What is an AIL file?

[Newbietoo]

This is my first post; I have recently purchased AIS having tried it for a week or so...

I notice that in a backup I did today, there were a number of AIL files. I've never seen these before, what are they? Total volume of the backup is 1.5Gb, of which 350Mb is made up of six Ail Files, the balance are the usual ZIP files.

Thanks
Patrick

[Barry]

AIL files are what we call huge file segments. By default if a file size is over 100MB it is designated a huge file and backed using a proprietary backup technique rather than using zip files. If the backup is to CD then we recommend that the huge file size is left as it is, but if the backup is to DVD or hard drive you may increase the huge file size up to 2GB, or 4GB from release 2.1 of AISBackup. To change the huge file size (the file size before AISBackup considers a file huge) for an individual job use the Manage Backup / Edit Backup Job Parameters / Huge File Size. Having said that, there is nothing wrong with AIL files, they are still password protected and compressed as zip files where these settings have been used.

Barry

[Newbietoo]

Barry,

When you say "compressed as ZIP files", does that mean AIL files may be opened by the likes of WinZip? I tried that and couldn't open them. I have a real aversion to proprietary backup formats.

Is AIL a means of splitting large files or something, otherwise what's the benefit?

In my case I'm backing up to a Network Drive and thence to DVD, so I guess it's bit academic and I can go with large ZIP files.

As a matter of interest I have frequently used ZIP for large Archives (>2Gb) and found it very efficient and easy to work with from a number of respects, not the least of which is keeping track of what is what and where.

Thanks
Patrick

[Barry]

The huge files were split into AIL files to enable restarting backups to CD easier, also earlier versions of AISBackup used a third party zip engine which could not backup files > 500MB successfully. There is a problem with AISBackup 2.0 backing up files > 2GB to zip files because we incorrectly used the wrong kind of ‘number’ variable, this will be fixed from version 2.1. The fault is academic for most people as they will be happy using AISBackup to backup and restore. I better point out that if you backup the NTFS security settings AISBackup will not create zip files that can be read using WinZip, this is because extra information about the file stream is written to the zip file, and AISBackup backs up all data and security streams. Haviong said that backing up the NTFS security settings is recommended if you want a proper system backup.

The bottom line is: If you don’t mind not backing up NTFS security information and alternate data streams and you do not want non-standard AIL files increase the Huge File size and uncheck Backup NTFS Security Settings (Can only be done on a new or reset backup).

You may want to decrease the number of zip files created: Use the Manage Backup / Edit Backup Job Parameters / increase Zip File Size and Maximum Files per Zip file.

There are other benefits to using AISBackup to restore for you:

In-use files may be restored (following a system re-boot).
The Registry can be restored.
AISBackup remembers where each version (generation) of a file is so that you do not need to plough through a lot of zip files to find the file you really want to restore.

Barry

[vitting]

I am in the process of eveluating AISBackup, but unfortunately the >2GB problem is not academic to me. I am editing video, the program features almost anything i need to backup my editing machines, but in almost every job, there will be some > 2GB files.

Can you give me an estimate of thw availability date of a fix or the new version?

Thanks
Henning

[Barry]

AISBackup already handles files up to 4GB, from version 2.1 this will be increased to an individual file size of 97GB.

We expect a beta version of AISBackup 2.1 to be available by 5 May 2005.

Barry

[vitting]

Barry,
thanks for your fast reply.

I will order your program.

Henning