and another hr.,+  to back up 40+gb of data wtf?

My Desktop computer is new, but Acronis is still slow to backup 200gb.

I can read all day about VSS tool, etc., but seriously? I miss ??rton ?host a lot

I can just use win 7 backup /restore, and mount the vhdx image in worst case scenario and copy what I need back to a a new hdd of failed computer  or whatever unseen "tragedy" might befall a computer. Heck, or just the hard copies of files/folders I have backed up on several external Hdds, of several computers.

 32 years of computer expertise I'd just assume go back to DOS 2.0. then deal with a backup program that takes 5 hrs., if at all.

Ty for letting me share/rant lol, "I'm Tom and I'm a PCholic"

Any help or advice, like stfu is welcome...

 

 

 

 

 

thomas.

Please be informed that this forum is a user forum and no Acronis support or management frequent these pages on any sort of regular basis.  Instead we MVP's are users of the product trying to help other users with problems they encounter.

If you wish to lodge an issue with the product directly to Acronis then please use the in app Feedback feature found in the Help tab at the bottom left corner of the app GUI.

More information about your backup tasks configuration may be useful for anyone trying to assist you here.  From all I can gather the application spends an extended period of time calculating before beginning a backup or never stops calculating to begin the backup.  Without further details about your issue what I can say is that the app checks your source and target disks for errors and/or corruption.  It also looks for errors in the filesystem of the disks attached to the PC.  In light of that I would suggest that you run health checks on your Windows installation, chkdsk on your disk drives, and possibly use disk manufacturers utilities to check the health of your disks.  Any problems found should be corrected then once you believe there are no problems that exist with your system try the backup again.

 Ty,

U You can't see my Computer specs? Is the fact I posted the laptops are both I 3's running at 220 Ghz too much Info?

I posted the problem, what's your solution? Don't backup video files? Tib vs Tibx? Check this that and the other off or on in  the program when you start it? Default should work for average user, the rest is all greek.

Run it and be done period.

ATI's solution was Upgrade to their latest product.

Health checks like Windows mem test+ MemTest86 USB boot test, sea tools + sea tools for DOS? Sfc /scannow, the DISM commands? Safe Mode, Safe Boot, Defrag? Use Different External Drives/ USB sticks? After 32 years, I test everything when there's a problem..

Do you think this was a problem a year ago, 6 months, 3 months? No, new to 3 computers in a month..

"I guess I’ll leave it as is and chalk this up to another unexplained Acronis phenomenon." To coin a Phrase

Stfu would have worked best...

TS

 

In light of that I would suggest that you run health checks on your Windows installation, chkdsk on your disk drives, and possibly use disk manufacturers utilities to check the health of your disks.  Any problems found should be corrected then once yoAtiu believe there are no problems that exist with your system try the backup again.

Tom, the simplest explanation that I can offer is that ATI doesn't seem to work for all users!  I can offer no reason why this should be but Acronis are only interested in their latest incarnation of the application (with all the extra Cyber Protect bundled features), so if you have found an alternative solution that does work for you, go for it!

ATI 2020 was a major step change from earlier versions with the introduction of .tibx files but this also 'broke' other features so was only considered a first-step in a new direction.  Acronis then brought out ATI 2021 which 'fixed' some of the things broken in 2020 (but not all) but then mixed up things further by adding in all the Cyber Protect extra features and doing so when the majority of customer feedback in the Beta program suggested it wasn't yet ready for mainstream use!  They have now brought out ATI 2022 and rebranded this as ACPHO and continued their focus on Cyber Protection to the detriment of fixing the issues brought in with 2020 & 2021.

ACPHO works for some people but again, not for all.  It is only available by subscription as Acronis have abandoned the use of perpetual licenses, thus users are looking for other solutions that give them what they want / need.  There are a good number of such solutions available and with perpetual licenses!  Now it is down to the users to choose the direction they want to go! See forum topic: Reflecting on a Post-ATI World where the above has been discussed in detail.

TY,

Shouldn't that have been their disclaimer?  "Our Product may or may not work!"

From what I understand(Eye roll) just a decent backup free or not will allow any shop or IT person worth their salt restore windows to a new "similar" computer or new Hdd w/o all those options to create a bootable disk. Just the Acronis Survival Kit should suffice, lol, I say should, for me it almost didn't. See below. 

Windows only cares that the license is only used by 1 computer at a time. 

In my case the only time I had to restore a computer with Acronis(Last Week) I had user Torks problem, "Error: boot disk is not a Linux media disk and would not do the recovery ", Under the topic: ''2nd time using ATI 2021 recovery failed after succeeding the 1st time'' posted a couple of days ago.

Luckily I was still able to boot to windows and run it from the Acronis program, not the USB Acronis Survival Kit DOS boot..

TS

Not sure if this will be of any help. With one of my local backups it takes many hours for ATI 2021 to do backups. Backing up M.2 system drive to a 4TB WD Blue HDD. It takes much longer than backups to other disks. Could be faulty SATA cable or power cable, or possibly there is a problem with the disk controller - it appears to be attached to a Marvel PCIe 4 port SATA card. It is PCIe 1 x1 which could be the explanation. Newer versions are PCIe 3 x1.

Ian