26 HR+Backup ?

Are you using the Recovery CD or from within Windows. If from within Windows, you may a conflict from another program or the internet.

Have you tried changing the priority from low to something higher.

There is also an scheduling option which advises the program to only do the backup during idle times. Make sure that it not set for future backups.

If using a usbhub, try a direct connect--to a rear connector--if a desktop.

GroverH,

Thanks a lot for the information you gave for it highlights some things I am going to try. Do you have any rough idea as to how long it might take to do a backup of the 233GB I mentioned?

You said:
"Are you using the Recovery CD or from within Windows. If from within Windows, you may a conflict from another program or the internet."

I am backingup from within windows. I have not tried your suggestion yet but I assume I shouls turn off the internet and all running programs and see what happens.

You said:
"Have you tried changing the priority from low to something higher."

I do not recall ever changing this setting which is currently set to LOW and I suppose that is the default. This is the first thing I am going to try to see what happens. I have changed the setting to NORMAL for Backup and Recovery.

You said:
"There is also an scheduling option which advises the program to only do the backup during idle times. Make sure that it not set for future backups."

For some reason I have not found the location for setting this option. I will keep looking.

You said:
" If using a usbhub, try a direct connect--to a rear connector--if a desktop.

I do not THINK I am using a usbhub but not sure. I believe I have some sort of master/slave setup.

The reference to a usb hub was if the disk was an external disk connected via a usb cable. If the storage disk is an internal disk, then the comment about usbhub would not apply.

The reference to "idle" is found under the scheduling option under advanced settings.

As for backup times, there is many variables such as computer speed and disk speed, --whether backup to internal or external, etc alo whether validation is an automatic part of the backup. I do a 50GB of used space in about 1 hour--no validation.

merely as a rule of thumb, you can use 1GB per minute.

Typically, you can figure about 1/2 to 2 min per GB for backing up and something roughly similar or a bit slower for restoring. Newer, faster machines, of course, tend to run ati disk operations faster.

If you are backing up from within windows and using the machine for other operations (word processing, whatever) this can greatly extend the backup time as the file system trades off which program has the "right of way". But if you are running into several minutes per GB, then you probably have a resource conflict with another program (inadequate available resources for faster backup), or (when using the bootcd) your usb connection isn't being recognized as USB 2 or later. One other thing that can greatly slow backup times is if there are weak spots on the source or target disk, which cause reads or writes to be repeated many times until the program is satisfied it has a reliable read/write. The only way to deal with that is to run chkdsk /r on each disk (requires a reboot) -- chkdsk with the /r parameter forces all five disk tests and repairs (if possible).

I finally did another full backup of +- 260G in total on drive C & G (another internal drive). I have been reluctant to do a full backup for a while becayse of the time it might require. I turned off the internet and all programs running in the background. Not sure if I needed to turn off all the background programs but I did it anyway. I changed from LOW to NORMAL priority. I wonder if I should change the priority to something even higher. I do the backups while sleeping.

The backup time was +-10 hours which is manageable. Iam using v2010 and wondering if v2012 would be faster.

Thanks for everyone help.

Where do you store the backup?

Normal priority is fine.

Make sure you don't have an IO intensive app running at the same time (like a full scan of AV, or defrag tasks)

I don't think 2013 will be faster, unless you are having some software conflict that 2013 won't have. But there is a possibility...

You should run chkdsk X: /r from an elevated command prompt, where X: is each partition on the backup. If ATI detects some disk issue, it might struggle with some disk information.

If you try 2013, make sure you make a full system backup, you uninstall 2010. You can then apply the 2011 clean up utility without danger, The utility is here http://kb.acronis.com/content/14871 . Make sure you follow all instructions. Do not let the utility reboot your computer. First complete the last 2 checks before rebooting.

If you don't have any other progs running, then settitng priority won't matter; ati won't be competing for time slices or file access. Of course, it's hard to relly shut everythong else off. Anything invovled in prolonged fiel read/writes will substantially slow down an ntfs system --Pat mentoned this. Also, try it with your security software unloadedi case it's scaning evert read/write that ati makes.

PatL
Thanks for the information.

I store the backup on a (I guess you could call it internal) removable hard disk that is in a carriage on the tower. I did a chkdsk and that solved another problem I was having with incremental backup. I have Nvidia so ATI things (if that is the reference) is not a problem.

Scott
Thank you as well.

I shut off everything running or running in the background. The only security I have on my machine is MS Security Essentials which I do not shut off because I do not know how.

Generally, on this forum, "ATI" is used to mean Acronis TrueImage. ;)

Did you try running a backup from the bootCD? Are the times very similar?

With the BootCD you'd have nothing running but the linux OS and ATI.

If the times are still slow, then I'd try a diff target, one that doesn't use the removable drive bay just to see if that might be the culprit.

Blair,
The reference to ATI is not the video card, but Acronis True Image. I would suspect that your backup times are a result of the transfer speed of the data between your hard drive and the "removable carridge hard drive". I run MS Security Essentials on my systems, and it does not seem to make much of an impact on backup performance. As a comparison, on my Windows 7 system, backing up about 100GB's doing a disk based backup to a USB2 connected external hard drive takes about an hour without validation. If I do a file/folder based backup it takes much longer.

Blair,

Now that we cleared up that ATI thing :-)...
I was wondering... Is it a new computer? if not, were backups faster in the past on the same computer?