Validating Acronis Cloud backup and can you download a cloud backup?

AFAIK, there's no way for a user to validate a cloud backup. At one point support told me they could verify my cloud backup that I'm currently unable to recover, but I'm not sure that's correct, or maybe I misunderstood.

IanL-S   wrote "I have done successful disk recoveries from Acronis cloud using ATI 2021. ...In my case it was system drive. ... I have never successfully download a disk image..." at https://forum.acronis.com/forum/acronis-cyber-protect-home-office-forum…. I'm not exactly clear on this, since my impression is that recovering a system disk requires downloading a disk image.

Kevin, there is a distinction between downloading a backup disk image (which results in a zip file containing an *.tibx file - this file can then be added to Acronis GUI) and doing a recovery from a cloud backup - the latter does not download an image, it writes directly to the target drive. I have successfully done a recovery from the Acronis Cloud on several occasions. I have never been able to download a disk image - it times out due to the poor way in which the image is created. It should not be available to download until the image has been compiled rather than downloading it while it is being compiled.

Ian

Thanks for the clarification Ian.

Rick - I assumed that "Can you download an Acronis Cloud backup file?" meant a Disk backup, since a Files backup can certainly be downloaded.

Rick, I can confirm that there is no validation option available for users with backups to the Acronis Cloud and such should not be needed due to different architecture used for this type of backup.

There is still an option to 'Open location' for cloud backups which if selected will take you to the online Acronis Dashboard to show the options available there or else you can open the Recovery panel tab in the GUI in Windows and use the options there to recover Disks, Partitions or Files (& Folders) from within the application.

Using the GUI application options should be more reliable than downloading a zip file from the dashboard as will have built in features to deal with any connection interruptions to allow the actions to be resumed without having to restart.

Kevin - Right now I don't want to use the cloud backup to recover a machine. I just want to download it as a tibx file. I'm thinking that once downloaded I could put it on Onedrive, which, IMO, would be more user friendly (i.e. easier to get at). ATI 2021 will not backup to Onedrive, which I can see since it is one of Acronis's competitors for cloud storage space.

Ian is correct in saying there is a distinction between recovering using the tibx file and downloading the file as is.

Steve - Thank you. It is great to see you're still out there! I was beginning to wonder if we lost you. You never know in these extraordinary times we live in.

Rick - I may not be understanding what you want to do, but it should be much faster to create a local Acronis backup and upload that to Onedrive, rather than have ACHO back up your image/files to the cloud and then download the backup from Acronis Cloud before uploading to Onedrive.

Kevin - Let me clarify. What I want to do is to be able to access my backups from Acronis Cloud via WFI so that I can use them to perform a restore. Since I can't currently do this I want to download the tibx files and put them on Onedrive where I can access them via WIFI.Then, I can download them from Onedrive,via WIFI, to an external USB drive where I can use them to perform a restore using the Acronis bootable media.  I would like to not have to recreate the backups on local storage. Understand that I don't currently have an urgent need to restore the backups to a drive; I am just performing testing. I want to be ready for when that need is realized.

Thank you.

Rick, accessing the Acronis Cloud via Wi-Fi is best done from the Windows ATI application as getting wireless to work with rescue media can be a challenge, especially if you have a non-standard wireless adapter.  Using a wired network connection with rescue media is a better option both for better speeds and reliability.

In terms of overall speed and performance, having locally stored backups is the fastest option though there is an initial investment in storage capacity, especially if going for a NAS, with the benefit that you could mirror the backups to other cloud storage locations such as OneDrive.

Personally, I am not a fan of cloud storage per say, I prefer to have the greater control of having my own storage options rather than be at the mercy of a remote server that is many miles away and that introduces other potential failure and attack points.  Currently, I cannot access my sole Acronis backup in their Cloud because when I try to open the Dashboard to the Backup page, I just get a spinning circle.  This has been like this for the last week at least!  Not impressed!

Rick - I think it'd be much faster and more reliable to use Acronis locally to back up to a .tibx file, then upload that .tibx to OneDrive without involving the Acronis Cloud.

IanL-S wrote:

...downloading a backup disk image (which results in a zip file containing an *.tibx file - this file can then be added to Acronis GUI).

However, I can't see an option to do this from the Acronis Cloud in either the web UI or ACPHO windows client. AFAICT both only provide either a "[disk] recovery from a cloud backup," or a Files recovery which downloads a zip archive of the directories selected to be restored. Even if it's possible though, Ian wrote, "I have never been able to download a disk image - it times out due to the poor way in which the image is created."

If it's even theoretically possible to download a .tibx file from the Acronis Cloud, that could be very helpful in my current situation (https://forum.acronis.com/comment/588911). Acronis has said that if recovery via the app ultimately isn't possible, then they can send my files, but only if I provide them with the backup's encryption password. They wouldn't need my encryption password if they could send me an encrypted .tibx file.

Kevin, I have not tried downloading a disk image for some years - cannot remember the process.

Why do you not just create a new disk image and upload it to OneDrive - I do not know if it is possible to upload a file of the size the disk image would create.

Ian

Rick, ref your question via PM's about my meaning re 'mirroring' - I simply mean using any method of keeping a copy of files in one location the same as those held in another location.

Example: I have several VMware VM's and Hyper-V VM's that are stored in separate folders on my D: drive and which I exclude from my Acronis backups due to size etc.

For these VM's, I use a free synchronisation program (SyncFolders) which I run manually after using any of the VM's and mirror these folders to an external USB 3.0 HDD as a local backup.

Windows includes Robocopy as an integrated tool that can also do mirrored synchronisation with a simple batch command:  robocopy d:\ f:\ /mir  (where d: is the source, f: the target etc).

Applications such as OneDrive, Dropbox etc can mirror selected folders to their Cloud servers but I would not recommend creating any Acronis .tibx backups to a local OneDrive etc folder directly unless that cloud sync is stopped due to the large volume of changes that are made during the backup process.

There are other backup applications that can backup directly to other cloud services such as OneDrive though I have never used these and don't have sufficient storage to use for this!

Thanks Steve and Ian. I appreciate your answers to my questions.

Rick