Backups

[-Chris-]

[FONT=&quot]Hi all, I have a laptop with the operating system, plus all the usual programmes, and on a 1TB external hard drive (about 800Gb full), I have all my data. How can I do quick regular weekly backups, so that if the laptops hard drive or the external hard drive goes belly up, I can be back to usual operational style within 10-30 minutes? [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
Any help much appreciated.

Chris.[/FONT]

 

[inachu]

Many will say to use Acronis but my personal favorite is Norton Ghost.

 

[-Chris-]

Thanks, what and how do the others do this?

 

[Ketchup]

EaseUS Todo Backup is my favorite as of late. You can clone the entire drive to another drive, and can create a rescue disk for use when the need arises. Very similar to what you can pay for with Acronis software, but EaseUS is free.

 

[Charlie98]

Many will say to use Acronis

I'm one of those... 😎

I have had the 'opportunity' to use one of my Acronis backups... last year when my OS SSD died. I put a new drive in, mounted the Acronis backup image... and was back in business in 20 minutes.

I do full backups of my entire drive, so my images are about ~150GB, so I use a few 2TB drives to create images to every night. You say you have 800GB of data on one drive... Acronis can do incremental backups as well, on a schedule if you wish.

If you have a WD drive in your system, you can download a free, limited functionality version of Acronis (I don't really know what the 'limitations' are with this copy, but it does everything I need it to...) from WD. I have the free version on my HTPC and it does fine. You can find Acronis on sale for $20 or so pretty often, so even if you have to pay for it, it's not a terrible price.

 

[-Chris-]

Thanks all, just the sort of information I was looking for. I remember trying to do the backups last month, and for 800GB, after it got to a day, I had to interrupt it before it had finished, as I needed to work with the drive, so it needs to be quicker than one day to backup the drives. I also noticed that it didn't backup all the folders and files, that were a few folders deep?

 

[pcgeek11]

Big difference between backing it up and Imaging the drive.

Backing it up will take a long time with 800 GB.

I would image the drives first the do incremental images after that weekly.

 

[-Chris-]

I do have a wd external 1TB hard drive, so have downloaded the free version of Acronis. Just a couple of things. Going by the comments immediately above, and bearing in mind my exact requirements, I'm best doing an image and not a clone - yeah? and also, what are the limits on the free version please? I would rather know now, rather than find out later.

 

[-Chris-]

Also, just thought of something else. The hd in the laptop is a 250gb ssd and if that went belly up, I would want things to be back to normal as quickly as possible, so ideally the backups would be done to another 250GB ssd - is that possible? Would I need some sort of caddy for that? Also, on both backups, they would need to be exact replicas, with the same drive letters and exact same filepaths etc, as a lot of the databases are merging with documents in other folders, etc, etc for example.

 

[Charlie98]

I do have a wd external 1TB hard drive, so have downloaded the free version of Acronis. Just a couple of things. Going by the comments immediately above, and bearing in mind my exact requirements, I'm best doing an image and not a clone - yeah? and also, what are the limits on the free version please? I would rather know now, rather than find out later.

PCGeek is correct... there is a difference between cloning/imaging a drive and backing up. At least with Acronis, a backup image gives you a proprietary file that you cannot access... it has to be 'mounted' before you are able to access it. A backup usually means making copies of files on another drive, accessible just like any other file.

I don't think the WD version has the tutorials nor the 'cloud' utilities, but the rest of the stuff is there. I use the WD copy on my HTPC and I can't ever tell a difference, doing what I do, between the two versions.

That is a valid question, however... how long would Acronis take to image 800GB of data. I would guess 3-4 hours.

Also, just thought of something else. The hd in the laptop is a 250gb ssd and if that went belly up, I would want things to be back to normal as quickly as possible, so ideally the backups would be done to another 250GB ssd - is that possible? Would I need some sort of caddy for that? Also, on both backups, they would need to be exact replicas, with the same drive letters and exact same filepaths etc, as a lot of the databases are merging with documents in other folders, etc, etc for example.

The 'new' drive does not have to be exactly like the 'failed' drive (in your example) but it has to be big enough to take the image, obviously. If your laptop SSD dies, pull it, install and format the new one, then plug in wherever/whatever your backup image is on and mount the image by booting into a rescue CD (or, in my case, I have used the factory Acronis CD... it worked fine.) The new imaged drive will operate just like the old one did (at the time the image was created.)

 

[pcgeek11]

Charlie98 summed it all up in a neat little package.

Do the image and then a weekly incremental image to keep it up to date.

The original image will take some time, the weekly incrementals should be short and sweet.

When you restore you can use the latest incremental or pick an earlier incremental week if you desire.

 

[Charlie98]

Do the image and then a weekly incremental image to keep it up to date.

Not arguing... just a difference of opinion: I run backups every night... on my business computer. One day's difference is a bunch of work I'd rather not repeat, including emails and such (although those are backed up on the server for 10 days.

But, to each his own! Daily backups might be wasted effort on a non-business computer. 😀

 

[pcgeek11]

I agree 100% on Business nightly backups. For the home not so much.