I'd like to ask if it's possible to consider adding a feature to IFD/IFW which would allow you to specify particular folders to omit. There are 2 areas of a current typical Windows installation where the ability to omit certain paths would be a huge benefit:
(1) The user's data. Windows is built with the assumption that everything is stored on drive C including user data. Ideally you don't want this in an image backup for 2 reasons. Firstly data backup needs to be made much more often - in my case I do it at least once per day, sometimes many times. When you restore you want the latest data, very unlikely to be in the TBI image file. Data backup should be handled by other software and nowadays is likely to go to the internet. The second reason not to back up data is it may be many GB in size, creating very large image files which would mostly comprise data you don't want to restore.
(2) Cloud backup services often use a dedicated folder to contain material to back up to the internet. Sometimes of course these are not real locations on the hard drive, but sometimes they are. Again this is user data which doesn't really belong in a system image file, could be large in size and would only be up to date for a very short time after the image is taken. Cloud backup is easy and popular with many companies offering solutions and many people must be using it or considering it.
It's not just Windows. In Ubuntu Linux - Ubuntu One is a service offering free storage and it places the folder as a subdirectory of /home and this is not user configurable. Personally I keep /home in the system image because it contains configuration files. So this scenario is much like Windows in having user data mixed with system files. I suspect there are a good number of TB's users booting Linux systems as part of multiboot setups.
Currently I try to store user data on a different partition but Windows 7's design makes this very difficult. It wasn't so bad with XP.
Of course there would be techical difficulties in implementation and TB may say it would require too much of a rewrite of the software. However I am encouraged by 2 considerations. Currently there are IFD/IFW options to omit the Windows Page file and Hibernation file, and I see there is a utility (TBIVIEW) to extract individual files from an image (although I haven't used it). So I would expect some of the work to look into the file structure within an image may already have been done. To simplify implementation perhaps the program could look for a file with a particular name (example $TBI_OMITPATHS.txt) in the root of the partition being imaged, being a simple text file list of folders (including all subfolders) to omit, so no change required to the screen layouts.
I'm sure a lot of people would find this a very significant upgrade. I tried to look to see if such a feature has already been asked for here, but couldn't find any. No doubt the regular lurkers here will know.
Feature request: omit folders
-
TeraByte Support
- Posts: 3615
- Joined: Thu May 05, 2011 10:37 pm
Re: Feature request: omit folders
It's not file based product - omitting pagefile/hibernation file doesn't
remove the file, just compresses the file to zero, will still be there when
restored (just contents undefined or zero). You could always separate your
data on to a different partition and omit the partition.
"rustleg" wrote in message news:3246@public.image...
I'd like to ask if it's possible to consider adding a feature to IFD/IFW
which would allow you to specify particular folders to omit. There are 2
areas of a current typical Windows installation where the ability to omit
certain paths would be a huge benefit:
(1) The user's data. Windows is built with the assumption that everything is
stored on drive C including user data. Ideally you don't want this in an
image backup for 2 reasons. Firstly data backup needs to be made much more
often - in my case I do it at least once per day, sometimes many times. When
you restore you want the latest data, very unlikely to be in the TBI image
file. Data backup should be handled by other software and nowadays is likely
to go to the internet. The second reason not to back up data is it may be
many GB in size, creating very large image files which would mostly comprise
data you don't want to restore.
(2) Cloud backup services often use a dedicated folder to contain material
to back up to the internet. Sometimes of course these are not real locations
on the hard drive, but sometimes they are. Again this is user data which
doesn't really belong in a system image file, could be large in size and
would only be up to date for a very short time after the image is taken.
Cloud backup is easy and popular with many companies offering solutions and
many people must be using it or considering it.
It's not just Windows. In Ubuntu Linux - Ubuntu One is a service offering
free storage and it places the folder as a subdirectory of /home and this is
not user configurable. Personally I keep /home in the system image because
it contains configuration files. So this scenario is much like Windows in
having user data mixed with system files. I suspect there are a good number
of TB's users booting Linux systems as part of multiboot setups.
Currently I try to store user data on a different partition but Windows 7's
design makes this very difficult. It wasn't so bad with XP.
Of course there would be techical difficulties in implementation and TB may
say it would require too much of a rewrite of the software. However I am
encouraged by 2 considerations. Currently there are IFD/IFW options to omit
the Windows Page file and Hibernation file, and I see there is a utility
(TBIVIEW) to extract individual files from an image (although I haven't used
it). So I would expect some of the work to look into the file structure
within an image may already have been done. To simplify implementation
perhaps the program could look for a file with a particular name (example
$TBI_OMITPATHS.txt) in the root of the partition being imaged, being a
simple text file list of folders (including all subfolders) to omit, so no
change required to the screen layouts.
I'm sure a lot of people would find this a very significant upgrade. I tried
to look to see if such a feature has already been asked for here, but
couldn't find any. No doubt the regular lurkers here will know.
remove the file, just compresses the file to zero, will still be there when
restored (just contents undefined or zero). You could always separate your
data on to a different partition and omit the partition.
"rustleg" wrote in message news:3246@public.image...
I'd like to ask if it's possible to consider adding a feature to IFD/IFW
which would allow you to specify particular folders to omit. There are 2
areas of a current typical Windows installation where the ability to omit
certain paths would be a huge benefit:
(1) The user's data. Windows is built with the assumption that everything is
stored on drive C including user data. Ideally you don't want this in an
image backup for 2 reasons. Firstly data backup needs to be made much more
often - in my case I do it at least once per day, sometimes many times. When
you restore you want the latest data, very unlikely to be in the TBI image
file. Data backup should be handled by other software and nowadays is likely
to go to the internet. The second reason not to back up data is it may be
many GB in size, creating very large image files which would mostly comprise
data you don't want to restore.
(2) Cloud backup services often use a dedicated folder to contain material
to back up to the internet. Sometimes of course these are not real locations
on the hard drive, but sometimes they are. Again this is user data which
doesn't really belong in a system image file, could be large in size and
would only be up to date for a very short time after the image is taken.
Cloud backup is easy and popular with many companies offering solutions and
many people must be using it or considering it.
It's not just Windows. In Ubuntu Linux - Ubuntu One is a service offering
free storage and it places the folder as a subdirectory of /home and this is
not user configurable. Personally I keep /home in the system image because
it contains configuration files. So this scenario is much like Windows in
having user data mixed with system files. I suspect there are a good number
of TB's users booting Linux systems as part of multiboot setups.
Currently I try to store user data on a different partition but Windows 7's
design makes this very difficult. It wasn't so bad with XP.
Of course there would be techical difficulties in implementation and TB may
say it would require too much of a rewrite of the software. However I am
encouraged by 2 considerations. Currently there are IFD/IFW options to omit
the Windows Page file and Hibernation file, and I see there is a utility
(TBIVIEW) to extract individual files from an image (although I haven't used
it). So I would expect some of the work to look into the file structure
within an image may already have been done. To simplify implementation
perhaps the program could look for a file with a particular name (example
$TBI_OMITPATHS.txt) in the root of the partition being imaged, being a
simple text file list of folders (including all subfolders) to omit, so no
change required to the screen layouts.
I'm sure a lot of people would find this a very significant upgrade. I tried
to look to see if such a feature has already been asked for here, but
couldn't find any. No doubt the regular lurkers here will know.
Re: Feature request: omit folders
On Fri, 21 Sep 2012 14:17:48 PDT, just as I was about to take a herb,
"TeraByte Support" disturbed my
reverie and wrote:
> You could always separate your
>data on to a different partition and omit the partition.
And use an NTFS like to the data so nothing will have to be
reinstalled. This has been on my 'to-do' list for ages. Less-so since
I upgraded to larger drives and those drives GREATLY improved the
performance of using windows when backing up.
--
Cheers
DrT
______________________________
We may not be able to prevent the stormy times in
our lives; but we can always choose whether or not
to dance in the puddles (Jewish proverb).
"TeraByte Support" disturbed my
reverie and wrote:
> You could always separate your
>data on to a different partition and omit the partition.
And use an NTFS like to the data so nothing will have to be
reinstalled. This has been on my 'to-do' list for ages. Less-so since
I upgraded to larger drives and those drives GREATLY improved the
performance of using windows when backing up.
--
Cheers
DrT
______________________________
We may not be able to prevent the stormy times in
our lives; but we can always choose whether or not
to dance in the puddles (Jewish proverb).
Re: Feature request: omit folders
rustleg wrote:
> Currently I try to store user data on a different partition but Windows 7's
> design makes this very difficult.
Most of the data in the Users folder can be moved to another partition.
> Currently I try to store user data on a different partition but Windows 7's
> design makes this very difficult.
Most of the data in the Users folder can be moved to another partition.
Re: Feature request: omit folders
On Fri, 21 Sep 2012 15:20:47 PDT, just as I was about to take a herb,
DrTeeth disturbed my reverie and wrote:
>And use an NTFS like to the data
And use an NTFS *link to the data
--
Cheers
DrT
______________________________
We may not be able to prevent the stormy times in
our lives; but we can always choose whether or not
to dance in the puddles (Jewish proverb).
DrTeeth disturbed my reverie and wrote:
>And use an NTFS like to the data
And use an NTFS *link to the data
--
Cheers
DrT
______________________________
We may not be able to prevent the stormy times in
our lives; but we can always choose whether or not
to dance in the puddles (Jewish proverb).
Re: Feature request: omit folders
DrTeeth wrote:
> ...
> > You could always separate your
> >data on to a different partition and omit the partition.
>
> And use an NTFS link to the data so nothing will have to be
> reinstalled. This has been on my 'to-do' list for ages.
> ...
I've looked into this by searching Google but there are various suggested methods and for each one there seem to be people who say they have had problems. None of the methods is officially supported by Microsoft (they don't seem to be responsive to users who want more control, they want to take all the decisions about how their system is used).
> ...
> This has been on my 'to-do' list for ages. Less-so since
> I upgraded to larger drives and those drives GREATLY improved the
> performance of using windows when backing up.
> ...
So how do you back up - with all the data mixed in?
> ...
> > You could always separate your
> >data on to a different partition and omit the partition.
>
> And use an NTFS link to the data so nothing will have to be
> reinstalled. This has been on my 'to-do' list for ages.
> ...
I've looked into this by searching Google but there are various suggested methods and for each one there seem to be people who say they have had problems. None of the methods is officially supported by Microsoft (they don't seem to be responsive to users who want more control, they want to take all the decisions about how their system is used).
> ...
> This has been on my 'to-do' list for ages. Less-so since
> I upgraded to larger drives and those drives GREATLY improved the
> performance of using windows when backing up.
> ...
So how do you back up - with all the data mixed in?
Re: Feature request: omit folders
TeraByte Support wrote:
> It's not file based product - omitting pagefile/hibernation file doesn't
> remove the file, just compresses the file to zero, will still be there when
>
> restored (just contents undefined or zero). You could always separate
> your
> data on to a different partition and omit the partition.
>
Of course I understand it's a sector based backup. However you've managed to find 2 files and ignore their contents. Maybe that was relatively easy. Maybe searching the directory to effectively unlink files would be a significant task. At present you are able to only back up actual contents which is determined by the contents of the directory so you must be doing something to identify the relevant used/unused sectors.
The folders to omit would still be in the backup, just not their contents.
I don't know enough about the structure of directories and how easy it would be to set up a data structure to track where the image would need modification to effectively unlink files. No trivial task to be sure. Perhaps you think the effort wouldn't significantly improve your program? I was trying to justify why I think it would, but I could accept that you would judge it otherwise. This was merely a request from a long time and appreciative user which I hope did generate some consideration and was not dismissed lightly. I hope you listen to your user's feedback and review your product's continuing relevance in the light of changes in user needs.
> It's not file based product - omitting pagefile/hibernation file doesn't
> remove the file, just compresses the file to zero, will still be there when
>
> restored (just contents undefined or zero). You could always separate
> your
> data on to a different partition and omit the partition.
>
Of course I understand it's a sector based backup. However you've managed to find 2 files and ignore their contents. Maybe that was relatively easy. Maybe searching the directory to effectively unlink files would be a significant task. At present you are able to only back up actual contents which is determined by the contents of the directory so you must be doing something to identify the relevant used/unused sectors.
The folders to omit would still be in the backup, just not their contents.
I don't know enough about the structure of directories and how easy it would be to set up a data structure to track where the image would need modification to effectively unlink files. No trivial task to be sure. Perhaps you think the effort wouldn't significantly improve your program? I was trying to justify why I think it would, but I could accept that you would judge it otherwise. This was merely a request from a long time and appreciative user which I hope did generate some consideration and was not dismissed lightly. I hope you listen to your user's feedback and review your product's continuing relevance in the light of changes in user needs.
Re: Feature request: omit folders
On Sun, 23 Sep 2012 12:14:35 PDT, just as I was about to take a herb,
rustleg disturbed my reverie and wrote:
>So how do you back up - with all the data mixed in?
Yes. Believe me, I would rather not. The 'do not backup some folders'
request is a perennial favourite. My main reason for requesting this
being that my PC was unusable whilst backing up in Windows. Since
replacing a couple of HDs (the one with my OSs on and the one to which
I backup) this problem has abated considerably and my PC is now quite
usable.
H/Ds are becoming cheaper again. In the UK, I have recently bought 3
Seagate 7200.14 2TB drives. One major plus for me is that they allow
for the EASY upgrade of the drive's firmware.
--
Cheers
DrT
______________________________
We may not be able to prevent the stormy times in
our lives; but we can always choose whether or not
to dance in the puddles (Jewish proverb).
rustleg disturbed my reverie and wrote:
>So how do you back up - with all the data mixed in?
Yes. Believe me, I would rather not. The 'do not backup some folders'
request is a perennial favourite. My main reason for requesting this
being that my PC was unusable whilst backing up in Windows. Since
replacing a couple of HDs (the one with my OSs on and the one to which
I backup) this problem has abated considerably and my PC is now quite
usable.
H/Ds are becoming cheaper again. In the UK, I have recently bought 3
Seagate 7200.14 2TB drives. One major plus for me is that they allow
for the EASY upgrade of the drive's firmware.
--
Cheers
DrT
______________________________
We may not be able to prevent the stormy times in
our lives; but we can always choose whether or not
to dance in the puddles (Jewish proverb).
Re: Feature request: omit folders
DrTeeth wrote:
> ...
> >So how do you back up - with all the data mixed in?
>
> Yes. Believe me, I would rather not. The 'do not backup some folders'
> request is a perennial favourite. My main reason for requesting this
> being that my PC was unusable whilst backing up in Windows. ...
>
So you would support my feature request?
> ...
> >So how do you back up - with all the data mixed in?
>
> Yes. Believe me, I would rather not. The 'do not backup some folders'
> request is a perennial favourite. My main reason for requesting this
> being that my PC was unusable whilst backing up in Windows. ...
>
So you would support my feature request?
Re: Feature request: omit folders
On Mon, 24 Sep 2012 10:19:33 PDT, just as I was about to take a herb,
rustleg disturbed my reverie and wrote:
>So you would support my feature request?
YES! I have even requested it myself in the past. From what TBH have
said it is not possible.
--
Cheers
DrT
______________________________
We may not be able to prevent the stormy times in
our lives; but we can always choose whether or not
to dance in the puddles (Jewish proverb).
rustleg disturbed my reverie and wrote:
>So you would support my feature request?
YES! I have even requested it myself in the past. From what TBH have
said it is not possible.
--
Cheers
DrT
______________________________
We may not be able to prevent the stormy times in
our lives; but we can always choose whether or not
to dance in the puddles (Jewish proverb).