PS backup process slow?

[PeterGL]

Can you educate me on a matter of backup duration?
The internal Photo Supreme backup process for Database and Thumbs takes almost 2 hours on my PC. Alternatively, I can use Windows Explorer to copy the Appdata/Local Folder/IDimager folder to a backup location ... and this takes about 20 minutes. See figures below
I understand the File Explorer will not have verified the backup file copies and Photo Supreme does, but that does not seem to account for the time difference.
Also, while the Photo Supreme process runs, it seems to be very disk intensive, other apps are slow and mouse sticks (I think from long disk I/O queues)

What I'd like to understand: (i) What is Photo Supreme backup doing doing that a Windows Explorer copy would not do and (ii) Why does it do so much disk reading (56.5gb for a 14gb file, see figures below)?

Thanks for your help, Peter

Here's some figures:
Backing up the cat database: idimager.cat.db= 1gb; Backup duration=4 min; verificaton duration=2 min; Disk reads=4.2 gb; disk writes=1 gb.
Backing up the thumbs database: idimager.thumbs.db= 14gb; Backup duration=35min; verificaton duration=75 min; Disk reads=56.5 gb; disk writes=14gb.
Total of above = 114 min.
Windows Explorer copy of Appdata/Local Folder/IDimager folder to a back up location:= 21 min

[Mike Buckley]

Consider using SyncBackFree for your backup process. I think you'll be pleased with both the capabilities and the speed.

[Preston B]

PSu's backup capability sets things up so that its internal Restore capability will work if you have a problem. Although I haven't tried it, restoring your Catalog and Thumbnail DB's from a backup done with Syncback, Acronis, or other software may not work properly. I only offer this as a cautionary note.

My backups run fairly quickly, but the combined size of my PSu databases is less than 6.5 GB. My PSu db's are stored on and SSD, and my backup is stored on an internal regular HD. The backup process is quite disk-intensive, for sure.

When I run a backup, I step away from my desk and just allow PSu do its thing.

--P

[Mike Buckley]

PSu's backup capability sets things up so that its internal Restore capability will work if you have a problem. Although I haven't tried it, restoring your Catalog and Thumbnail DB's from a backup done with Syncback, Acronis, or other software may not work properly.

If you use an external backup process, there is never a need to use Supreme's Restore function. Instead, you can simply put your backup catalog files in the proper folder and then load Supreme.

[Preston B]

If you use an external backup process, there is never a need to use Supreme's Restore function. Instead, you can simply put your backup catalog files in the proper folder and then load Supreme.

That's true, Mike. My point was that if one used another backup solution and then tried to PSu' Restore function, it may not work as expected.

--P

[PhilBurton]

If you use an external backup process, there is never a need to use Supreme's Restore function. Instead, you can simply put your backup catalog files in the proper folder and then load Supreme.

That's true, Mike. My point was that if one used another backup solution and then tried to PSu' Restore function, it may not work as expected.

--P

Wise words, Preston.

I use two different solutions. To sync between my desktop and my laptop, I use FreeFileSync. Best of the lot, and way better than the truly toy "SyncToy" that Microsoft put out a while ago but without real support.

For my "production" backup, I use a disk-to-disk version of Retrospect, called Professional, which will back up the master machine plus up to five "clients" in the home LAN. I like Retrospect because it keeps multiple copies of each file, and I can pick the date of the file that I need to restore. Recommended if you fit the use case.

Phil

[fbungarz]

That's true, Mike. My point was that if one used another backup solution and then tried to PSu' Restore function, it may not work as expected.

Phil & Preston - why would you do that???
If you do use third party tools for your backup, you can't possibly expect PSu's internal restore to work! You would not use "Windows Backup & Restore" to create your back up and then expect to be able to use Acronis or some other third party tool to be able to open those proprietary Windows backup files either, would you?

True, it "seems" that PSu backup simply copies and verifies files and therefore it is reasonable to ask why it takes so long. I don't use it either because of that. Also, like compact it uses a lot of resources. Like Peter, I can only assume that it does not simply copy and verify the files. If so, then, as Mike suggests any third-party tool does a far better job.
Like Peter though, I too would really like to know what might be the advantages of using PSu internal backup routine as opposed to external tools??? I too use SyncBack and cannot imagine a situation, where PSu's internal backup would be a better safeguard against data loss than my external backup tool (provided I set up the external tool correctly and run it frequently enough ).

Cheers,
Frank

[fbungarz]

PS: I would use PSu's backup immediately if it allowed incremental backups instead of always copying the entire database. I have even submitted a Mantis request about that (http://mantis.idimager.com/view.php?id=2860). I assume if only recent changes were copied to a small change-log this would also speed up PSu's backup routine enormously... (though detecting 'recent changes' may be slow too).

[Preston B]

Phil & Preston - why would you do that???

I know I would not, but human nature being what it is, a panicked user may see Tools>Restore Photo Supreme Data when their catalog or thumbs are gorked, having forgotten that they had used another backup method.

Frank, I do use PSu's backup function to backup to a secondary internal drive because it currently works well for me. About once per week, I use Acronis True image to backup my entire primary SSD, and two internal drives to external drives.

It would be interesting if Hert could enlighten us as to what's going on when we do a backup from within PSu.
--P

[Hert]

A backup in the stand alone version is a file copy of all the relevant files. This included Catalog file, thumbs file and configuration files. A file copy is made with the OS system routines and is just as fast as using the OS tools like Explorer or Finder

[PeterGL]

Thanks, everybody, for your comments. I, too, use a general back-up tool (Vice-Versa) to protect my data, but I was certainly curious to understand what was led to PS backup duration.
Hert, Thanks for your reply and confirmation that the process comprises only a Windows-standard copy and verify. Is the verify done by comparing the copied file and original file name, size and date?

[sanphotgn]

PeterGL, are you backing up over a network, to a NAS, local drive, external drive with USB something something, eSATA? Version of Windows? Just curious. Thanks.

[PhilBurton]

That's true, Mike. My point was that if one used another backup solution and then tried to PSu' Restore function, it may not work as expected.

Phil & Preston - why would you do that???

Cheers,
Frank

Frank,

Speaking only for myself here. I back up all my application files, including all kinds of MS Office files, Lightroom catalogs and previews, and of course PSu. The catalog "state" is the issue and as long as I'm consistent in doing backups and restores using my backup software, all is OK.

Consider if you use multiple catalogs. To switch between catalogs, you just select the one you want to use. Same idea. Am I explaining this right?

Phil

[Larry56]

I suspect that PSu's backup does not delete old profiles that have been deleted in the program. I say this because when I compare a backup done in PSu (which is what I've done for a long time) to a straight folder copy (I use Beyond Compare 4) I found that in the backup created by PSu there are a couple profiles that I had deleted a couple months ago still showing in the backup folder. I wonder if restoring would restore those deleted profiles too.

In any event I think I'll just use Beyond Compare in the future as it's fast even if I copy everything. Of course my folder data is only at 5.3 gb.

[PeterGL]

PeterGL, are you backing up over a network, to a NAS, local drive, external drive with USB something something, eSATA? Version of Windows? Just curious. Thanks.

Hi, In the test data I quoted for PhotoSupreme, I was backing to the same (C:\) drive to get a good comparison of a Windows copy vs a PSU backup w/o network overhead.

Normally, I use Vice-Versa to back-up all hard-drive files (including PSU files) to an USB 3.0 attached drive. I also keep my image files on an attached USB 3.0 drive and sychronise these with a back-up on another USB 3.0 drive.

Regarding the PSU file back-ups, my practice is the well-tested 'grandfather/father/son' approach. Experience shows that a user- or other defect in the database may have been triggered before the most recent back-up, so I like to keep at least the last three back-ups.

I aim to do database back ups on a weekly basis but will also do a back up before and after I do any extensive maintenance. For example, yesterday, I was cleaning up keywords and did a backup before and after.

Hope that helps, P