[battisti]

Hi folks,

I've just built my very first computer (hooray!), and I'm thoroughly proud of my accomplishment. Now that I have things up and running, I want to implement some sort of consistent backup scheme, and I'm looking for suggestions.

The new machine is Windows 7, with a 64GB SSD drive on which the OS and applications are installed. I have a 750GB hard drive on which I'll be storing data. I also have a 640GB external hard drive. The data I store on the 750 GB drive is unlikely to reach 640GB, so in general my intent is to back up data on the external drive.

This is a personal-use computer, so while I don't want to lose any of my data, I'm not inclined to consider anything as hard-core as RAID. On my previous computer, I had Acronis True Image and Argentum Backup. I'd use Acronis True Image to image the whole machine periodically, and Argentum Backup to back up individual files to an external hard drive. However, Acronis won't run on Windows 7, and I'm not entirely sure about Argentum, so I'm starting from scratch.

One approach I'd been considering is to get something like a newer version of Acronis, and use it strictly to image the C: drive (OS and apps), and store those images on the external drive. I'd re-image any time I made a change to applications or the OS.

Then, I would use some other tool, perhaps even just built-in Windows functions to do a differential backup of files from the data drive to the external hard drive. (Not sure if Win 7 has any differential backup capabilities.)

What are your thoughts? Any recommended products?

Thanks!

Steve

[cdrdannya]

Hi,

If you have ample space (640GB), I suggest using Norton Ghost and just making an image whenever you make any changes / weekly basis, keep this rolling for maybe 3 .IMG's, as you store more data you may find you can only store one or two .IMG's.

Another very simple method is to use a .BAT file and use the Archive attribute, this will only backup files that have been modified.

Congrats on the new machine! Let me know how you get on.

Thanks,
Danny

[battisti]

Are you suggesting I ghost the entire machine? (Both drives?)

I ask this because my OS/apps drive will change relatively infrequently, while the data drive will change on a daily basis.

[Noyb]

The new Acronis will run on W7.

I want to see a screen shot of your Disc Management Screen ..
Does it have the extra reserved partition in front of the C ???

and your WEI for the SSD ... Please .. I want to see how jealous I am

[battisti]

I confess, you've totally lost me. I don't think I have an extra reserved partition, and I'm not sure what a WEI is!

It WAS pretty sweet, though. Win 7 installed soup to nuts in something like < 5 mins.

[Noyb]

If you didn't install W7 correctly ??? ... It will have an extra partition in front of the C partition.
This "might" cause some problems with Acronis ... I'm not sure if the new version fixes this.

WEI = Windows Experience Index .. will tell how the SSD effects your performance.

[Noyb]

Which SSD do you have ???
I've read that some of them will not work with an Acronis backup image.

[Noyb]

Are you suggesting I ghost the entire machine?

I wouldn’t .. And it sounds like we are configured about the same with an OS partition and a data partition(s)

I never Image my working system .. You just never know what junk it’s collected.
Instead .. My Backup images are full fresh installs ..
When I need to recover .. I install the last fresh install ..
update it .. and make a new backup Image for the next time.
A little more work but it seems to be well worth the effort.

My theory is that nothing tunes up a computer or fixes what may ail it better than a fresh install…
And I can “feel” the difference when I perform a recovery.

My Data is backed up as it’s collected or created … via Copy n Paste to my data partitions.

I’ve been thinking about adding a 64GB SSD to the top the attached stack for my working OS.

But .. I’ve read that the performance of SSDs deteriorate over time ..
And there’s some users reports that Acronis does not work on SSDs

If I can’t recover a SSD from an Acronis Backup Image .. It will be a show stopper.
But, If I could Clone to it … That would be an acceptable option.
I also have a bootable copy of my last fresh install in the E partition.