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Macrium Backups and Dirty Tape Drive Syndrome



 
 
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  #1  
Old September 8th 17, 04:27 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.windows7.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Macrium Backups and Dirty Tape Drive Syndrome

I ran into a case you might find mildly amusing.

I was moving some data around (drive consolidation) and
happened to move a 1TB MRIMG file off a disk. For fun,
I ran the Macrium Reflect "Verify" option on the file,
and it failed.

The paid version of Macrium, has an "AutoVerify" option,
which will verify the archive checksums after a backup is
finished. It does this

Source Disk ----- Destination Disk [1TB of writes]

checksum(Destination Disk) [1TB of reads]

It must be done this way, to avoid "cheating" and leaving
the archive not truly verified. In the same way that Imgburn
pukes out the DVD, before it does its verify run.

So that's how this problem can be solved with automation.
If you paid for the software, there's a tick box for this,
and your warning of trouble would have arrived sooner.

*******

I suspect what happened, is this machine had bad RAM. The
source disk was read into RAM (good so far). The MD5sum
of 64KB blocks of data is computed and stored in the MRIMG.
Then the data is copied to the disk (perhaps using a different
RAM buffer). At this point, the data was corrupted by the bad
RAM on my machine. Now the checksum, and what was written
to disk, don't match.

I didn't notice this, until checking this MRIMG today. I had
a similar "bad" archive a couple months ago, and just discarded
it.

The bad RAM actually showed up, while I was testing the
Windows Memory Tester. I was not able to fault isolate to
the nearest stick, so replaced all the RAM. When I ran
a test backup today (1TB MRIMG), a Verify run on that one
passed. So the new RAM appears to be OK.

*******

The message here is, if you're using the Macrium free version
(without AutoVerify), you should occasionally do a
verify run on one of your images stored on your external.
Just in case you've got a hardware problem. Like Dirty
Tape Drive Syndrome, where all the backups you're making
are "bad", you want to catch this problem before your
external disk contains nothing but "bad" MRIMG files for recovery.
Like, say you have Ransomware on the computer, right at this
instant, you reach for the external, start a restore, and every
image you access is "bad". Then, like a Dirty Tape Drive, you're
screwed, even though the hard drive backup methods are
immensely better than the dirty tape drive era we used
to live in. I was the guy at work, who promoted Cleaning
Cartridges for the tape drives, but this had little effect
on user practice, often with humorous effect (the "learn
the hard way" method).

It's not that I hadn't thought of running verify. It's
just it never occurred to me, I should be doing it more
often, as a means of spotting defective hardware before
it was too late.

Paul
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  #2  
Old September 8th 17, 06:01 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.windows7.general
Paul in Houston TX[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 999
Default Macrium Backups and Dirty Tape Drive Syndrome

Paul wrote:
I ran into a case you might find mildly amusing.

I was moving some data around (drive consolidation) and
happened to move a 1TB MRIMG file off a disk. For fun,
I ran the Macrium Reflect "Verify" option on the file,
and it failed.

The paid version of Macrium, has an "AutoVerify" option,
which will verify the archive checksums after a backup is
finished. It does this

Source Disk ----- Destination Disk [1TB of writes]

checksum(Destination Disk) [1TB of reads]

It must be done this way, to avoid "cheating" and leaving
the archive not truly verified. In the same way that Imgburn
pukes out the DVD, before it does its verify run.

So that's how this problem can be solved with automation.
If you paid for the software, there's a tick box for this,
and your warning of trouble would have arrived sooner.

*******

I suspect what happened, is this machine had bad RAM. The
source disk was read into RAM (good so far). The MD5sum
of 64KB blocks of data is computed and stored in the MRIMG.
Then the data is copied to the disk (perhaps using a different
RAM buffer). At this point, the data was corrupted by the bad
RAM on my machine. Now the checksum, and what was written
to disk, don't match.

I didn't notice this, until checking this MRIMG today. I had
a similar "bad" archive a couple months ago, and just discarded
it.

The bad RAM actually showed up, while I was testing the
Windows Memory Tester. I was not able to fault isolate to
the nearest stick, so replaced all the RAM. When I ran
a test backup today (1TB MRIMG), a Verify run on that one
passed. So the new RAM appears to be OK.

*******

The message here is, if you're using the Macrium free version
(without AutoVerify), you should occasionally do a
verify run on one of your images stored on your external.
Just in case you've got a hardware problem. Like Dirty
Tape Drive Syndrome, where all the backups you're making
are "bad", you want to catch this problem before your
external disk contains nothing but "bad" MRIMG files for recovery.
Like, say you have Ransomware on the computer, right at this
instant, you reach for the external, start a restore, and every
image you access is "bad". Then, like a Dirty Tape Drive, you're
screwed, even though the hard drive backup methods are
immensely better than the dirty tape drive era we used
to live in. I was the guy at work, who promoted Cleaning
Cartridges for the tape drives, but this had little effect
on user practice, often with humorous effect (the "learn
the hard way" method).

It's not that I hadn't thought of running verify. It's
just it never occurred to me, I should be doing it more
often, as a means of spotting defective hardware before
it was too late.

Paul


Interesting! Thanks Paul.
Guess I should turn off ram o/c before doing backups.

  #3  
Old September 8th 17, 07:15 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.windows7.general
VanguardLH[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,881
Default Macrium Backups and Dirty Tape Drive Syndrome

Paul wrote:

For fun,
I ran the Macrium Reflect "Verify" option on the file,
and it failed.

The paid version of Macrium, has an "AutoVerify" option,
which will verify the archive checksums after a backup is
finished.


According the following page, the free version now has the AutoVerify
option, too.

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

Looks like a feature added to v6 Free (likely they just enabled to code
already there that you had to previously pay to get in their payware
version).

I'm still trying to find what they mean by "backup management". Is that
a retention you can set on the backup images? That is handy to prevent
the destination for where the backup images from getting filled up which
results in all subsequent backups failing. I'd rather have the backup
program do the cleanup of too-old backups than e-mailing me about a
failed backup job and then I have to do manual deletions. I'm guessing
their backup management is what they refer to as the retention rules
(http://knowledgebase.macrium.com/dis...onsolidation);
however, since the freeware version does not include incremental
backups, you cannot have a grandfather-father-son (GFS) scheme plus you
lose on the space savings of incrementals.

On the above web page, it says "Coming soon: Macrium Reflect 7 Free
Edition". There had been rumors in their forums that v6 was the last
free version and v7 editions would all be payware. Seem the freeware
version typically shows up a couple months after the release of the
payware version. Well, v7 came out at the end of February 2017 and
after 6 months the v7 Free version has yet to show up.

https://www.macrium.com/version-7

No idea if Macrium Image Guardian will be part of the freeware version.
I've heard that MIG will be part of v7 Free. No idea how it works but
doesn't appear to be a clone of Acronis Secure Zone or Paragon Backup
Capsule which both use a separate partition that has no drive letter
assigned to it and uses a non-standard partition type value in the
partition record for that partition. Another trick would be to use a
special volume in which to save the backup files and then use Windows
policy to restrict access to that volume. Could they use the old trick
of stacking a kernel-mode driver into the system file API that would
block non-registered processes from accessing some part of the file
system. That seems what their "architecture" diagram represents in the
2nd article below. Some [little] info he

https://blog.macrium.com/better-safe...y-ef32d8605830
https://www.macrium.com/mig
http://knowledgebase.macrium.com/dis...Image+Guardian

From the 3rd article, "MIG is a default component in the Macrium Reflect
installer available in all editions except for the Free Edition." Hmm,
some say MIG will be in v7 Free but some articles say no. I've been
burned by missing or incomplete features in payware backup software that
I'm loathe to dole out more money thrown at a new version hoping it does
everything it says it will.
  #4  
Old September 8th 17, 07:52 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.windows7.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Macrium Backups and Dirty Tape Drive Syndrome

VanguardLH wrote:
Paul wrote:

For fun,
I ran the Macrium Reflect "Verify" option on the file,
and it failed.

The paid version of Macrium, has an "AutoVerify" option,
which will verify the archive checksums after a backup is
finished.


snip

I'm still trying to find what they mean by "backup management".


The Macrium V6 has a separate page, when you define a backup,
that sets the backup management policy.

You can have backups "rolled over" automatically.
Say you have

Thursday
Friday
Saturday

on the external. You start a backup, and it runs out of
space. It will delete Thursday automatically for you,
and add your new Sunday backup.

Friday
Saturday
Sunday

However, if you place the backups from two machines into
a common folder, Machine B will delete all the backups
made by Machine A, if you do enough backups on Machine B
to use the majority of the space. So you don't really
want to share a single folder with two machines.

During the V6 interval, Macrium staff claimed to be
re-writing that management, but gave no hints at
what their new policy might be.

I see yet another interface to it, here.

https://alssl.askleomedia.com/wp-con...management.png

This is the one I was thinking of, which pops up as a page
during backup definition. Just after you've defined
what partitions you want to back up in the disk-management-like
interface.

http://knowledgebase.macrium.com/dow...%3A54%3A27.png

*******

My older version here, says the next upgrade is V6.3.1835,
so there's no mention of a V7 existing. I could find
a reference to V7 earlier today, someone offering a "crack"
for it. I couldn't find any references to why they were doing it,
what they were doing, or anything. And no, when a crack is
offered, I don't go to the "Home" site of the crack for
details, assuming the site is booby-trapped :-) I couldn't find
any other discussions about it.

Paul
  #5  
Old September 8th 17, 09:08 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.windows7.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default Macrium Backups and Dirty Tape Drive Syndrome

Paul wrote:
VanguardLH wrote:
Paul wrote:

For fun,
I ran the Macrium Reflect "Verify" option on the file,
and it failed.

The paid version of Macrium, has an "AutoVerify" option,
which will verify the archive checksums after a backup is
finished.


snip

I'm still trying to find what they mean by "backup management".


My older version here, says the next upgrade is V6.3.1835,
so there's no mention of a V7 existing.


And it might not be a good idea to rush to the V7 commercial
version either. They implemented a block tracking scheme
called CBT, that seems to be slowing down the time to do
backups. This thread mentions it's now an install-time
option, so you can install V7 without CBT filter driver.

https://forum.macrium.com/Topic15711.aspx

Paul

  #6  
Old September 9th 17, 11:01 AM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-10,alt.windows7.general
John Doe[_8_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 2,378
Default Macrium Backups and Dirty Tape Drive Syndrome

So that's where you were the last few days.


Paul wrote:

I ran into a case you might find mildly amusing.

I was moving some data around (drive consolidation) and
happened to move a 1TB MRIMG file off a disk. For fun, I
ran the Macrium Reflect "Verify" option on the file, and it
failed.

The paid version of Macrium, has an "AutoVerify" option,
which will verify the archive checksums after a backup is
finished. It does this

Source Disk ----- Destination Disk [1TB of
writes]

checksum(Destination Disk) [1TB of
reads]

It must be done this way, to avoid "cheating" and
leaving the archive not truly verified. In the same way
that Imgburn pukes out the DVD, before it does its
verify run.

So that's how this problem can be solved with automation.
If you paid for the software, there's a tick box for this,
and your warning of trouble would have arrived sooner.

*******

I suspect what happened, is this machine had bad RAM. The
source disk was read into RAM (good so far). The MD5sum of
64KB blocks of data is computed and stored in the MRIMG.
Then the data is copied to the disk (perhaps using a
different RAM buffer). At this point, the data was
corrupted by the bad RAM on my machine. Now the checksum,
and what was written to disk, don't match.

I didn't notice this, until checking this MRIMG today. I
had a similar "bad" archive a couple months ago, and just
discarded it.

The bad RAM actually showed up, while I was testing the
Windows Memory Tester. I was not able to fault isolate to
the nearest stick, so replaced all the RAM. When I ran a
test backup today (1TB MRIMG), a Verify run on that one
passed. So the new RAM appears to be OK.

*******

The message here is, if you're using the Macrium free
version (without AutoVerify), you should occasionally do a
verify run on one of your images stored on your external.
Just in case you've got a hardware problem. Like Dirty Tape
Drive Syndrome, where all the backups you're making are
"bad", you want to catch this problem before your external
disk contains nothing but "bad" MRIMG files for recovery.
Like, say you have Ransomware on the computer, right at
this instant, you reach for the external, start a restore,
and every image you access is "bad". Then, like a Dirty
Tape Drive, you're screwed, even though the hard drive
backup methods are immensely better than the dirty tape
drive era we used to live in. I was the guy at work, who
promoted Cleaning Cartridges for the tape drives, but this
had little effect on user practice, often with humorous
effect (the "learn the hard way" method).

It's not that I hadn't thought of running verify. It's just
it never occurred to me, I should be doing it more often,
as a means of spotting defective hardware before it was too
late.

Paul


 




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