Reflecting on a Post-ATI World
It seems that my encryption password (yes, it's correct) is being rejected by ATI 2019 for backups created with later ATI builds, such as ATI 2020 or the latest version ACPHO version/build. This is not good at all for our Acronis exit strategy using Windows 11 & ATI 2019 while trying to maintain historical backup access.
Dominic, put simply, ATI 2019 is not compatible with backups created by ATI 2020 or later versions for a number of reasons. Primarily, ATI 2020 introduced .tibx files for Disk backups which are unknown to earlier versions as they use a different file architecture, so it is no surprise that ATI 2019 won't recognise or open such backups.
Acronis have only ever offered backwards compatibility for their software, never forwards!
You would need to have created and kept copies of the Acronis Rescue Media for your later versions to use with the archive image files from the same.
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the feedback. Fortunately, I do have recovery media for all of the ATI versions I've ever used. And, I've intentionally configured current backups to use TIB instead of TIBX when I don't use features that require it to avoid pitfalls of new functionality breaking for stuff I want to be stable. One would think that password encryption would be standard and forward/backward compatible, but we know how that goes.
Best regards.
FYI, I'm trying Macrium 8.0. There seems to be a performance bottleneck around 600 MB/s, even when not using compression, when doing a local backup from an NVMe SSD to a SATA SSD array that can each sustain several GB/s. More data is forthcoming, but this is not encouraging. Looks like ATI 2019 is the performance winner so far between ATI 2019, 2021 and Macrium 8 .
Julien Pierre wrote:FYI, I'm trying Macrium 8.0. There seems to be a performance bottleneck around 600 MB/s, even when not using compression, when doing a local backup from an NVMe SSD to a SATA SSD array that can each sustain several GB/s. More data is forthcoming, but this is not encouraging. Looks like ATI 2019 is the performance winner so far between ATI 2019, 2021 and Macrium 8 .
I have completed my testing, and unfortunately, Macrium is much slower across the board than both ATI 2021 and 2019. Full data here :
https://forum.acronis.com/forum/acronis-cyber-protect-home-office-forum…
@Julien -- Interesting. Was the state of the system comparable for each of your tests? (e.g., same drive capacity, drive temperatures cool, same cables, system freshly rebooted, etc.) Does the measured restore time include time for validating the checksums in the image file, or only the restore process?
If you are interested in Macrium Reflect as a an alternative to ACPHO but are experiencing issues related to unsatisfactory performance or anything else, you can turn to the excellent user forum for assistance with trouble-shooting, or open a support ticket with Macrium.
J K wrote:@Julien -- Interesting. Was the state of the system comparable for each of your tests? (e.g., same drive capacity, drive temperatures cool, same cables, system freshly rebooted, etc.) Does the measured restore time include time for validating the checksums in the image file, or only the restore process?
If you are interested in Macrium Reflect as a an alternative to ACPHO but are experiencing issues related to unsatisfactory performance or anything else, you can turn to the excellent user forum for assistance with trouble-shooting, or open a support ticket with Macrium.
Hardware was completely identical. I didn't check the drive temperature. For Macrium, I did reboot, as the installer required it. For TI2019 and the upgrade to TI2021, no reboot. When I filled the source drive with h2testw, the data was not identical, as I created, deleted, and recreated it. But it was random incompressible data in all cases. I believe my tests were apple-to-apples.
I only measured backup times, not restore times.
I wasn't able to register for the Macrium forum due to not having a license. Will check if I can open a ticket with Macrium.
"when doing a local backup from an NVMe SSD to a SATA SSD array"
A very unique backup scenario to SSD arrays. Usually backup destination drives are much slower than that for home and workstation users which this is aimed at.
However, if there is a performance difference it should be reported and investigated.
The more conventional tests I've done between SSD to HDD have given very similar results for both ATI and MR using partition image and file/folder backups when both are on max compression. I've not tried a restore yet.
John Stock wrote:"when doing a local backup from an NVMe SSD to a SATA SSD array"
A very unique backup scenario to SSD arrays. Usually backup destination drives are much slower than that for home and workstation users which this is aimed at.
However, if there is a performance difference it should be reported and investigated.
The more conventional tests I've done between SSD to HDD have given very similar results for both ATI and MR using partition image and file/folder backups when both are on max compression. I've not tried a restore yet.
I realize it's not a common case. But I have been doing this for years. The reason I use a local drive as destination to backup my OS is that restoring the OS from NAS is too much of a PITA. If I do it from the GUI under Windows, when it restarts, it always fails, because it's missing the Aquantia NIC driver. So, I'm forced to use the USB WinPE media to restore the OS. I have been able to add the NIC driver to it, but not to set the correct keyboard layout to be able to login and access the NAS.
Restoring the OS from a local TIB file on the SSD array usually works from GUI. But if it doesn't, ATI boot media will normally work, with only the mouse being required, and no need for the NIC driver or proper keyboard layout.
So, really, I'm not doing this because of high performance needs, but I do notice that it slowed down considerably.
I got my TIH 2021 5-license box in the mail just now from Newegg. Not sure if I want to activate it yet. I may resell it unused due to the performance issue. I'm still on the 30-day trial. TIH 2021 has also slowed down massively vs 2019.
I haven't compared full backup to NAS yet. Those are much slower, about 5TB of data that normally takes 3.5 hours or so, around 4 Gbps effective over 10 GBASE-T, to a ZFS array. Macrium might not be the bottleneck for that use case. I just haven't tried it yet as it takes much more time than doing a local backup of the 1TB NVMe drive to the local array.
@Julien, I asked about the drive temperatures due to the well-known throttling of SSD transfer rates at elevated temperatures. Don't know if this explains the differences you observed, though.
For what it's worth, the conventional wisdom (from users who have posted elsewhere in this thread, as well as former ATI users who have posted on the Macrium forum), which is based on experience and occasional benchmark tests, is that Macrium Reflect is 3-5 times faster than ATI when backing up images. I have also read posts in the ATI forum indicating that the paid version of Macrium Reflect is even faster than the free version.
However, I do not recall seeing any comparisons of restore times. I know that it is possible to enable a feature in Reflect called Rapid Delta Restore which significantly speeds up restore speed. I'm wondering if this feature was enabled in your tests.
J K,
J K wrote:@Julien, I asked about the drive temperatures due to the well-known throttling of SSD transfer rates at elevated temperatures. Don't know if this explains the differences you observed, though.
For what it's worth, the conventional wisdom (from users who have posted elsewhere in this thread, as well as former ATI users who have posted on the Macrium forum), which is based on experience and occasional benchmark tests, is that Macrium Reflect is 3-5 times faster than ATI when backing up images. I have also read posts in the ATI forum indicating that the paid version of Macrium Reflect is even faster than the free version.
However, I do not recall seeing any comparisons of restore times. I know that it is possible to enable a feature in Reflect called Rapid Delta Restore which significantly speeds up restore speed. I'm wondering if this feature was enabled in your tests.
It's a good theory re: SSD temperatures, and I will try to monitor them, but I don't think this is what the issue was. I have very good cooling in my HAF 932 Advanced case for all 8 SATA SSDs. I can certainly check the temps with CrystalDiskInfo next time I do one of these backup tests.
I don't understand why the paid version of Macrium would be any different than the trial. Isn't the point of a trial to determine if the product suits one's needs ? I can't do that if they aren't the same.
As I said before, I didn't do test the performance of restores yet, only backups, and everything pointed to Macrium being much slower. I have definitely seen ATI restores take much more time than ATI backups in the past, though, especially in the case of restores from NAS.
Julien Pierre wrote:It's a good theory re: SSD temperatures, and I will try to monitor them, but I don't think this is what the issue was. I have very good cooling in my HAF 932 Advanced case for all 8 SATA SSDs. I can certainly check the temps with CrystalDiskInfo next time I do one of these backup tests.
I have confirmed that temperatures aren't the issue. The SSDs are running much lower temperature with the Macrium backup in fact, just as they are running much lower throughput.
Per CrystalDiskMark :
During Macrium backup, temps for the source NVMe SSD is 40C . Temp for the 8 SATA SSDs is about 35C each (+/- 1 or 2C).
During True Image backup, temps for the source NVMe SSD is 51C. Temp for the 8 SATA SSDs is about 41C each (+/- 1 or 2C).
Per Task manager :
During TIH2019 backup, read throughput on the source NVMe SSD is about 1.9GB/s. Task manager shows this as "100%" usage.
During Macrium backup, read throughput on the source NVMe SSD varies between 250 - 450MB/s. It's not a straight line. But eyeballing it, it seems to average about 300MB/s. About 1/6th of the throughput I get with TIH2019.
Definitely something very wrong with Macrium, at least on my system. I don't see any way of filing a support ticket with them about this issue or registering for their forums because I haven't purchased it yet. But I don't want to purchase it if backup is 1/6th the speed of TIH2019. Even though they do have a 30-day refund policy, I don't know that such a huge performance gap is something they could close in just 30 days. So, I feel like Macrium is not going to be the replacement for TIH for me, at least not version 8.
Here's my experience with Macrium. I find that if the destination drive is a spinning HDD, backup times for Acronis and Macrium are very similar. Not enough of a difference to favor one over the other. It doesn't seem to make much difference if the source drive is HDD, SSD or NVMe. The write speed of the destination drive is the limiting factor.
When the destination drive is an SSD or NVMe, there is a big difference between Acronis and Macrium backup times. The limiting factor with Macrium is processing the data rather than the write speed of the destination drive. I just ran a test with both the source and destination drive as NVMe. Macrium's time for the backup was about 75% of the time when the destination was an HDD. Similar tests with Acronis have shown the backup time was about 50% when the destination drive was changed from a HDD to an NVMe. The limiting factor for Acronis is definitely the write speed of the destination drive.
I totally disagree with the statement that Macrium is 3-5 time faster for backup speed. I have never seen anything like that.
Macrium's backup speed in WinPE is very slow. There is a modification to a power setting in WinPE that solves the issue. I don't know why they haven't included the fix in the recovery media builder.
Macrium's restore times can be significantly faster than Acronis'. The Rapid Delta Restore feature makes it so only data that has changed since the backup needs to be restored. I've seen restores take less than 2 min. when there hasn't been much change since the backup. That is a great feature.
Julien Pierre wrote:I realize it's not a common case. But I have been doing this for years.I understand your motivations, I've worked in data centers using very exotic backup hardware over the years. I just had to mention it because I didn't want potential buyers to see your results and decide not to buy it when your results wont apply to 99.99% of home or workstation users who will be backing up to a HDD/ExHDD/NAS/Network.
@Julien
The claim about the paid version being faster than the free version came from posts by Steve Smith and Steve F/Perdido Beach (e.g., here and here). Of course the free version will be limited in performance compared to the paid version, or there would be no incentive for anybody to purchase the product; the free version also does not have Incremental backups (only Fulls & Differentials), and is missing other features (ReDeploy). If you want to evaluate the software risk-free, you should use the 30-Day Trial version, which is equivalent to the paid version in performance and availability of Incremental imaging, and also includes 30 days of access to Tech Support. After 30 days, the trial version reverts to the Free version, so it is a completely risk-free trial.
I would suggest that you install the 30-Day Trial Version, and if you still see performance issue, get in touch with Tech Support to troubleshoot the problem.
I totally disagree with the statement that Macrium is 3-5 time faster for backup speed. I have never seen anything like that.
The claim about Reflect being faster than ATI2021 can be found in several locations on this forum as well as in the Macrium forum. For example, Steve Smith made two posts in this thread showing a 2-4x speed increase using Reflect for full backups in one case, and a >3-fold speed increase using Reflect for full backups in another case. On the other hand, Bertel Schmidt found that ATI2021 was approximately 40% faster than Reflect for full backups, but that Reflect was approximately 5x faster for creating Incremental backups. There are other comparisons in the Macrium forum, but linking those is not permitted here.
Macrium's backup speed in WinPE is very slow. There is a modification to a power setting in WinPE that solves the issue. I don't know why they haven't included the fix in the recovery media builder.
I routinely back up system images from Macrium's WinPE environment (to an SSD destination), and have not noticed any performance issues. Have you raised this issue in the Macrium forum, or directly with Tech Support? What is the power setting that you are referring to?
I wanted to mention that Macrium does disk write performance (see Backup, Disk Write Performance from the GUI menus) to determine whether to write to the disk in either "Direct Disk I/O" vs. "File System". The I/O method is noted in the backup log for each backup and I suppose it could have an impact on a backup, and maybe even restores.
I know that the first backup run to a disk will trigger a write test as indicated in the respective backup log. Macrium records the write method based on DRIVE LETTER. I've been deleting the entry via the menu noted above and allowing Macrium to retest when I connect my external disks differently, i.e. USB vs. Thunderbolt, or use a different disk. I don't know if it will detect a change in drive connectivity or geometry by drive letter if the hardware changes, though.
I honestly haven't given this a lot of thought or done any testing with it but I expect it's write method could make a difference in performance. Also, one can delete the drive letter to trigger an automatic re-test and/or re-run the test from the menu noted above. I've noticed differences in write performance numbers when initiating a re-test manually via the menu vs. deleting and allowing Macrium to automatically retest.
All this to say... I expect Macrium's different "write methods" could yield different performance results for backups.
Mustang wrote:Here's my experience with Macrium. I find that if the destination drive is a spinning HDD, backup times for Acronis and Macrium are very similar. Not enough of a difference to favor one over the other. It doesn't seem to make much difference if the source drive is HDD, SSD or NVMe. The write speed of the destination drive is the limiting factor.
When the destination drive is an SSD or NVMe, there is a big difference between Acronis and Macrium backup times. The limiting factor with Macrium is processing the data rather than the write speed of the destination drive. I just ran a test with both the source and destination drive as NVMe. Macrium's time for the backup was about 75% of the time when the destination was an HDD. Similar tests with Acronis have shown the backup time was about 50% when the destination drive was changed from a HDD to an NVMe. The limiting factor for Acronis is definitely the write speed of the destination drive.
I totally disagree with the statement that Macrium is 3-5 time faster for backup speed. I have never seen anything like that.
Macrium's backup speed in WinPE is very slow. There is a modification to a power setting in WinPE that solves the issue. I don't know why they haven't included the fix in the recovery media builder.
Macrium's restore times can be significantly faster than Acronis'. The Rapid Delta Restore feature makes it so only data that has changed since the backup needs to be restored. I've seen restores take less than 2 min. when there hasn't been much change since the backup. That is a great feature.
Thanks. This is helpful information ! I'm glad I am not the only one seeing the problem with Macrium backup speed. You are confirming my observations, unfortunately. Looks like I'm going to have to wait for them to fix the performance bottleneck in their software. If you are able to do so, please file a ticket. I'm unable to, having not purchased the software.
I probably wouldn't do any backups with WinPE, but I would use it for restores.
Don't know if I would have any use for the Delta restore feature either. I only restore whole disks or specific files. I would have to think about it.
@Julien,
Please see my previous post above. If you are not already using the 30-Day Trial, then you are probably not getting a true picture of the software performance (and you are also not availing yourself of the option to get help troubleshooting any recalcitrant performance issues with the assistance of Tech Support ).
The point by Dominic Ciciollo above is valid as well. If there was some temporary issue the first time you used the destination disk which caused Macrium's test to select the "File System" method of writing instead of Direct I/O, this could unnecessarily slow down future backups (and would be easily fixed using a re-test). Again, Tech Support (and/or the user forum) should be able to help you troubleshoot what is going on in your set-up.
J K wrote:@Julien,
Please see my previous post above. If you are not already using the 30-Day Trial, then you are probably not getting a true picture of the software performance (and you are also not availing yourself of the option to get help troubleshooting any recalcitrant performance issues with the assistance of Tech Support ).
The point by Dominic Ciciollo above is valid as well. If there was some temporary issue the first time you used the destination disk which caused Macrium's test to select the "File System" method of writing instead of Direct I/O, this could unnecessarily slow down future backups (and would be easily fixed using a re-test). Again, Tech Support (and/or the user forum) should be able to help you troubleshoot what is going on in your set-up.
I'm already using the 30-day trial. Sorry if there was some confusion. I'm not using the free version.
The method of writing is already "Direct I/O".
I can't register for the forum when using only the trial version. The forum registration require a license key. I copied the license key for my trial version into the forum registration form, but was told my license is not eligible for forum membership.
I was however able to register for support, and filed a ticket about this issue. Let's see where it goes.
John Stock wrote:Julien Pierre wrote:I realize it's not a common case. But I have been doing this for years.I understand your motivations, I've worked in data centers using very exotic backup hardware over the years. I just had to mention it because I didn't want potential buyers to see your results and decide not to buy it when your results wont apply to 99.99% of home or workstation users who will be backing up to a HDD/ExHDD/NAS/Network.
Indeed, I managed to do a backup of my desktop NAS to my HDD ZFS array using Macrium last night, and it ran in 2 hours 42 minutes, at an average throughput of 4.1 Gbps, within 100 Mbps of what Acronis TIH 2019 manages. This was without compression in Macrium - I had compression enabled in ZFS on the NAS So, it looks like Macrium performs fine on my NAS.
Where it falls short in the local backup with very fast disks. These might not be the most common cases indeed, but newer computers do come outfitted with fast I/O, such as Thunderbolt 4, USB 3.2 Gen2 x2, multiple M2 slots, etc. Even an older USB 3.0 bus tops at 5 Gbps, and USB 3.1 Gen2 tops at 10 Gbps. You can put fast NVMe drives in fast enclosures and hook them up even to a modern laptop if it happens to have decent I/O.
The performance range of my local backups was 9 - 15 Gbps with ATI 2019/2021. Macrium seemed to max out around 4 Gbps. I think it's fair to perform this sort of test even if the majority of people aren't doing that today yet. But it's not horribly expensive to do so.
You can buy a 1TB NVMe SSD for $84 on Amazon, and a 10Gbps USB 3.1 Gen2 M2 enclosure for $14 . For under $100, that gives you a fast backup device, if not the biggest, and I think you would want backup software to be able to keep up with it.
I have been off this forum for months and months but received an automated email about a post I left on this thread that seems to infer that my comments were not quite correct.
I have been an Acronis customer for over a decade and was happy with TIH but way last year when I realized things were getting slower,not working well and the trend seemed to be toward subscription cyber security rather than basic good, reliable backup software, I decided to check out 2 or 3 competitor products.
Whatever all these good folks seem to have found, I want to say what I found.
It was like when I retired from my Federal IT job, I was happy and never looked back. Same with Macrium Reflect. I was super happy with the exceptional performance, robustness, reliability and never looked back. Started with Ver 7 and am now on Ver 8. Speed was mentioned. Yes, I didn't take notes and write down all those theckie facts but it was pretty simple for me to see the MR product was much faster than MY 2020 TIH, very robust and reliable from everything like cloning, restores, backups, full, incremental, file and folder backups and all that good stuff... Even boot repairs right from the restore disc... Reliable and Fast, Yes, It is !
I was reluctant to move away from TIH because we tend to stick with what we know. It was a whole new world that I now trust because I thoroughly tested before I bought, MReflect worked very well, it is reliable, it is a complete backup/restore system and it is not subscription based . And, after all my testing, I am super happy..
Julien Pierre wrote:John Stock wrote:Julien Pierre wrote:I realize it's not a common case. But I have been doing this for years.I understand your motivations, I've worked in data centers using very exotic backup hardware over the years. I just had to mention it because I didn't want potential buyers to see your results and decide not to buy it when your results wont apply to 99.99% of home or workstation users who will be backing up to a HDD/ExHDD/NAS/Network.
Indeed, I managed to do a backup of my desktop NAS to my HDD ZFS array using Macrium last night, and it ran in 2 hours 42 minutes, at an average throughput of 4.1 Gbps, within 100 Mbps of what Acronis TIH 2019 manages. This was without compression in Macrium - I had compression enabled in ZFS on the NAS So, it looks like Macrium performs fine on my NAS.
Where it falls short in the local backup with very fast disks. These might not be the most common cases indeed, but newer computers do come outfitted with fast I/O, such as Thunderbolt 4, USB 3.2 Gen2 x2, multiple M2 slots, etc. Even an older USB 3.0 bus tops at 5 Gbps, and USB 3.1 Gen2 tops at 10 Gbps. You can put fast NVMe drives in fast enclosures and hook them up even to a modern laptop if it happens to have decent I/O.
The performance range of my local backups was 9 - 15 Gbps with ATI 2019/2021. Macrium seemed to max out around 4 Gbps. I think it's fair to perform this sort of test even if the majority of people aren't doing that today yet. But it's not horribly expensive to do so.
You can buy a 1TB NVMe SSD for $84 on Amazon, and a 10Gbps USB 3.1 Gen2 M2 enclosure for $14 . For under $100, that gives you a fast backup device, if not the biggest, and I think you would want backup software to be able to keep up with it.
I'm not saying the technology isn't available and isn't getting cheaper, my point is in 2021 people at home or work that are target customers of MR are not backing up to NVMe or arrays of SSDs barring very rare outliers like yourself.
I speculate that 99% of them are just backing up to slow HDD via USB 2-3.1 or 10T/Gig Ethernet. Larger companies that backup to much larger or faster storage media use more professional backup software anyway, so it doesn't apply to them.
So synthetic tests that involve backing up to arrays of SSDs only apply to about 1% of MR customers.
This becomes compounded when the tests that have been performed with more traditional backup busses and media that much more closely match what a typical user of MR would have show different results to your own.
Any one else notice that the Off-Topic Forum is being spammed by a single user in the past 5 days (coinciding with the mention of the MR Black Friday sale above), bumping old threads from >10 years ago?
Perhaps S. Bagaudin has decided to start participating in the Acronis forums after all...
Observation on backup speeds, ACPHO vs. MR8:
I am running some weekly image-based backups in parallel as I continue to vet MR8. I noticed something today. I have an internal dual nVME m.2 in a RAID-0 config across two controllers so I get insane read speeds; my external is a thunderbolt-connected hard drive that is, of course, limited by the speed of the hard drive itself.
I noticed that ACPHO is reporting a very high "Speed" of backup as a single number while MR8 is reporting two numbers as "I/O Performance," read speed and write speed. The reported ACPHO backup speed is very high (above 1 Gbps). For MR8, read speed is similarly high but the write speed is understandably much lower (in the 100s Mbps range).
My point... when comparing speed of both products, we need to be sure we're comparing apples with apples when using product-published metrics vs. perhaps a third-party tool to gauge performance independently.
Firstly, thank you Steve Smith for linking me to this page. Thank you J K for creating this thread.
I have been irritated with ATI for some time, it just started feeling very Mobile-ish and very bloated, I found myself disabling services, startup , and background running services. too many to count. Then with naming scheme and introduction of TIBX files I found harder to work with then the TIB files I could rename my files, and move them to other drives, restore them from USB/Boot, etc... 2014 was the last good one for me. Then the bloatware, mobile backup, ransomeware, cyber protection, and the nail in the coffin was Subscription ending perpetual license.
I have used a software called "active@ Partiton Recovery, and File Recovery" by LSoft Technologies for years.
I found them when I lost 800GB of files, over nearly 20 years of files. I was able to recover all of the files from a partitioned deleted drive.
So I recently discovered they have active@Disk Image Freeware.
It is not very robust, but it is very simple.
I can make simple images but can only view them in their image viewer, I cannot browse them in explorer like I could with ATI, and I could also just drag or copy files from an ATI image very easily. So it's very lacking... Anyway maybe worth looking into. they may have a better paid version..
I am going to look into some the software everyone has posted, but I thought I would post the one I am currently using. I guess I can use the USB/ATI for as long I need to as I have 100's of system images over many years of PC's I have serviced or built, or relatives that have passed I keep images of their PC's that I originally built, and backed up over the years. Kind of sentimental I guess. When I build PC I install windows, drivers etc, and keep a system image..
I'm following this thread, as I found it very useful.
At my last count there were 12-13 services all running at the same time, even when everything but scheduled backups were enabled. You are also locked out of manually disabling a lot of them too.
This is when ATI became bloated malware among other detrimental things.
Thank you for your kind words, and for sharing your experience with LSoft's offerings.
It is not very robust, but it is very simple.
When you say that the LSoft active@Disk Image Freeware is not "robust", do you have some examples? Typically, we use "robust" to describe software that is dependable, stable, and works as it should under a wide variety of use cases, so "not very robust" would mean that the software is fickle, unstable, and/or error-prone. If you can clarify with examples, that would help any future readers who are considering whether to try the software you have mentioned.
Perhaps you were using a different interpretation of "robust", as in "hefty" (=feature rich), in which case the examples you already gave of missing features adequately conveys your point.
I can make simple images but can only view them in their image viewer, I cannot browse them in explorer like I could with ATI, and I could also just drag or copy files from an ATI image very easily.
FYI, the features you describe above (Explorer integration of image browsing, and drag-and-drop file copy from mounted images) do exist in Macrium Reflect. You can also set up additional columns in Explorer to display the backup type and backup comments when selecting image files to browse. I have not done the comparison myself, but users have reported that the process of mounting of images in Explorer for browsing is faster in Macrium Reflect than in ATI, which should be convenient if this is a feature that you use frequently.
Perdido Beach wrote:It was like when I retired from my Federal IT job, I was happy and never looked back. Same with Macrium Reflect. I was super happy with the exceptional performance, robustness, reliability and never looked back. Started with Ver 7 and am now on Ver 8. Speed was mentioned. Yes, I didn't take notes and write down all those theckie facts but it was pretty simple for me to see the MR product was much faster than MY 2020 TIH, very robust and reliable from everything like cloning, restores, backups, full, incremental, file and folder backups and all that good stuff... Even boot repairs right from the restore disc... Reliable and Fast, Yes, It is !
For what it's worth, I have conducted more tests with Macrium reflect trial version.
The full backup to my NAS was fine, taking 2h42mins at 4.2 Gbps. However, the moment I tried an incremental backup on top of that, things went badly. The program predicted that it was going to take over 3 hours for the incremental backup, even though very little had changed in the backup content. Worse, it's not clear what it was doing during that time. It certainly wasn't doing any I/O to the NAS. My NAS actually went to sleep mode after a short time because the I/O rate was under 600 KBps for over 15 minutes. This is per the rule I have sent in autosuspend.conf .
[general]
interval = 30
idle_time = 900
...
[check.NetworkBandwidth]
enabled = true
interfaces = enp2s0
threshold_receive=600000
threshold_send=600000
I came up with this value so that the NAS still shuts down if there is a VNC session to it on the LAN and nothing else is happening.
I'm really not quite sure what was going to take Macrium so long for the incremental backup. But it certainly wasn't going to be fast. I aborted the incremental backup as a result.
I haven't done measurements in TIH 2019/2021 for incremental backups lately, but I know I don't have this problem of having the NAS shut down in the middle of it.
I will be filing a ticket on Macrium about this also.
For me, it doesn't look like Macrium is a suitable replacement for either the local backups from NVMe to SSD array, or backups from NVMe+ SSD array to NAS over 10 gig Ethernet and ZFS Raidz2 HDD array. Not certain exactly where all the bottlenecks lie. But Macrium just isn't working out for my use cases. My choices remain either ATI 2019 or ATI 2021.
The program predicted that it was going to take over 3 hours for the incremental backup
How long did it actually take though? I've noticed that the prediction when it first starts is wildly off and takes a while to settle down to something much smaller.
J K wrote:Thank you for your kind words, and for sharing your experience with LSoft's offerings.
It is not very robust, but it is very simple.When you say that the LSoft active@Disk Image Freeware is not "robust", do you have some examples? Typically, we use "robust" to describe software that is dependable, stable, and works as it should under a wide variety of use cases, so "not very robust" would mean that the software is fickle, unstable, and/or error-prone. If you can clarify with examples, that would help any future readers who are considering whether to try the software you have mentioned.
Perhaps you were using a different interpretation of "robust", as in "hefty" (=feature rich), in which case the examples you already gave of missing features adequately conveys your point.
I can make simple images but can only view them in their image viewer, I cannot browse them in explorer like I could with ATI, and I could also just drag or copy files from an ATI image very easily.FYI, the features you describe above (Explorer integration of image browsing, and drag-and-drop file copy from mounted images) do exist in Macrium Reflect. You can also set up additional columns in Explorer to display the backup type and backup comments when selecting image files to browse. I have not done the comparison myself, but users have reported that the process of mounting of images in Explorer for browsing is faster in Macrium Reflect than in ATI, which should be convenient if this is a feature that you use frequently.
Yes I should clarify. Robust meaning (Very Simple) and I was quick to make my post, as I had just started using it several minutes before posting that as I was overly excited.
Actually it does have image mounting works perfectly, and there is a paid version with many more features. However I cannot make an image of a "dynamic" HDD Drive. So I will be sorting that out.
There is a paid version that has more features.
In the past with their active@ Partiton Manager, and File Recovery software I first purchased 1/7/2013 6:00:00 PM and have paid for download service 1 time to update for a fraction of the price. Plus they give hefty discounts for existing customers. I can upgrade my current software to include the Disk Image software. I feel like they appreciate my business. You get 1 year of free updates, and upgrades, then a small fee when you want to update to the new version you pay another year, but it's not a subscription. I went 8 years before paying again to update to the newest version. not sure if I'm making sense. You basically just pay when feel you need to upgrade.
Paid Version
Free Version
John Stock wrote:The program predicted that it was going to take over 3 hours for the incremental backupHow long did it actually take though? I've noticed that the prediction when it first starts is wildly off and takes a while to settle down to something much smaller.
I don't know. I didn't let it finish. There was no way it could have completed unless I disabled autosuspend on the NAS. I don't want to do that since keeping the NAS 24/7 would be very costly, much more so than the cost of backup software.
To those who have speed issues backing up to NAS or file server: Make sure that the network bandwidth is up to snuff. The best way to measure is with iperf3. It measures throughput without going to disk, and it tells you the highest possible speed as far as the network is concerned.
- Windows 10/11 seems to have problems with 10Gbit Ethernet. It doesn’t give me more than ~7.6 Gbit/sec, whereas Linux on the same hardware delivers close to 10Gbit
- Antivirus software can be a bandwidth killer. The Cyber functionality of Acronis takes a heavy hit See https://forum.acronis.com/forum/acronis-cyber-protect-home-office-forum…
- You may have multiple antivirus apps running, and they can bring your network speed to its knees.
Bertel Schmitt wrote:To those who have speed issues backing up to NAS or file server: Make sure that the network bandwidth is up to snuff. The best way to measure is with iperf3. It measures throughput without going to disk, and it tells you the highest possible speed as far as the network is concerned.
- Windows 10/11 seems to have problems with 10Gbit Ethernet. It doesn’t give me more than ~7.6 Gbit/sec, whereas Linux on the same hardware delivers close to 10Gbit
- Antivirus software can be a bandwidth killer. The Cyber functionality of Acronis takes a heavy hit . See this post.
- You may have multiple antivirus apps running, and they can bring your network speed to its knees.
I'm well aware of the software bottlenecks under Windows with 10Gbps ethernet. I only run Windows defender for this reason. AVG brings down the iperf3 performance quite a bit, especially on the receive side.
With Defender alone, iperf3 gives me about 7 Gbps when using just 1 TCP stream under Windows 10. It takes multiple TCP streams to max out the network.
I wasn't able to see the post you mentioned as the link did not work.
Julien Pierre wrote:I wasn't able to see the post you mentioned as the link did not work.
Sorry. Looks like the link got munged. Trying again:
https://forum.acronis.com/forum/acronis-cyber-protect-home-office-forum…
Just wanted to say thanks for all the good info in this thread. I recently upgraded to Windows 11 and got hit by the same licensing issue as many. Having just purchased a 5-pack of ATI 2021 in July, you can imagine my dismay with the "We're not going to support you anymore, but feel free to give us more money now and in perpetuity for the further bloated product you don't really want."
I'm doing my trial of Macrium Reflect now, and I'm so very happy to see the focus on just what we originally bought ATI to do. Assuming testing continues successfully, I'll be jumping on that purchase soon.
It's a little bit hidden, but you can buy ATI 2021 here:
https://store.acronis.com/882/purl-consumer-standard-US?cart=s7834:2265…
Perhaps you posted in this thread by mistake. Your comment may be of interest to readers of some of the other forums (for example, the "Perpetual License" thread in the ACPHO forum), but this thread is specifically for users who are fed up with ATI and are looking for alternative imaging and backup software from vendors other than Acronis.
Guido Quadvlieg wrote:It's a little bit hidden, but you can buy ATI 2021 here:
https://store.acronis.com/882/purl-consumer-standard-US?cart=s7834:2265…
Nobody is interested any more. We've all moved to Macrium Reflect for all of the reasons mentioned in this thread.
New account and one comment. Acronis employee?
Good time to get Macrium Reflect Home, with the 20% off holiday sale.
I also am sadden by the direction Acronis is going in. I have been with them for several years and just found out about their subscription sells. I emailed them earlier and complained that I didnt need any security software just a software to back up my computer. I also think it is getting very bloated. Glad I found this thread for I too will be looking for another backup software. Has anyone had any experience with R-Drive Image Software? Thanks.
After so many year with TrueImage, I purchased Macrium and uninstalled TI 2021 no more updated. I want a backup software, not a cloud space or antivirus... And NEVER I will pay for a subscription software... bye bye Acronis, I'll never come back
John Stock wrote:Guido Quadvlieg wrote:It's a little bit hidden, but you can buy ATI 2021 here:
https://store.acronis.com/882/purl-consumer-standard-US?cart=s7834:2265…
Nobody is interested any more. We've all moved to Macrium Reflect for all of the reasons mentioned in this thread.
New account and one comment. Acronis employee?
Hahaha, nope. I was looking for an answer, looked here, didn't find it but found it somewhere on Redit. Just thought it might be helpful. Totally agree with everyone who thinks Acronis is just being greedy here. I don't need cyber protection crap, I just want a solid backup solution. I used to use Paragon, then Acronis, now I'm switching to Paragon or Macrium.
B.t.w. Thanks for al the alternatives.
J K wrote:Perhaps you posted in this thread by mistake. Your comment may be of interest to readers of some of the other forums (for example, the "Perpetual License" thread in the ACPHO forum), but this thread is specifically for users who are fed up with ATI and are looking for alternative imaging and backup software from vendors other than Acronis.
Sorry JK, I was looking for a link but couldn't find it. Thought I'd post it here once I found it on Reddit. Only offering a subscription model is greedy, I don't like it at all.
Marcmale You may want to make sure that you have done a full clean uninstall of ATI 2021, using the Cleanup Tool utility (see KB article).
I've been getting increasingly irritated with Acronis for a few versions now. I found this thread after holding off on 'upgrading' from ATI 2021 to ACPHO.
I have a perpetual licence for ATI 2016, but the reason I have (and to date, continue to) pay a subscription to Acronis is the cloud storage. I want an off-site backup with minimal fuss, and when it works ATI is convenient.
When it works.
Beyond the initial backup, I've had to re-seed my cloud backup twice, at around 1TB that's a couple of weeks of constant upload on my 5MB upstream connection. I'm determined that if there's ever a fourth upload, it will be somewhere else.
I've looked into alternatives, and they all seem to have one caveat or another, but perhaps someone here has a good suggestion from the POV of an ATI user?
John, if you are intending to stick with using either ATI or ACPHO then only the Acronis Cloud is supported for direct cloud backups and recovery. Acronis have never and show no intention of ever supporting any other cloud services.
If you look at alternative backup applications then these may well support a range of popular cloud service providers though I have no direct experience in that area as I have kept away from nearly all cloud services (including Acronis Cloud) other than for some simple file sharing.
Many former users of ATI/ACPHO have switched to Macrium Reflect, which does offer native support of cloud storage on Microsoft Azure File Shares. This is described in the article that can be found at the following URL (you'll have to copy and paste into your browser address bar after replacing "dot" with dots, since the forum does not permit creation of external links):
blog "dot" macrium "dot" com/backup-to-the-cloud-with-azure-file-shares-c127ff77fd3b
I went with EaseUS, simple enough for me.
Steve, I intend to continue using cloud backups, it doesn't necessarily have to be Acronis, it's just the sunk cost of already having my data in their DC adds friction, but that will only go so far.
Around this time last year I discovered that the backup I'd been maintaining for several years prior was corrupted and I had to spend two weeks creating a new one on another DC.
Luckily I didn't need data recovery during that period, I should demanded a refund of my subscription and found an alternative at the time, but I had other things to deal with, and it got forgotten about.
J K, Thanks for the link, after a skim it looks promising, I'll take a detailed look when I have more time.
I had to come and post this.
What is Ransomware?
You pay a fee, If you do not pay the fee your files are useless. Correct?
So lets say I have a subscription to Acronis, and I have multiple .tibx files of all my images and backups made with Acronis & I don't pay my subscription fee, are my files useless until I pay the fee? or do you have the ability to restore your files and images?
Will this even get posted? Will see.