by mikeol on Mon Aug 06, 2007 8:02 am
Recently I have been doing a fair bit of work with home video files. I use nero for the final burn and BackItUp to look after the original artefacts (mostly large avi files). Nero 6 (BackItUp 1) doesn't backup files to DVD that are bigger than 2GB. Worse it doesn't really highlight this short coming except in a warning message in the log.
So I now have justification for Nero 7 (BackItUp 2) which splits large files.
My testing experience was disappointing. I backed up 13GB of data to 4 DVDs. A 2.36 GB m2p file spans the 3rd and 4th DVD.
On testing a restore of the m2p file, BackItUp asks for DVD 3 only, restores part 1 and ends saying the restore was successful. The HDD contains a 2 GB (truncated) file only. The remaining 0.36 GB is not restored and appended. There are no error messages.
1. Can I recover the full file intact and if so how. (Can I just append part 2 to part 1, i.e. no headers or trailer to strip?)
2. Why didn't the restore work completely?
More generally, any feedback on the following will be welcomed:
3. The nero products are comprehensive and there is a fair bit of configuration capability. But the documentation is inadequate for the "advanced user". The balloon help = the help file = the PDF all of which restate the name of a field but don't really say too much about the implications of setting / not setting it. Is there more comprehensive documentation anywhere?
4. The default settings are probably safe/conservative but will not always be the most efficient depending on the users requirements (hence the need for more advanced documentation). Three things I feel should be turned off for my video backups are as follows:
a) shadow - only required for ensuring integrity of open files. If you know the files will be closed leave it off to avoid writing to the cache and delaying the burn to the disk
b) compression. Most of my files are big and not good candidates for compression, i.e not much space saving. Turning off compression avoids delays in copying files to the cache and the time taken for compression.
c) "Do not use temporary storage for compression". I have a DVD recorder with some buffer underrun protection. I think Nero's cache is a PC side protection that perhaps is not so necessary these days. Again, turning off use of the cache avoids the delay getting to the burn.
5. I gather that nero compression uses zip. If so this is pleasing because the files are not locked away in a proprietary format. Am I correct? Is there any more documentation on nero's compression?
6. I think there should be an option to allow a differential backup without first taking a Nero full backup. This will for example allow me to use a different tool for my full backups.
7. If a multi-disk backup fails verify nero should provide the option to allow the failed disk to be recreated and the backup continue rather than abandon the work done - pity if the verify on DVD 9 fails with 8 good ones completed and only one to go.
If I can solve 1 and 2 I will upgrade to nero 7 for the splitting function. Anything else will be a bonus.
I know when I create a backup with no compression (Compress Data before backup: unchecked), that the Create Backup in old format [Nero backuItUp 1] is automatically checked. Now BackItUp 1 doesn't support files greater that 2 GB and I don't think it supports spanned files. Maybe this is where BackItUps problem lies, i.e. it allows you to span disks and split files in compatibility mode but cannot restore them.
Thanks in advance for any contributions.
