[Noyb]

Hope we’re not confusing Tom, and his original question ..
But it all depends on how much personal Data you intend to collect and store in your Operating system …
And how big your Acronis backups are … or may grow to be.

Being a Pack Rat .. I’ve evolved to a system where I store my Data separately ... in another Partition.
And also carry a fresh install of Windows in a second HD which also has a backup partition of my Data.

My Data is backed up via Copy n Paste … as I collect or create it … to another Partition or my Externals.

My E: partition is my original Fresh install .. Booted to and updated occasionally.

I may occasionally make a Backup of my working drive C: .. If I think I’m headed somewhere dangerous.

But it’s my E: Partition that I depend on …
and I make Full Acronis backups of it as I may update it or recover from it … (and finish updating it)

This way .. Every recovery is a fresh install and I keep the Full Acronis Backups of
the original creation .. and about the last three versions of it.
I rarely have to worry about replacing/recovering my Data.

My OS partitions stay really small .. without any Data in them ..
which is a big advantage when it comes to recovery, maintenance or Acronis backup storage.

It’s been well worth the cost of an extra Hard Drive … and Acronis.

[Rich-M]

Originally Posted by Noyb

Hope we’re not confusing Tom, and his original question ..
But it all depends on how much personal Data you intend to collect and store in your Operating system …
And how big your Acronis backups are … or may grow to be.

Being a Pack Rat .. I’ve evolved to a system where I store my Data separately ... in another Partition.
And also carry a fresh install of Windows in a second HD which also has a backup partition of my Data.

My Data is backed up via Copy n Paste … as I collect or create it … to another Partition or my Externals.

My E: partition is my original Fresh install .. Booted to and updated occasionally.

I may occasionally make a Backup of my working drive C: .. If I think I’m headed somewhere dangerous.

But it’s my E: Partition that I depend on …
and I make Full Acronis backups of it as I may update it or recover from it … (and finish updating it)

This way .. Every recovery is a fresh install and I keep the Full Acronis Backups of
the original creation .. and about the last three versions of it.
I rarely have to worry about replacing/recovering my Data.

My OS partitions stay really small .. without any Data in them ..
which is a big advantage when it comes to recovery, maintenance or Acronis backup storage.

It’s been well worth the cost of an extra Hard Drive … and Acronis.

I don't know about Tom but now I am getting confused....seems like a like of double work but then see I keep my files on a network drive and then back them up to each pc on the network hourly so that every pc is in essence a backup of the original...each to his own you are right back to topic!

[Noyb]

All depends on how you use your computer, how fast you personal data is changing, how much of it you have and do you have the storage space (Internal/External) for the backups.

I think all the Acronis users will agree here ...
Rather than give M$ more money to upgrade one (or more) systems to Vista Ultimate for its Backup utility ...
I'd rather spend the money on Acronis and backup storage hardware space.
Acronis is working great in my Vista Home Premium Boot drive.