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Information about Backup4all 2.3.2

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tomos:
I'm on V.3.10

File/New Backup Wizard
add name ->
Add Folder - select drive and or folders ->
Add destination folder ->
etc etc

works here... :-\

Curt:
As you can see on my screenshot, tomos, it also works here, I did exactly as you (too) directed, but what about the size of the backup: 3 MB backing up 100 GB?? No way! How many GB are you backing up, and how much space does the produced backup files take?

Perry Mowbray:
As you can see on my screenshot, tomos, it also works here, I did exactly as you (too) directed, but what about the size of the backup: 3 MB backing up 100 GB?? No way! How many GB are you backing up, and how much space does the produced backup files take?
-Curt (March 29, 2008, 05:35 PM)
--- End quote ---

Are you backing up compressed files? I know my B4A spits the dummy when it tries that: generally it says that I have not got enough room.

Edit:  :-[ Re-Looking at your screenshot... those file are the B4A index files, not the actual backups. The backups should be probably in a zip file.

The backup of my documents directory looks like this:
Information about Backup4all 2.3.2

The actual backup files are contained in the Directory:
Information about Backup4all 2.3.2

And it also looks like you're backing up your backups??? Is that right?  :-\

Curt:
4½ hours ago I was feeling relieved, because I finally understood what I did wrong the first couple of times I tried to use Backup4All (B4A), and now realized how to begin a proper backup. Half an hour later, I was so disappointed I actually was thinking about removing B4A from my computer right away!

The backup started at 15:00:52 Danish time (GMT+1). Notice what happended:

Starting backup for "Doc4Me" at 30/03/2008 15:00:52
[15:29:02] Waiting for user input:

* "Cannot open file "C:\Documents and Settings\karar\Dokumenter\e-Books\ß?.doc".

I was "lucky" because I passed by the desk only two minutes later, and saw that  the screen was showing some strange looking window, so I could click "skip" and see the backup procedure go on. But what if this has been at night and I was off to bed? The backup was stalled on pause: Nothing was happening! And for what? Waiting for me to click a button, because of lack of full Unicode support!!!

To confirm this mis-feature, it did the same thing 1½ hour later:

[17:01:07] Waiting for user input:

* "Cannot open file "C:\Documents and Settings\karar\Dokumenter\Videoer\Ashley Tisdale - Be Good To Me ??.mp4".
This time I was lucky again and wasted merely six more minutes. It was not the files' content, but the names of the files, that was the problem: "Syntaksen i filnavnet, mappen eller diskenhedsnavnet er forkert." = "The syntax in ("of"?) the file name is wrong"

The actual file names in question:
ßИ.doc
Ashley Tisdale - Be Good To Me ♫♥.mp4

These characters, И♫♥, are of course not common in any way, but they are supported by Explorer and my media players and several other programs, including your browser (?), and to my understanding they are Unicode characters. B4A does of course support Unicode, but not FULLY.

Next problem: the compressing to zip containers.
For some time I watched the text very closely as B4A was working, and it became clear to me that maybe 70 percent of the time was spent "updating zip file"! So my next question must of course be: HowTo backup 'one to one' without compressing? It will not save space, but eons of time!

After 3½ hours I aborted the backup, by then merely 38 % of My Documents were saved. Backing up a computer seems to be so big a project, it clearly takes practising, and has to be well planned ahead.

--

At the end of the day I find it unacceptable that Backup4All did not go on with the backup when it found a strange filename, but STOPPED. It could have informed me at the end or whatever, but it cannot just STOP and sit there, waiting for ever. Maybe there is an option somewhere I should have activated? I didn't find it.

I would also like the option to make a backup without compressing.

And I want Backup4All to FULLY support Unicode.

Edit: I turned off email client, skype, scrensaver and other 'active' programs, before starting the backup. I also first changed Priority to High.

Shades:
Tried a demo from them once, about 1 year ago. My overall impression for this piece of software was good, but there was one major letdown, Samba support.

/*rant
Whatever I did, it was not possible to write a backup to a Centos 4.3 powered PC, which was setup as a file-server. The strange thing was that practically all different (freeware) file-managers did not have any problem writing to the same backup folder. A lot of different (freeware like Karen's Replicator, DSynchronize, Cobian Backup, AllwaysSync, RapidBackup, Unison, BoxBackup, Comodo Backup, BackupTime and Yadis) backup solutions were tried, but only SyncBack SE was able to store a backup. And was it not for it's terrible interface, I would be using it.
/*rant

If possible, can somebody here shed some light if Samba support has improved with the latest version of Backup4All or knows about another freeware solution?

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