ATI2021 Progressively Slower Backups: Drinking in the Last Chance Saloon
After the 8 increments, the next full backup backed up 742GB data in 8h38m at a speed of 156Mbps, i.e. more than twice a slow as the first full backup.
The third full backup backed up 742GB and took 11h17m at speed of 120Mbps.
Clearly, each full backup is taking longer than the previous one. This is a problem that I had when I upgraded from ATI2019 to ATI2020 earlier this year. I raised a support request with Acronis but couldn't get a solution so I reverted to ATI 2019 and everything was fine. Now it seems I am having the same problem with ATI2021.
I have another Windows 10 PC running ATI2021 which backs up to the same NAS drive but with a significantly smaller amount of data (about 100GB). That PC has no problems and backups are all consistently the same speed.
2. A Forum post proposes a workaround that allows ATI2021 to create backups that use TIB rather than TIBX files by manually modifying configuration files. Is it OK to use this workaround? Are there any issues with this?
The performance of ATI2021 is not acceptable for me. Unless there is a solution, I will either revert to ATI2019 or cancel my subscription and use an alternative backup product.
I raised a support ticket with Acronis but they suggested doing a whole long list of tests that are the same as what I did earlier in the year without it leading to any sort of solution. I am therefore reluctant to spend hours repeating this process. I am an ex-software developer so I appreciate the need to systematically investigate problems but right now I just don't have the confidence that these steps will lead to a solution based on my previous experience of Acronis support.
I am a hair's breadth away from ditching ATI. Can anyone pull me back from the brink?


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Steve,
Thanks for your reply. The times I'm seeing are purely for the backup. Automatic validation is disabled and I do a manual validate once a week (which runs for a few hours). This is a carbon copy of the problems I had after upgrading from ATI2019 to ATI2020 earlier this year so it seems that whatever was wrong then is still wrong now. The things that the support people are asking me to do are not trivial in terms of time and, rightly or wrongly, I don't have massive confidence that they'll sort it out.
I could try splitting backups though, to be fair, ~750GB of data shouldn't really be a problem for software from a company of Acronis' standing, should it? And it works fine for the first backup - it's just the subsequent ones that are taking too long. I guess this would be a better option than going with a workaround.
Regards,
Graham
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Graham,
I have a question for you. Does this backup include a Windows 10 OS? If yes what version of Windows 10 is it currently and has that version been a recent upgrade?
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Yes, it's Windows 10 Home version 2004 build 19041.685. Also Windows Experience Pack 120.2212.551.0 (whatever that is!)
I have automatic updates turned on so it gets periodic updates.
I have now split my backup into two pieces: one for my C drive which contains the OS plus frequently-changing files and my D drive which contains mostly pictures, music and archive copies of other files which don't change much. It'll take a few weeks to discover whether this has helped because I will need to wait until it's done a few backups to see if there's a performance degradation. I'll report back here if I remember.
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An update.
The backup of my C drive has now done its next full backup (after the 8 incremental backups I'd configured it to do). The second full backup took the same amount of time as the initial full backup to within a minute. The backup size is ~230GB and on each occasion it took ~1h37m at ~255Mbps. So, it would seem that the full backups for this size of backup are not getting slower.
It will be interesting to see whether the next full backup of my D drive (which is ~430GB) is slower than the initial one. That'll take a bit longer to determine because I only do it weekly. Watch this space!
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