AMD StoreMI and AcronisTI backup
First of all, I have never used AMD StoreMI. Hence my question.
I am thinking of a new build with:
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some Threadripper and x399 MoBo
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one 1TB SSD NMVe M.2 - for win 10 pro and all the software
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one 256 GB SSD NMVe M.2 + one 6TB HDD, to be mounted in a single StoreMI volume - for a lot of data.
In my existing PC I am used to weeky backup the data to a swappable external Sata HDD (just connected and later removed) by Acronis True Image 2018. My question is: will the StoreMI volume be seen as a single volume also by True Image during backups, and also during restore? Or maybe I will have something different?
Many thanks
Looks like it's still not officially supported, but if you have that extra disk to test with, I'd try it to see. Don't risk it in the original configuration though.
Yes, it's a hybrid drive at all. But, if I am not very sure of restoring data, I will not assemble it: too dangerous.
When I will set-up that new build maybe I will try, and disassemble StoreMI volume if TI shows issues.
Many thanks, Bobbo_3C0X1.
Saverio,
I agree with you that such configurations are not compatible with recovery. This scheme is often called tiered storage and is widely used in enterprise environments. The SSD part of the equation actually acts as a cache for frequently used data. I suspect that in the enterprise environment the HDD side of the equation is what is backed up not the SSD. Not sure how that is done but I doubt TI can handle it. If you are adventurous you could try it but if you're not, I'd leave it be.
I just read a bit about StoreMI. It seems it is not a cache, but rather a system whereby the data is stored in either the HD or SSD depending on it's frequency of use. Data migrates under the covers so you never really know when this may happen. Total storage is the sum of the HDD and SSD.
Because Saverio is planning to run a 1TB system SSD and a StoreMI data drive, would it make sense to just do file and folder backups for the StoreMI drive?
Hi Bruno,
I did a bit more investigating this myself as I am always interested in new technology. In reality this is an old tech with a new name. The tech is what is known as Tiered storage. The SSD is used to store blocks of data that are frequently used by the user. Data not frequently used is left on the HDD. Backup products like TI which uses block level backup will see this as a single disk and backup accordingly. The problem is that when a restore is performed then recovery cannot determine which blocks belong where. Translation, backup corruption.
The way around this is to break the acceleration as they call it of the disk arrangement which will migrate all frequently used blocks from the SSD back to the HDD then backup the HDD. Once you have that backup you turn on acceleration again but the driver responsible to make this scenario work must then recalculate anew the most frequently used data blocks and then migrate those back to the SSD.
Not something I want to do on a boot disk. The documentation says that this can be done on a data drive as well so depending on the usage scenario of a data disk it might be worthwhile.
Thanks you all. I have just downloaded and read the StoreMI user guide (https://www.amd.com/system/files/2018-04/amd-storemi-users-guide.pdf). It is possible to swich off StoreMI, have all the tiered data back in the HDD, backup them, and later switch StoreMI on. But it seems not enough affordable to be done every week for backups; imho it seems really dangerous for data.