Important question on backup compression
I have always been unhappy relying solely on backups in proprietary format (any!) - which is why I use ATI in two modes: clone as well as tib. CAN DATA BE EASILY RETRIEVED FROM A CORRUPTED TIB BACKUP IF THE "NO COMPRESSION" OPTION IS SET? AND IF SO, HOW DO YOU RETRIEVE IT, PLEASE? - John
Many thanks, Fungus - it would appear that you have already adopted the same philosophy that I'm looking into: many thanks for the two more programs for me to look into. I had not heard of either. Karen's Replicator sounds's a bit like Argentum Backup (inexpensive commercial) which I have and have used. A friend has recommended "Toucan Sync, Backup and Encrypt", also freeware. I shall look into all three and compare them with Argentum.
As you'll see from my other posts, at present I'm cloning to two internal hard disks alternate weeks, and backing up conventionally (tib files) to a large USB drive, to store aware from the computer. At present I'm backing up the whole lot in this way, but I'm seriously thinking of going to splitting this USB backup in the way you suggest: Windows + Programs to Acronis and Data to something else. My regimen is working well, except that I have to be careful to manage system restore so that it's active on only the individual drives. However, it seems to keep resetting its defaults in this environment, and accordingly, I'm close to giving up on SR: it crashes a lot, and it's not really needed in this environment. I've tried cloning to the USB drive, but I can't boot into the clone: I don't understand why and I can't be bothered to troubleshoot it. I think I'll take the risk with the tib files and continue to use the USB disk conventionally.
By the way, I'm not attracted to the Non-Stop Backup feature in ATI 2010. My gut reaction is that it must be too complex to be reliable, take up too many resources, not needed, and has one disadvantage that it shares with RAID systems: the near realtime backup backs you up before you know you've got a virus! Best wishes, John
I would still be interested in an answer to my initial question IF THERE IS AN EASY ANSWER, PLEASE? Or to know that there isn't an easy answer! "CAN DATA BE EASILY RETRIEVED FROM A CORRUPTED TIB BACKUP IF THE "NO COMPRESSION" OPTION IS SET? AND IF SO, HOW DO YOU RETRIEVE IT, PLEASE?" - John
John:
An archive that is declared "corrupt" cannot be restored, but there are other methods of recovering data from it. They are 1) Exploring the archive and copying files from it and 2) Mounting the archive as a virtual drive in Windows Explorer.
For 1) just double-click on the backup archive and it will open in a limited version of Windows Explorer.
For 2), right-click on the archive and choose "Mount" and it will open as a disk drive in the full version of Windows Explorer.
As far as I know, compression has no effect on the use of either of these two methods. One would normally choose "No Compression" if one had a slow PC and the compression algorithm was limiting the backup speed. On modern processors, the default compression is an optimum compromise between archive size and speed.
"I've tried cloning to the USB drive, but I can't boot into the clone: I don't understand why and I can't be bothered to troubleshoot it."
If you left the drive in the usb enclosure then you cannot boot windows from it. To test the clone you have to remove the drive and put it in place of the original booting drive.
Many thanks, DwnNDirty - but I don't understand why? Why cannot it be set as the first boot choice in the BIOS, please?