topic Re: Norton 360 v.6 - backup deletion REALLY SLOW!!! in Norton 360

Norton 360 v.6 - backup deletion REALLY SLOW!!!

weirving — Tue, 01 May 2012 19:48:47 GMT

I have been running Norton 360 backup for some time now, backing up to an external drive (NOT online backup). Eventually, Norton tells me my drive is full and will not accept any more backups. I cannot delete my backup set because I only have one and Norton won't let me do it. So I follow the directions, select ALL my backed up files in my backup set - all 500 GB of them - and start the deletion process.

When I say "process" I'm not kidding. The deletion is SO SLOW that emptying my drive so that I can start backing up again, if I extrapolate from my current rate of file deletion, will take around FORTY-SIX DAYS!!

ARE YOU KIDDING ME????

Let's see... How is this going to work? How shall I manage this?

Set up deletion of backup files according to Norton 360's recommendations.
Go get a haircut.
Wait until I need another haircut. <cue in audio of chirping crickets>
Check my computer! Deletion "process" should be just about done!

As far as I can tell, there is not any other way to delete my previous backup files. Apparently this snail-like speed is a common complaint. I read one recommendation on these boards to just "re-format" the drive and start over. SERIOUSLY??? Is that the best that Norton tech support can come up with? Or maybe I should just go down to Staples and buy another drive; they're cheap these days!

Did you folks actually DESIGN this backup to work this way?? PLEASE say no....

Re: Norton 360 v.6 - backup deletion REALLY SLOW!!!

bkout — Wed, 02 May 2012 16:30:17 GMT

LOL! Yes! I also was concerned that it would take 30 days based on the number of files deleted overnight. It's not that bad -- chat helped me figure it out. Use Explorer to find the N360_Backup file and delete it directly. Then run a backup so that you only have the latest info. The first backup will take a while (overnight??) since it has to do everything from scratch. From that point the backup should only run based on incremental changes and I'm hoping the space required will not be as great.

weirving wrote:
I have been running Norton 360 backup for some time now, backing up to an external drive (NOT online backup). Eventually, Norton tells me my drive is full and will not accept any more backups. I cannot delete my backup set because I only have one and Norton won't let me do it. So I follow the directions, select ALL my backed up files in my backup set - all 500 GB of them - and start the deletion process.

When I say "process" I'm not kidding. The deletion is SO SLOW that emptying my drive so that I can start backing up again, if I extrapolate from my current rate of file deletion, will take around FORTY-SIX DAYS!!

ARE YOU KIDDING ME????

Let's see... How is this going to work? How shall I manage this?

Set up deletion of backup files according to Norton 360's recommendations.
Go get a haircut.
Wait until I need another haircut. <cue in audio of chirping crickets>
Check my computer! Deletion "process" should be just about done!

As far as I can tell, there is not any other way to delete my previous backup files. Apparently this snail-like speed is a common complaint. I read one recommendation on these boards to just "re-format" the drive and start over. SERIOUSLY??? Is that the best that Norton tech support can come up with? Or maybe I should just go down to Staples and buy another drive; they're cheap these days!

Did you folks actually DESIGN this backup to work this way?? PLEASE say no....

Re: Norton 360 v.6 - backup deletion REALLY SLOW!!!

weirving — Thu, 03 May 2012 07:15:39 GMT

bkout wrote:
LOL! Yes! I also was concerned that it would take 30 days based on the number of files deleted overnight. It's not that bad -- chat helped me figure it out. Use Explorer to find the N360_Backup file and delete it directly. Then run a backup so that you only have the latest info. The first backup will take a while (overnight??) since it has to do everything from scratch. From that point the backup should only run based on incremental changes and I'm hoping the space required will not be as great.

_______________________________________________________________

N360_Backup??? This appears to be a folder, NOT a file...

So, do I just deep-six that whole folder, with all its zillions of files (Well...I exaggerate - there are only 123,115 files, but who's counting?) with long filenames of alpha-numeric hash that make sense only to Norton 360? Then run the backup again as you recommend? Will I have to worry about Norton 360 Backup becoming confused by that action? To preclude this, maybe it would be wise to create a new backup set, and then delete the old one? Or am I overthinking this? Can I really just re-run backup using that same original backup set? It would be less of a P.I.T.A. for sure.

Thanks for your help!

Re: Norton 360 v.6 - backup deletion REALLY SLOW!!!

redstick — Thu, 03 May 2012 14:45:30 GMT

There are several current post with similar issues. With V6, i can not find the settngs for an incremental backup. Everytime I run the backup, it creates a new backup, and eventually, I run out of HDD space.

Re: Norton 360 v.6 - backup deletion REALLY SLOW!!!

bkout — Thu, 03 May 2012 21:11:16 GMT

Based on going thru this with the chat guys it seems more straightforward than I might have thought. There are several Norton/

Symantec folders/locations so it can be confusing. If you highlight your C drive in Explorer you should see the Backup folder on the right like below. I deleted it and then did an immediate backup. The folder is about 1/4 the size now so I gained a lot of space. Good to clean the registry and defrag the registry and disk afterwards. If you want to play it safe (I'm no techie!) just go to chat and have them walk you thru it or they can take over control and do it for you. Let us know your experience -- seems like this problem has come up a lot and it would be good to have a solution.

Re: Norton 360 v.6 - backup deletion REALLY SLOW!!!

weirving — Thu, 03 May 2012 22:18:20 GMT

Hmmm....

I see no

bkout wrote:
Based on going thru this with the chat guys it seems more straightforward than I might have thought. There are several Norton/
Symantec folders/locations so it can be confusing. If you highlight your C drive in Explorer you should see the Backup folder on the right like below. I deleted it and then did an immediate backup. The folder is about 1/4 the size now so I gained a lot of space. Good to clean the registry and defrag the registry and disk afterwards. If you want to play it safe (I'm no techie!) just go to chat and have them walk you thru it or they can take over control and do it for you. Let us know your experience -- seems like this problem has come up a lot and it would be good to have a solution.

I see no "backup" folder on my C:\ drive or anywhere else. Nor do I see anything that looks remotely like the GIF you attached. I've just said **bleep**-it-all and decided to go with "The Nuclear Option" - I've just grabbed the "N360_BACKUP" folder and dropped it in the trash... THERE! .... It's done! Either it will recreate itself when I run the backup or I will have broken the application.

I tried diplomacy... It's late, and I've run out of patience... Now it's time to do it the American Way - by force and intimidation!

I'll let everyone know what the end result is.

Re: Norton 360 v.6 - backup deletion REALLY SLOW!!!

redstick — Fri, 04 May 2012 01:02:43 GMT

I'm thinking that the actual location might vary, based on OS. My XP Pro has the folder in Windows\system32. The bigger question is why does 360 keep creating/adding to the existing backup, rather than only replacing the files that have been changed.

Re: Norton 360 v.6 - backup deletion REALLY SLOW!!!

bkout — Fri, 04 May 2012 01:03:07 GMT

hmm -- I'm confused -- if you didn't see the 360_BACKUP folder on your C drive or anywhere else then where did you grab it from?

I guess if you do a backup you can then do a search for the folder if you want to know where it is. I would suggest that you run your fresh backup right away so you're not out there nekked :smileysurprised:

Re: Norton 360 v.6 - backup deletion REALLY SLOW!!!

bkout — Fri, 04 May 2012 01:06:38 GMT

redstick wrote:
I'm thinking that the actual location might vary, based on OS. My XP Pro has the folder in Windows\system32. The bigger question is why does 360 keep creating/adding to the existing backup, rather than only replacing the files that have been changed.

see my post on http://community.norton.com/t5/Norton-360/Over-writing-back-ups/td-p/704303 for some thouhgts

Re: Norton 360 v.6 - backup deletion REALLY SLOW!!!

weirving — Sun, 06 May 2012 00:11:33 GMT

bkout wrote:
hmm -- I'm confused -- if you didn't see the 360_BACKUP folder on your C drive or anywhere else then where did you grab it from?
I guess if you do a backup you can then do a search for the folder if you want to know where it is. I would suggest that you run your fresh backup right away so you're not out there nekked :smileysurprised:

I was directed to find the 360_BACKUP FILE - NOT folder. I didn't find any FILE so named. I did find the FOLDER named 360_BACKUP - In TWO PLACES!!!

I found it on the external drive I designated, AND another external drive NOT designated as a backup destination. I don't know how or why Norton did this, but I deleted both locations. Norton STILL showed the one location and not the other as its destination, and when the backup was started, STILL tried to backup to BOTH locations!

So, I deleted both locations again, dismounted BOTH drives, then rebooted. After that, I remounted ONE of the drives - the one to which I actually want the backup to go. FInally, I re-designated the desired destination and started the backup.

It appears to be backing up properly now. But I won't say "Eureka" until the end and the backup is deemed "successful."

You know, the FIRST THINGS about a good backup program is that it should not only be easy and intuitive (Norton 360 is turning out to be NEITHER), it should be ROCK RELIABLE! If it's too much of a PITA to use, IT WON'T GET USED! If one can't trust it, IT WON'T GET USED!

I am seriously considering, when my renewal time comes up in about a month, dumping this kludge for something I can TRUST! I don't know what Norton did to this program, but the previous two versions worked. THIS ONE does not seem to work worth a **bleep**. Is this somebody's idea of PROGRESS??

Another good rule of thumb that ALL software companies should heed - Norton is not the only offender here - is that UNLESS THEY WORK AT LEAST AS WELL AS THE OLD VERSIONS, there should not be any NEW versions!! Sounds obvious, right?

Re: Norton 360 v.6 - backup deletion REALLY SLOW!!!

weirving — Mon, 07 May 2012 00:42:36 GMT

Final entry/addendum to my problems with Norton 360 Backup...

To recap...

An attempt to backup as usual failed due to running out of space on my external hard drive. I only have one backup set, so I could not delete it, so instead, I tried to delete all the backed-up files from my existing one. This process was INCREDIBLY SLOW. Had I allowed it to run to its end, it would have taken nearly FOUR DAYS of 24/7 runtime to accomplish it.

Refusing to follow the advice to simply "reformat my destination drive and start over," I went with someone else's suggestion to search for my "N360_BACKUP file" and delete it. I was taken aback, because while I knew of an N360_BACKUP FOLDER, I knew of no such "file." I searched anyway and discovered that while indeed no such file existed, one of my other external hard drives (I have 8 of them) ALSO had an N360_BACKUP folder on it, a near duplicate of the one I found where I expected to find it - on my designated destination drive. I could not find any setting in my program that would account for this, so I just shrugged and deleted BOTH folders.

I ran backup again, expecting Norton to re-create the N360_BACKUP folder and do a whole new backup, based on the backup set I had defined. I got an error message, indicating that I had insufficient space! Checking my destination drive, it was nearly empty, as I had deleted the N360_BACKUP folder. There was no NEW folder created either. On a perverse hunch, I ran a search for "N360_BACKUP" once again and found that Norton HAD INDEED recreated N360_BACKUP, but on that other "doppelgänger" destination drive that I had never told it to do. And indeed, there was insufficient space on that drive. There were no settings in backup to account for this. Norton was refusing to back up to the destination I was specifying and instead trying to back up to a destination I had NOT specified.

In desperation, I re-deleted the newly - and erroneously - recreated N360_BACKUP folder. Then I dismounted ALL my external hard drives (yanked out the USB hubs) and rebooted the computer. When I went to Norton Backup, I discovered - as I should - that my destination drive as designated in my backup set was not present. Then I remounted my external drives. (Long ago, I set it up so all my external drives would have fixed drive letter designations, so no matter which ones were mounted or not mounted at any given time, every drive always would be assigned the same drive letter.) As expected, Norton saw my destination drive and all looked peachy.

I ran backup.... THIS TIME all seemed to work properly. The N360_BACKUP folder was recreated in its proper location. And there were no spurious duplicate occurrences of the N360_BACKUP folder anywhere else. The backup took a few hours and at the end, it was deemed by Norton as "successful."

As a final test - just for kicks, I grabbed a few files out of my backup and did a file restore operation to my desktop. The restore operation was successful.

SO.... My backup is now working properly again. I STILL don't know why it wasn't in the first place. As far as I can tell, it started when Norton 360 pushed the upgrade from version 5.x to the new version 6.x at me. I NEVER had this or any other problem with any previous Norton 360, and I have been using Norton 360 since version ONE!

SO... For now, PROBLEM SOLVED!!! But my confidence is shaken. I am still strongly considering dumping Norton 360. At the very least, I may disable backup and seek another backup solution.

I am attracted to the concept of the uncompressed separate file backup, where "backing up" consists of just copying your files to another drive at the end of the day. In this setup, all your files are still accessible even if you lose not only your main drive, but you have no backup program from which to read and restore them. All you need to do is grab them and pull them over. It is clumsy and low-tech, but once set up, it is easy and reliable under the worst scenarios.

Or I guess I could simply use something like Norton Ghost. The problem with Ghost, though, is that it is not Ghost as I remember it from its pre-Symantec days. Ghost Was a command-line product back then and much simpler and more elegant. ALL IT DID was clone your drive! You set it up so that every night while you sleep, your entire drive "ghosted" self - imaged onto another local drive - or better - a network drive residing in some other physical location. If the worst happened... Your machine's C:\ drive ate itself.... Someone came in and stole your machine.... Or your house or business burned down, toasting your machine.... You always had that image, never more than 24-hours-old - from which you could restore your complete drive onto a different machine. Easy, neat, safe, secure, automatic and DEAD RELIABLE! From what I have seen and heard, today's Ghost is a far cry from being that easy and reliable. I challenge someone to convince me otherwise!

Final note... I am NOT interested in any suggestions to try backing up to the so-called "cloud." One, it's too slow. Two, it's too insecure. Three, what happens when the host of your "cloud" backup goes belly up and turns off their servers without so much as "Thank you, Ma'am"? This last scenario has happened! People have lost data because the company they trusted became financially insolvent and there was no one left even to sue!

Lastly, thanks to the Patriot Act, if you hand your data over to a third party, you may just as well send off another copy to the US Department of Justice. Most corporate entities, if asked for their clients' data by the government on the thinnest pretext of "national security," will just turn it over. The Patriot Act enables the government to get subpoenas and warrants on the vaguest, broadest, thinnest grounds - or even NO grounds at all beyond generalized "suspicion." In most EUAs these days, there are clauses essentially saying that by agreeing to use their service, you are consenting to surrender your data - on demand - to government agents.

But as long as I maintain custody over my own data, the government would at least have to fight harder to get it. In the case of individuals' persons, property and papers - including computer data - the Fourth Amendment still more-or-less applies. The bottom line is that "Cloud" computing makes it easier for the government to stomp its jack boots over my rights and my freedoms, and I won't willingly participate in that. It's that simple.

Re: Norton 360 v.6 - backup deletion REALLY SLOW!!!

redstick — Mon, 07 May 2012 01:29:07 GMT

Have you run several back-ups (of same backup set) to see if it is taking up increasing amounts of space on the backup drive?

Re: Norton 360 v.6 - backup deletion REALLY SLOW!!!

bkout — Mon, 07 May 2012 06:10:26 GMT

Sorry I used the word file by mistake once -- if you look at my other posts I referred to the "folder" several times and in the posted image it's obviously a folder. Anyway I'm glad you got it worked out. I have some vague feeling from surfing around a lot on this that Norton may have memorized the location of your folder(s) which is why it kept trying to go to a place you didn't want it to. It may(?) have been a simpler solution to uninstall 360 altogether and then reinstall. However a tech person would need to weigh in on that -- they seem to ignore this board -- what's with that? Seems like a powerful way to help a lot of people if there is a common problem.