Been advised not to use Nonstop backup by Acronis support, need advice

If you are using Windows 7, implement RAID 1 support, available in the Pro version and above. I've used it with total success. Another option is to use something like SyncBack Pro which will copy open files and allow you to schedule regular BUs during the day. If you are just backing up a folder SBP will do it in a couple of seconds. There are various variables that will allow you to create BU folders for Year, Month, Day of week, hour of day etc. Thus you could create a scheme that would give you the BU protection you need. What you need may be complex and only testing will ensure success. BTW be sure to BU to another drive, install another internal drive in your desktop for faster performance.

If using Win7 Pro or above implement a software RAID 1. I've done this with total success. Another option is to use something like SyncBack Pro which will copy open files. You can use a combination of variables that will allow you to create BU folders for year, month, day of week, hour of day, etc. How complex you want or need is up to you. If using a desktop install more internal drives for your BUs, this will be MUCH faster than using USB (USB 3 is very fast as is eSATA). Be sure you fully test whatever you put in place.

Stuart,

I am curious about what you mean by "a file corruption on the hard drive that got propogated back in time by acronis nonstop backup". Did NSB fail to backup your file as you wanted?

If your Excel file gets corrupted by a BSOD, it will be backedup "as is" by any type of backup software until you realize the current version is compromised and you need a previous version. A RAID 1 system provides instantaneous data duplication, but not backup versioning, for example.

If you use this file often and you think you will realize there is a problem within a few hours, you are fine with backup software that automatically aggregate multiple daily backups after a while (like Acronis NSB or Genie Timeline).

If you fear it might take you a while before realizing there is a problem, and you want to go back to the absolute latest version before the crash, you can use windows task scheduler to have Acronis run regular backups every 5 mn on that file, and keep all copies for whatever duration you need.

If that file is business critical, you should consider having a local backup and an online backup (from Acronis, or other that feature "real-time" backup).

Hi Pat,

What happened was very weird. At about 13:30 I got a BSOD while editing my order spreadsheet. After robbot the spreadsheet was unloadable so I went to my nonstop backup, opened it and get the version of my spreadsheet for 13:15. It was also corrupt. So I get the one for 12:00, also corrupt, etc etc until about 09:15ish when the copy was fine. However it was missing all the changes I'd made since then till 13:30.

What was interesting was that all the corrupt spreadsheets in acronis was about 4K, whereas in fact the spreadsheet is over 4 MB. I know the file was fine just before the BSOD. SO it seems that after reboot when nonstop re-started, it backed up the corrupt spreadsheet and somehow it got propogated backwards to the 09:15 point.

Like I said weird. But along with the advice I've had from acronis support I obviously need to find another solution. I'm looking at the one suggested along with something called 'Oops Backup'

Thanks. It definitely looks NSB failed to back this file up.

You can also have a look at Genie Timeline. The free version backs up every 30mn, the pro version backs up every 3mn. On the online side, I am using iDrive which has a every-10mn feature for files smaller than 50mb.

Hello all,

Thank you very much for your posts and your kind help.

Stuart, I will do my best to help you with this issue.

I believe the Support professional talking to you during the chat session wanted to suggest to use regular backups as a temporary workaround until the issue with Nonstop Backup is resolved. I am sorry for any inconvenience and I believe this is an opportunity for us to improve our services. I will forward the case to our Management team.

I would recommend to continue working with our Support professionals in order to resolve this problem. Please collect the following logs and kindly send them to the representative who is working with you on the case and I will also update the case with our latest interaction details:

1. Nonstop Backup diagnostic report.

2. AcronisInfo report.

If you have additional questions or any other issues, please let me know.

Thank you.

Hi Anton,

I did follow this up with e-mail, several times. each time I received e-mails like this...

"Hello Stuart,

Thank you for contacting Acronis Customer Central. My name is Sunny.

I apologize for the dissconnection of the chat session due to some technical reasons. I understand your concern and will resolve it to your complete satisfaction.

As you mentioned that you are facing issues with the Non Stop Backup, the idea was not to stop the Non Stop Backup but to create scheduled backups just in case required.

You also mentioned that Non Stop Backup pauses, you may refer to the KB mentioned below for this issue:

http://kb.acronis.com/content/14708

To understand more about Non Stop Backups you may refer to the KB mentioned below:

http://kb.acronis.com/content/13533

Please let us know if you have further queries and we will be glad to assist you.

Thank you again for contacting Acronis Customer Central."

and several of this....

"We are following up with regard to your recent Acronis support case #01039630. The reply to your original question was sent out on 2/4/2011. We would like to make sure your issue/question has been resolved. Please Reply to this email and simply enter "RESOLVED" as your response if it has been fully resolved to your complete satisfaction.

If you are still experiencing the same issue or are not completely satisfied, please Reply to this email with any additional information so we can continue to assist you right away."

Absolutly no useful information whatsoever except in one e-mail someone mentioned that if one of the nonstop deltas got corrupt then the entire recovery chain for the file the delta belonged to would fail even after later backups. Which I interpreted as meaning that a system crash (BSOD) could render my backup useless even if the file was backed up again afte the BSOD it could fail restore. I wonder how many un-restorable files I have in my nonstop backup? I find it hard to believe that such a problem could exist in production software.

I'm afraid that in the end I've given up. Uninstalled Acronis from all 4 of my machines (A waste of 4 licenses that I've paid for) and moved to another product which is working fine on all machines. No verification errors, no 'Ongoing operations are in porgress...' messages when shutting down windows, it just does what it says on the box.

Sorry but you've lost me as a customer.

Stuart,
What program are you happy with??

After testing every backup program I can lay my hands on, I've settled on a combination of Macrium reflect for image backups, because it handles USB3, Network backups, eSATA and SSDs with out any issues. It backs up quickly and restores faster than any other software I tested. It also has the best incremental and differential backup setup options than anything else by far. Setting up configure and forget backup schedule really couldn't have been easier. I had zero verification failures during my testing and zero failed restores. I tested using 4 PCs of differing hardware using Windows 7, Vista and XP SP3.

I also looked at the support forums for each piece of the software I tested. You can tell a lot from support forums.

In conjunction with Macrium, I settled for Altaros 'Oops Backup' for my CDP requirements. It produces fast, low resource continual backup with great time line restore options across the network to my NAS (Or local drives if wanted). Because it backs up files as separate entities rather than to a single 'archive' file, there is less likelyhood of a BSOD of something else corrupting the entire archive.

I chose these two because they met my requirements. Others I tested were Acronis, O&O, Ghost, Paragon, Genie Timeline 2.1, Bounceback, WHS and a few others. I included Acronis because I was doing a set of sequential tests I thought it only fair to give it a fair shot.