Hasleo Backup Suite

KevTech said:

Actually it is not a direct link

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It was until he changed it.

KevTech said:

I would never do that but ya that is what Hasleo say it does.

How to manually merge backup image files using Hasleo Backup Suite?

The backup image merge feature provided by Hasleo Backup Suite allows us to merge multiple consecutive backup image versions into one version to free up storage space.

www.easyuefi.com

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I did but it didn't merge anything.

I just installed, backed-up, and restored on my test pc and it does a fine job!

Found the problem

Made enough space on destination disk and merge failed again while locking windows for a few minutes.

CountMike said:

Made enough space on destination disk and merge failed again while locking windows for a few minutes.

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Here is a thread about merge on the Hasleo forum so perhaps it will help you.

I cannot fathom why you would want to merge rather than just use the most recent. Seems like a good way to mess things right up!

I've now tested this additional "Merge" tool in Hasleo v5.0.3.

It does work ok and saves some significant space (7 - 8% on my tests).

But what was I merging ? Since I use Incremental backup every fortnight, I'd arbitrarily decided to delete all the incremental files past six in sequence (ie. about 3 months), leaving the original Full backup as a base to accumulate another 3 months of Incremental on. So it made sense to me to test the new Merge facility on accumulated Incrementals which had reached four (4) in number at the the point of testing.

Merge did what it was supposed to. Tested both by simply merging all the Incrementals into one (1) Incremental, and also tested merging all Incrementals plus the Full original into one (1) Full file. Then I used the "Check Image" tool to test the validity of all the newly merged files. No issues there either. Using Merge will reduce the space necessary to store backup images quite significantly. (I also had both Macrium and Aomei backups if this Merge thingie should fall over).

Never something for nothing, though. The price for saving disk space with Merge is time. The Merge process is very slow (on a 200Gb Full base plus four Incrementals, this took over two hours). Merging four Incrementals of about 20 Gb each into just one Incremental took about 40 minutes. Obviously smaller Incrementals or Full base images will use pro rata less time, but nonetheless the Merge process is slow. So is the Check Image process.

Still worth having in hand is my view.

Quexos said:

I cannot fathom why you would want to merge rather than just use the most recent. Seems like a good way to mess things right up!

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I agree, also, it makes creating incremental backups pointless, in my opinion.
There’s a reason I make incremental backups and it isn’t to save time.

Install Windows: Backup.
Apply Tweaks: Incremental.
Install Software: Incremental.
Etc

@antspants

" ... it makes creating incremental backups pointless, in my opinion.
There’s a reason I make incremental backups ..."

Wonderfully contradictory. But that's the value of website comments ...

I use Incrementals to save time and space over a 3 month period, then renewal of that 3 month cycle. Reiterating a Full or Differential backup each time does not do that. Daily or so small backups is done of emails. finance spreadsheets, ongoing edited maps and reports, executables of any new programmes (rare) - all stuff that is changing constantly. I had wondered if the new Merge tool would save time with accumulating Incrementals, but since the Merge process is currently so slow, the answer at the moment is no.

ian50 said:

... it makes creating incremental backups pointless, in my opinion.
There’s a reason I make incremental backups ..."

Wonderfully contradictory. But that's the value of website comments ...

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Incremental backups, in my opinion, are pointless if you're just going to end up merging them.


Other than that, welcome to my ignore list.

Quexos said:

I cannot fathom why you would want to merge rather than just use the most recent. Seems like a good way to mess things right up!

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I need space on that disk and I already have MR backup of same disk so Hasleo is only a spare and for testing it.
The other reason is quite specific. One of my M.2 SSDs, only one of 5 that's SATA and not NVMe is going nuts (probably control chip or firmware) and can't delete anything from it, every time I restart PC files are back. Both, Hasleo and MR can't produce full disk backup, always ends up with error but folders and most files in them can be copied one by one which takes a lot of time. That's technical part.
What I wanted is to create backups of some folders separately in different places ad then merge them in one file. Then I'll have to flash new firmware and that will erase whole disk and hopefully repair it

antspants said:

Incremental backups, in my opinion, are pointless if you're just going to end up merging them.


Other than that, welcome to my ignore list.

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I haven't tried the merge thing. I expect the idea is that the single file it creates takes up less space than all the smaller files.

Presumably it is possible to select any of the incremental points to restore from the single large file.

e.g. full image Sun incremental Mon, Tue, Wed

squeeze the Mon, Tue Wed into one merged file

when loaded by the program can select either Mon or Tue or Wed to restore.

I presume that is what it does but I cba to try it out.

The single file is basically just like a Macrium REFLECT merge... it's almost as big as the sum of the (3).

No, the restoration point becomes the date of the closest incremental merged... again, same as Macrium.

Froggie said:

The single file is basically just like a Macrium REFLECT merge... it's almost as big as the sum of the (3).

No, the restoration point becomes the date of the closest incremental merged... again, same as Macrium.

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What does closest mean? Does it mean the last or the nearest to full ( i.e. the first )

If you can't select any of them it is a bit limiting.

The merge moves all the merged days changes into the newer image, allowing the selection of the newer image only as a time point... the other individual day changes get absorbed into the newest day. Kinda like a DIFF of the image prior to the beginning of the merged selections (or a new INC from that date).

REFLECT has also always worked this way when merging for any reason.

callisto said:

They are both extremely fast. What Hasleo seems to have an edge for compared to Macrium is the standard volume produced, 95 GB for Hasleo and 113 GB for Macrium. Not a hugedifference, but a significant one. What I think is great with Hasleo, it is still free for now and the procedure to start a backup is very simple compared to Macrium. I will keep Hasleo for extra security.

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I would like to correct my statement about Hasleo creating a smaller volume than Macrium with the same default compression in both programs. It is actually exactly the same, the reason of my incorrect statement was due to the fact that Macrium by default will include a recovery partition of about 17 GB and a Dell Support partition of almost 2 GB, whereas Hasleo by default doesn’t. It explains the differenceof almost 20GB between the two programs. I stand corrected as the two programs only differ slightly in the time of execution, and we are talking about a minute or less, which is basically irrelevant.

callisto said:

I would like to correct my statement about Hasleo creating a smaller volume than Macrium with the same default compression in both programs. It is actually exactly the same, the reason of my incorrect statement was due to the fact that Macrium by default will include a recovery partition of about 17 GB and a Dell Support partition of almost 2 GB, whereas Hasleo by default doesn’t. It explains the differenceof almost 20GB between the two programs. I stand corrected as the two programs only differ slightly in the time of execution, and we are talking about a minute or less, which is basically irrelevant.

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I thought that both include all partitions when "Full disk backup" is selected ?

CountMike said:

I thought that both include all partitions when "Full disk backup" is selected ?

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Macrium will check all partitions (including a recovery partition of 17 GB + Dell support partition of 2 GB) to 'create an image of the partitions required to backup and restore Windows'. Hasleo will check all partitions less the recovery and Dell support partitions, for a system backup. These operations are set by default and the difference is about 20GB. Since I'm aware of this, when I backup with Macrium I uncheck the 2 partitions which in my context are not needed.