Is Defragmentation Required on a Backup Storage Disc
For: TIH2011 w/PP Latest Version
Backups started getting a bit slower over the past several months. I checked the backup storage drive for fragmentation and found the drive to be 75% fragmented. The drive is used solely for backup storage.
Incremental backups are performed every couple of days for a system with 2 OS Drives and a dedicated backup storage drive. No TIH 2011 cleanup or consolidation has ever been run.
As an example of the backup structure: An Entire drive (c:) and selected production folders are backuped up with separate tasks.
The Drive Master task/backup contains 18 images (11 - 58 gig each) with the first image created on 09/02/2011 (feb 09, 2011) and the latest created 07/08/11. 40-60 other images of production folders also exist on the same dive. All other images were created from separate tasks.
We are wondering if the perceived slowdown of the backup processes may be a result of fragmentation of the backup drive and should we attempt to defrag the drive.
Also, since we are running the "Version Chain" and the note says that backups older than 6 months are deleted, should we "mess" with it or wait a couple of days until we see that the older than 6 month copies are actually automatically deleted ?
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Regards,
Steve
Perdido Beach, AL
Perdido,
I agree with Scott. I'd add that defragging image files can result in corruption, just like a simple copy. If you were to proceed defragging, make sure you validate your backups to ensure they were properly optimized.
With regards to auto-cleaning options, I'd recommend you let ATI do its work and monitor whether the auto-cleaning is working as expected. Sometimes, ATI loses track of its files and some older archives don't get cleaned, as if they became orphans somehow. Sometimes, some changes made by the user during the course of the backup chain creates some shifting in the auto-cleaning counts. If you see that ATI doesn't clean as expected simply do this:
- move the TIB files you want to keep to another directory,
- delete the backup task,
- create a new one,
- after a while, manually delete the old tib files.
Pat and Scott,
Thank you for your reply. A little insight from experienced users is always a better approach and I thank you.
We will see what happens with the auto cleaning over the next couple of days.
Many Thanks !
Steve
I have just backed up data - around 600Gb - on an external drive that is used only for backed up data. Prior to backing up this data, the disc had only a relatively small amount of data and did not require defragmenting. When I analysed the disc in relation to deframenting, everything was shown as being red - and the subsequent report said that it required defragging. (I am using Windows XP.) Is it normal for data backed up by Acronis to be so severely fragmented?
Hi Stephanie,
I suspect that your external drive is formatted as FAT32. This is the usual " Out of box" condition found when using an external hard drive.
The Fat 32 system splits large files into 4BG chunks. The result shown by a defragger will be an apparently very fragmented drive. This has no noticable effect on the operation of the drive.
Just ato add abit here -- File fragmentation is controlled by the file system and not by ATI. Either the disk free space was badly fragmented to begin with or it's the situation the xpilot describe.