TIH 2011 and TIH 2012 Automatic Cleanup Broken - Runs after a backup
Automatic Cleanup is broken - there is no option to force it to run BEFORE a backup is attempted.
This makes it utterly impossible to Guarantee there will be enough room for any unattended backups to work 100% of the time.
Why? If you set a quota or limit on sets, etc, you would have to know the total free space, AND the size of the current backup in *advance* - this is impossible to know - the resulting failure mode will prevent all future backups unless there is user intervention. There is NO way around this - there is NO way to automate a solution with ANY cleanup settings.
You can not use quota - example: say you have 500G backup drive and you set a quota of 400G - so what happens if the used space ever reaches over 100G ? Well the current backup will fail (another bug - they don't even try to estimate this) - once failed all future backups fail (unforgivable failure mode). Someone might suggest changing the quota to less then 400G (missing the point - its not automatic anymore is it?)
Why does this matter so much? Because the most important thing for any backup program is to value the most recent data at all costs unless the user has stated they don't want this done! The failure mode with Automatic Cleanup respects the older backups is being more important ( totally useless!) The same applies to version chains (hey - does not actually look in the target folder - it assumes its databases are correct - aside look up bugs relating to databases - you have to always keep track of the size of your backups - otherwise they will fail for the same reasons) An so on, all can fail. There is NO automatic work around - ALL solutions require require some constant monitoring. When the backups fail because they do not have enough space it messes up the TIH databases .. but that is another bug (rather then purging corrupted databases and rescanning the backup directories automatically - it does what - it stays broken - same approach - let it break ...)
If you have a machine setup at a remote location this failure of Automatic Cleanup and database repair is just another a blatant disregard for the safety of your customers data... You will never be sure if it is broken or not unless the location has internet and you have remote access...
Just my 2 cents
PS I have read all of the forum comments on related topics - I have yet to see a good solution (if anyone is tempted to reply - please be careful to examine the logic - each work around at some level requires knowledge of the state of the backup free space. I am not talking about the extreme case of only enough room for one backup - see my suggestions at the end of this note )
Suggestions/fixes
- have a checkbox that says always run cleanup logic first (simple solution )
- add an option to rebuild the TIH databases automatically if an error is detected - move corrupt backups to another folder automatically or delete or warn
- add an option to ignore backups with corrupt databases so it will not contaminate the good ones
- add better errors diagnostics (if file in use error happens with a file backup then state exactly what failed to backup
- add better error recovery by adding a check box that states always to continue a backup even if some errors are detected
other then total failure (warn the user in such cases)
