Tibx frustration

Paul, sorry but the .tibx file format is not an indevelopment system but has been used by Acronis for many years in their business product line, which is why they are now porting this across to the True Image range starting in ATI 2020.

This is not to say that there have not been any teething issues in doing this port to ATI - there have been quite a list of issues which were reported from back in the initial beta testing phase and many which continue to the present day, still awaiting Acronis to produce changes in further update builds to bring back features that were present in all earlier versions.

Personally, having changed over to using .tibx for the majority of my regular backups has not presented any significant issues other than some questions about performance.

If you are seeing specific issues not already covered in the range of KB documents about .tibx files, then please share with the community what those issues are?

+1 to Steve Smith's response. 

There are seven functions that Acronis lists in the .tibx FAQ for TI 2020 that are not possible with .tibx files. For me, the killer is not being able to mount image backups. This has been available since I started using Acronis products in 2004. I have not used Acronis Backup since 2008 as the shop I'm in has a site license for another product, so I am unable to verify this, but I bet Acronis did not force their business customers to use .tibx with a similar reduced feature set. Likewise, I doubt that Acronis forced their business users to use the .tibx file format with the initial release. Perhaps .tibx is not an "in development file system" as the OP states, but TI 2020 is certainly a step backward. And, as the FAQ states, we have no guarantee that these features will be returned to TI 2020. 

There is nothing in the TI 2020 marketing material that I was able to find that states that 2020 reduces the feature set of the software when compared to previous versions. Likewise, there is nothing that states that users will be forced to adopt a new backup file format. The comparison matrix for 2020 vs. previous versions only shows additional features, with no mention of feature reduction. Not disclosing these facts is dishonest.

I am exceedingly disappointed with Acronis' implementation of .tibx in TI 2020, and am in total agreement with the OP. If I were still in the 30-day refund window when I discovered the .tibx fiasco, I would certainly being requesting my money back as the OP suggests.

Please update to the latest ATI 2020 Update #3 build 25700 which looks to have brought back the ability to mount some .tibx images even though this wasn't declared in the release notes for the update!

There have been mixed reports of success using Mount, i.e. it is not shown for differential files but it does work for me on the first file of a chain and the 12kb metadata file for a backup chain!

I can confirm that Mount works on Full, Incremental, and Differential Method backup files.  I discovered in doing so that if the backup files resided on my LAN I had to add a brief pause while TI completed my requests to mount and the assignment of a drive letter. 

With respect to Incremental method, only the Full versions within the method could be mounted however, all incremental versions can be Explored via right click context menu.

My impression - based on not real data - is that the mount happens much faster with the .tibx files.  I know the mounts I tried on ATI 2019 and 2020 are not comparable sizes so the different speeds may not be related to .tib vs .tibx or to  a different code base.

Pheckphul wrote:

There are seven functions that Acronis lists in the .tibx FAQ for TI 2020 that are not possible with .tibx files. For me, the killer is not being able to mount image backups...

...I am exceedingly disappointed with Acronis' implementation of .tibx in TI 2020, and am in total agreement with the OP. If I were still in the 30-day refund window when I discovered the .tibx fiasco, I would certainly being requesting my money back as the OP suggests.

 I'm an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" guy but I got a "deal" so bought 2020 but have yet to install it, which apparently is as trivial as running the installer over my existing ATI 2019 installation. Questions:

1. Is it true that my existing backup settings (which of course output to .tib) are not changed in the upgrade to 2020?

2. If I so choose, can I select .tib as my preferred output format for future backups that I create?

3. Are there any "last decade" .tib files that I will not be able to mount with 2020?

Thanks for any help with these!

TomF asked:

1. Is it true that my existing backup settings (which of course output to .tib) are not changed in the upgrade to 2020?

2. If I so choose, can I select .tib as my preferred output format for future backups that I create?

3. Are there any "last decade" .tib files that I will not be able to mount with 2020?

Answers:

1. Yes, backups created by ATI 2019 will continue to create .tib files in ATI 2020.
2. No, there are no options to select .tib other than when using Files & Folders backups which still use this format.  All new Disks & Partitions backups now use .tibx file format.
3. No, provided the files are still valid / can be validated.  See link in my signature to Backup archive compatibility which lists which files / versions have been tested by Acronis.

Acronis look to have brought back some of the Mount feature for .tibx files and are expected to continue to bring back this option in future updates to ATI 2020.

See forum topic: How to create a Disk backup as .tib (not .tibx) which will create a new backup task using the older .tib format in the Windows ATI 2020 GUI.

Thanks Steve. A bit surprised that one has to jump thru hoops

https://forum.acronis.com/forum/acronis-true-image-2020-forum/how-creat…

and am not even sure why anyone would go thru that trouble? Anyway the link about Archive compatibility is also useful. The net of it unfortunately is that 2020 will for me sit in a drawer unless/until I find a good reason to goto it. I'm pretty sure I have some old backups squirrelled away, and like most other things in life As Soon As You Throw Them Away You Find That You Need Them Again After All!

Did anybody look at the dates on the files that were mounted? They are from the date of the original full backup. None of the incremental backups are available.

Not one for using incremental method backups any longer but you should have closer look.  Because incremental backup files using .tibx are now all a part of the full backup they depend it makes sense to me that their date would reflect the original full. 

Can you verify that files in the mounted view are not the same as say the most recent backup?

No, they are not the same. Mounting obviously doesn't work with incremental backups. That is probably why it is still listed as not working in the release notes.

What type of backups do you use? I have always used incremental.

Mounting of .tibx files with #25700 only looks to work on full backups or the 12kb metadata file for a chain, not on either incremental or differential files.

Bob mainly uses full backups from his previous comments.

I do use mostly Full backups.  Having said that I have created some differential scheme backups and I like how they perform.  What I find with a differential scheme is that No, you cannot mount the individual files as Steve says but you can mount the Full files and the 12kb metadata files.  This indicates to me that mount works much differently in .tibx than it did in the past.  That is fine with me.  I only used the mount feature in the past as a way to semi-verify that a backup file could be restored.  As it is now mount will serve that purpose until convert to VHD returns which is much more reliable in determining if a backup can be restored.

It is still possible to Explore ANY backup file and from that get to a specific folder/file which you might need to recover thus accessing your data.  Seems to me that having mount and explore capability is good enough.

Hello,

I found something interesting in regards to mounting differential files......

I have a full backup with 3 differentials.  If I highlight one of the differentials, then click Acronis True Image the option is ONLY VALIDATE.

If I open the same differential with explorer and immediately close explorer and repeat the same as above,

I get MOUNT and VALIDATE. Seems a bit wishy washey to me..  but it all works and that is paramount.

I mounted, drilled down and copied a file back to the original source location, so file manipulation seems to be intact....

Interesting...

See screen shot...

regards,

Steve F

Steve, that is interesting and hopefully an indication that this mount option for .tibx files of all flavours will be cleaned up and made more consistent in the new new build of ATI 2020.

Steve and Steve,

Agreed, I found that if you choose Open from the Explorer menu (not Acronis True Image) then the file will open as a lettered drive.  You can then navigate to and copy files on that drive.  This suggests that Open serves the same function as Mount from the ATI menu option.

Either way it works.