Resolved Have some questions on partioning a backup drive

Thx JC.
Cloning seems like the easiest way to go.
I found Ocster Backup Free 1.21 and it says it does incrementals.
I'll find out a day or so after I clone.

 

Good find, somehow I missed that one. Very simple and easy to use, file based back-up. Testing it right now.

 

Let me know what you think.

 

The clone looks good.
I'm curious what you think of Ocster Backup - will try in it a couple days.

 

Just made some changes to the clone (now main HD) only instead of adding files I removed them. It's quite time consuming so I don't want to repeat the process w/ the other drive.
When you do incremental backups will it make any changes (like removing files), or just add the new ones it finds? (I've never worked w/ backups so I'm a clean slate. What can you tell me?)

 

Another thought...
Would it be easier to delete the unaltered partition (on the backup drive) and then copy the newer updated one to the backup drive?

 

I tried Ocster Backup; it's very simple and easy, but slow.
While doing the backup it said the size was 32 Gb, and it took about an hour, but when I looked at the file folder it created the size was 11Gb with 76,000 files inside. When I did the 2nd back-up it said the size was 30Gb, that seemed pretty much the same, but because I canceled it I don't know the actual size.
A good thing about it is you can pause and resume a backup even after a restart.
It creates a regular folder with a whole bunch of small files inside, instead of one backup file.

I'm running it again (resume from where I canceled) to see if it will be smaller (incremental) or not, right now, while running it says 32Gb so it looks like another full backup.

The files you removed are gone so they will not be in a backup of any type, only in the backup you made before you removed them, so if you ever wanted to retreive any of them they will be there until you delete those older backups. If you clone the drive they will be gone unless they are still in your recycle bin.

So if you clone the whole drive again, your backup system will be replaced as well. Possible case scenario: you inadvertently picked up some malware a few days ago and it's currently spreading in your system unnoticed. You clone the whole drive tomorrow to back it up. the malware comes along with it and your "clean" backup system is gone. too bad. worse you cleaned up some old songs you don't listen to anymore, next week your wife (partner) ask you to play that song she likes so much, which you used to listen to,way back when... ooops! gone too bad!

I don't mean to go on and on about this, but the whole idea of backing up is to be ready for anything.

Confused alright! cloning would do just that all at ounce. (see previous paragraphs for the consequence of this action) in other words with this method all you have is the current state of your "affairs" and nothing from the past to go back to.

 

That's what I'm after. I just dumped a ton of duplicate music files (about a GB - happens over time), and I don't want to have to repeat the process on the other drive, which is why I'm considering re-cloning.

So we're not sure if Ocster will do incrementals?

 

Well I just finished the second backup and it took the same amount of time and when I looked at the actual folder it was the same size with an extra 4,000 files (80,000 total now). with the free edition you can't choose which file to restore, it restores all the files in the backup but you can restore them to a different location and I couldn't choose which backup to restore. I can't look at them so I'm not sure what it did, add more files to what it had. So that's a thumb down, sorry.

If you were making regular backups of you files you would not have to "repeat the process on the other drive" either. I think you misunderstand the principle.
- with cloning you have 1 copy of your files.
- with compressed backups (using backup software) daily or weekly; you have numerous (many) chronological [compressed] backup files to choose from; depending of the space you have available you may have up to 20, 30 copies of your files as they are and as they were before in the same space as the 1 copy from cloning.

You choose.

Again to clone or not to clone that is the question and it is entirely up to you. Just know there is no going back. Wisdom comes from experience and trial and error. You might have that music on audio cd's, you probably can download it again anyway. So in the end it may not matter a bit.

Yet if you still decide to clone the disk use your Seagate utility (or another partition backup software) to make a backup of your system to another partition on your disk, just to be safe.

btw: you may want to reread the posts again, as I feel I'm repeating myself again and again in so many words... no offense meant. it is theory concepts not so easy to grasp!

 

I've always heard good things about Acronis, and they have a discount running right now, so I'm considering that, since it does incrementals. You said you use it, I believe. When you do an incremental is it always compressed?

 

And I REALLY appreciate all the time to check out the software for me.
That was really good of you.

 

I think Acronis is great. You can choose between 4 compression levels none - very fast; normal - fast; medium - slow; high - slower.

It has great features:
- Recovery Manager: start-up boot loader, to load Acronis
- create bootable rescue media.
- One click back-up: let Acronis decide for you
- Utilities: Drive Cleanser, File Shredder, System cleanup, Clone, add new disk, mount image, convert windows back-up.
- Secure Zone.
- Scheduling.

I like it. use the free trial and see for yourself!

Your welcome, I get to check it out for myself too.

btw: I guess you can mark the thread as resolved.

 

Well almost.
Today a friend was suggesting I just drag and drop as a means of backing up. I don't know the cost of Acronis, only that I saw a discount referenced here (WindowsBBS), but since my backups are minimal I thought drag and drop might be feasible. Apparently it works fine for my buddy.
Your thoughts?

 

Drag and drop? that sounds so... '98. no offense. In Xp you can use the "copy to" or "move to" buttons and choose the location from a browser window. In your case "copy to" and choose a location on your external drive.

However if you don't want to use back-up software (free or otherwise), you could use windows build in compressed folders. Select the folder(s) and choose [send to > compressed folder] context menu (right click).

Why not use free back-up software; Comodo is very nice.

You can make backups of:
- entire registry or parts of
- system partition, including track 0 and MBR
- user settings
- system state
- partitions (choose which one(s))
- folders and files (choose which one(s))

You can also schedule auto backups and it does intelligent incremental (so they claim). (and to think I had this since the beginning of our conversation)

Simple and easy to use. Way better than doing it all manually (drag and drop) believe me!

Check it out here: http://download.cnet.com/Comodo-BackUp/3000-2242_4-10510410.html?tag=mncol

Testing it as we "speak ": Backed-up 7Gb partition in 25min (medium compression setting) as to the incremental part it doesn't create an other small file, but overwrite the same one.

 

I'll check out both Arconis and Comodo.
I have Comodo firewall - excellent. Never knew they made backup software.

 

Any idea how Comodo compares w/ Macrium?
Apparently Macrium is more popular, which may mean nothing.

 

They make a bunch of different apps.

I think Comodo is more powerful.

 

I'll download and try Comodo then.
Apparently there is, or was, some flap w/ Comodo, not sure what it was about.

 

Something about the maximize and close buttons were missing, but the last update fixed that. After you finish the install, click "update now" in the bottom left, to make sure you have the newest

this should be the latest version (it's newer than CNet) version.

http://backup.comodo.com/download.html

 

Thx JC.
I won't have time to check it out for a few days.
I also downloaded Macrium.