Backup Question.

[shilala]

I have six drives, 2 200gb and four 300gb.
What I would like to do is use a 200 for boot, then two 300's for storage.
The other three I'd like to use for backups.
Now, here's my question...
Is there some way I can make an exact copy of the boot drive on the boot backup drive so that if the first drive fails, I can just swap it out with the second drive?
My second question...
Is there some utility I can use that will do all the backups? I have Norton Ghost but haven't really looked at it yet.

 

[BlueWeasel]

You could use a program like Ghost or Acronis TrueImage to make daily (or however often you want) images to one of the 300GB storage drives (not the backup boot drive). Then, if the 200GB boot drive goes down, you could restore the image to the backup boot drive in a matter of minutes.

 

[shilala]

Originally posted by: BlueWeasel
You could use a program like Ghost or Acronis TrueImage to make daily (or however often you want) images to one of the 300GB storage drives (not the backup boot drive). Then, if the 200GB boot drive goes down, you could restore the image to the backup boot drive in a matter of minutes.

I'd likely replace the 200gb boot drive if it failed.
So if that's the case, wouldn't I want to back the image up to the 200gb backup?
I see what you mean as to why I wouldn't want the image on the 200gb drive because I couldn't rewrite it to itself.
I just want to know I have the image somewhere.
I've never wrote an image to a hdd so I don't know what it entails.
I've never even seen it done, so it's tough for me to create a plan.

 

[BlueWeasel]

You're exactly right about having the image on a different drive. If you only have one partition on a drive, then you can't restore the image from the same drive. If you have multiple partitions, then it's possible to keep the image on one and restore to another on the same drive.

Will the boot drive have constantly changing data? If not, then another option is to backup to DVD. If the boot drive is just for OS and apps, then only 2-3 DVDs would be needed.