Non Stop Backup functionality
I'm thinking of using non stop backup and have had a trial version running now for a few weeks. Something that concerns me is that the backup is being stored as a single large file on my NAS. I was not expecting this as an error in that file (caused by the disk or OS) would render the backup useless.
I was expecting some kind of full and incremental backup cycle perhaps configurable to weekly or monthly to protect against the above.
Have I misunderstood its operation and/or not configured the backup correctly?
I understand what you are saying however, I want to press a button and its done, I don't want to be involved in the process. Based on what I am hearing then my current backup product WD Anywhere, which may be inefficient in terms of disk (which is cheap) is by far the best approach but I remain open to an alternative approach.
If you guys had a solution that I felt wasn't gated on a single file in the file system then I'd buy it. As it is my eval term as ended so thanks for all the fish.
Andy
All I can say Andy, is that once you have set up a task for a files and folders backup you will get the end result of what you want albeit with a few extra mouse clicks. The only really big difference between NSB and making your own schedule is that with NSB it decides the exact frequency at which it will run whereas a scheduled task you have to preselect and it isn't variable.
I want to press a button and its done,
This is absolutely possible, in fact it could be setup so that you wouldn't even need to press a button. Your backups could occur on a regular, automated schedule. But, both approaches require some setup first, as is the case with many backup tools.
Any backup that results in the creation of a single file on an (any) operating system is a single point of failure that I will not accept as a viable backup method
I'm not looking to criticise I'm looking for a viable backup solution for the 4 PCs in my house. But I'm not hearing anything that convinces me that Acronis has been thought through enough to meet my requirements.
Andy,
If you happen across a piece of software that you do like, that can do what you are suggesting, in the way you want, send me a private message and let me know what you have found.
Thanks in advance.
James
Any backup that results in the creation of a single file on an (any) operating system is a single point of failure that I will not accept as a viable backup method
You misunderstand the purpose of True Image. It is primarily a system imaging utility, and all such utilities write to an image archive file. This enables a much more extensive backup and offers far greater disaster support than a simple file backup.
With a full disk archive, even if you suffer an entire hard drive failure you could just insert a fresh drive, recover from the image, and your system would be back exactly where it was before the disaster. All your system settings, all your installed software, all your files, your desktop, everything... would be exactly as it was. Such comprehensive backup and recovery is not possible with your method.
You can also use True Image to do file backups, but that is not as powerful a solution. If all you want is file backup, there are many excellent free tools that can do that, including Microsoft SyncToy, Windows Backup, Microsoft Robocopy for command-line backups, and many more.
James
I find your tone aggressive and condescending
probably end of of discussion, even though I am actually looking for a solution
Andy
Several of us tried to help you. Acronis True Image does many excellent things and has saved many people from disaster. You clearly chose the wrong software for what you want. This is neither the fault of Acronis nor of those of us who tried to help you.
Who are you to jump in and make a statement like that?
on Facebook - check it out - outrageous - you should never ever talk to someone like that
Andy,
I may be missing what you are getting at here, but with file and folders you could make differentials or incrementals. I think I understand that you are not happy with a methodology where there is only one 'parent' image and everything else is a 'child', take away the 'parent' and the 'child' image is useless.
I think that what you are looking for is a backup solution that operates more in a RAID or Windows 8 Resilient File System/Storage Space way. Other than the Windows 8 continual file backup methodolgy I can't think off the top of my head of any other disk/file imaging programs that work in the same way, though that might change once Windows 8 has been on the market for a few months.
What I want is I press a button and its backed up and I can recover any file should i need to. I would think that is a pretty reasonable request.
Andy,
We seem to be not quite on each others wavelengths :) . Even with NSB you will still have to set it up, tell it where to store the files and select what disk it is covering, once that is done it will run in the background all the time, you would be able to recover any file you wanted at a later stage. However it will always combine (30 days slices IIRC ) into one large file, there is no way around ending up with one large consolidated file with subsequent slices.
What I'm saying is that you can also with more flexibility set up a file and folders backup to do the same thing and once set up it will just run, however you will also have at least one initial image and then subsequent incremental or differential images, all of which will allow you to restore just one file if you wish.
If the sticking point is the single large file which if corrupted becomes useless, your other option with True Image would be to make two tasks that run on alternate days if you wished. These could be set up to always make intial backups, which either delete after a set period of time or even have them make the backups to two different media so in the event of a disk failure you would have a backup no older than two hours (or whatever frequency you set).
Andy,
About the single point of failure, you might want to consider a tool like Genie Timeline http://www.genie9.com/home/Genie_Timeline_Home/specs_and_features.aspx
I used it for a while and I liked that it was providing system recovery, email backup and file backup while leaving the files "flat". The earlier version I tried didn't have file retention and clean up and that proved problematic for me as I edit videos quite a bit (big files versions were fillling up the backup disk pretty fast).
I was not quite clear how the disaster recovery would work out if the system has some original partitioning.
So I ended up moving away to went to SyncBack SE for content backup, and ACronis for disk imaging of the OS and apps.
It looks like the last version has file retention rules and cleanup. I doubt this is fine grained since in the first version you couldn't have multiple backup tasks.