Best way to backup data?

Chris H I have Acronis ver. 6 which doesn't have the ability to make incrementals. I have always thought that I should get ver. 7 or 8 and have even toyed with the idea of doing the "Enhanced" backup method like you do. I would use XXCOPY to reset the archive bits on a schedule that pleases me and presumably Acronis would comply by performing a complete image on that occasion as versus doing an incremental.

Do you use XXCOPY or have you found something similar that you like? I use it extensively for many of my batch files and used to use it to make bootable win9X drive images. It won't do XP bootable images but I still use it with exclusion switches to get what it can for the fun of it. It can do my drive image in under one minute after doing the initial copy. Works incrementally on subsequent runs using the same command so it lends itself to batch file usage quite nicely.

Perhaps Santa will upgrade my Acronis and I'll go forward with the plan next year. It's no real pain to do them manually and only takes 15 minutes but I like to apply automation whenever I can.

FWIW to all, I store my images on a separate physical HD and keep the last 10 weekly copies. As has been stated, I wipe the temps and some other logs from the drive prior to imaging it by using a batch file tailored to that purpose. I burn a set to CD-R's (had too much disappointment with CD'RW's) once in a while when I really get paranoid and can't sleep for worrying about it. If I had extremely critical data, I'd do that more often and keep them off site but my data isn't all that. I also use GoBack so with all that going for me, I feel pretty much bullet proof. I'm like the guy who said, "I plan on living forever - so far so good." The odds against BOTH hard drives failing and the CD's going sour all at the same time are remote. The house could burn down I suppose and cause that to happen but the odds are it won't.

I suppose backup strategy is a matter of risk tolerance and will vary by the user. Personally, I don't intend to spend more on it than my data is worth. It's always nice to hear other opinions and threads like this make good reading.

Best regards to all.

 

I don't touch any of the archive flags, Acronis handles all that with it's incremental "ability ". I just tell Acronis what kind of backup I want. It's a fairly simple VB app really.

 

Thanks for that Chris H. That would be much easier I can see.

 

I like dale442's ideas but Ghost eliminates the partial (incremental) backup problem, and

I find ghost explorer is a good test. I can look at the files, extract one, etc. and if the image is seen as ok it should restore ok too.

 

For 6-10 GB of data, a DVD burner would be just fine. If you have the ability, save yourself a couple of more bucks and get an internal drive.

DVD disks are relatively inexpensive. Good ones are less than 75 cents each.